Why high mileage?

Increasing your volume of 'garbage' miles will allow you to do more of the miles you listed in the future without breaking down and help with recovery and aerobic ability

Because it works. Stop looking for shortcuts.

because there is a cult like mentality that says everyone has to pay the piper before they become good at running. 5k is mostly aerobic, yes however 1200-2000 meter reps on the track are highly aerobic. Why cant you just run mile repeats instead of mileage? You could. Train however works for you.

Why high mileage? wrote:

I often see here advises to people who want to run faster a 10k or a 5k to increase their mileage. My question is what is the reason that more miles of easy to moderate pace running would be beneficial for faster 5-10k times?

Why not increase your intervals reps, increase your tempo miles, increase your fartleck miles? Why is it always increase your garbage miles? Why would running more garbage miles would better than running more miles at faster paces?

A legitimate question ! Well……. I and of course many others have proven that you don`t need huge amount of mileage in your training weeks to still reach your optimal capacity. And I have also the experience that you can f.ex run more than 10% of your weekly mileage at f.ex LT-pace(lactate threshold). Even the worlds best half/marathoners Kipchoge and Kamworor sometimes runs more than 10% of the weekly mileage at LT-pace. Emil Zatopek who was the worlds best longdistancer long ago did all his training at intervals ( I don`t recommend it, but he did).

And "garbage " miles that are too slow up to your capacity are not to be recommended ( only exception when you feel extra tired after quality session day before or another reason)

N+1:

I increased my mileage this past winter significantly (from a max of 70mpw to 90mpw). I did nothing faster than 10k pace (besides some short hill sprints) for about 3 months during this time. During this training block, I signed up for 2 different 5k races... and PRd them both. This told me that I was very underdeveloped aerobically.

Why high mileage? wrote:

I often see here advises to people who want to run faster a 10k or a 5k to increase their mileage. My question is what is the reason that more miles of easy to moderate pace running would be beneficial for faster 5-10k times?

Why not increase your intervals reps, increase your tempo miles, increase your fartleck miles? Why is it always increase your garbage miles? Why would running more garbage miles would better than running more miles at faster paces?

If the choice was do 30 more miles a week at sub 5 min pace or do 30 more miles a week at 8 min pace, and recover equally either way, everyone would pick the faster pace. Here is an experiment for you: run 100 miles a week a year with 20 per week fast - intervals, tempos, progressive runs past marathon pace, other workouts. Then run 50 mpw with 30 mpw fast. You're almost guaranteed to see better results with more mileage, but fewer faster! There are some people with uncommon genes that would make the 2nd approach better for them, and some who might benefit from doing 100 mpw with even less fast, etc. but this is not the average runner.

Any who, garbage miles are a myth. The only garbage miles are those too slow to take you to an aerobic state (like if you jogged along side your grandma) or too fast for you to recover from - like if you thought running 50 mpw fast would lead you to better results.

I'm guessing I'm not going to convince you of anything since you are so sure that slow miles, are garbage, even though you can look through over a decade of training threads and see how elites ran and performed well with plenty of slow mileage. For instance geb ran well at the 5 and 10k with 165 mpw and noted that his training was maybe only a little more than average ethiopian runners. Bill Rodgers and Frank Shorter were doing upwards of 120 mpw, etc. Who knows, maybe you'll be a great middle distance runner with your approach, some certainly do train like that, but for any given runner, they'll be better with a high mileage approach.

The real trick is to get your mileage up to a reasonable amount, no less than 100 mpw, then increase the pace of your workouts. Its almost always better to drop a few secs per lap on 10-12x1000 than to work up to 15-20x1000 (though that workout has its place in half/marathon training when done at the right paces). Your ultimate goal is to cover a relatively short distance (even the marathon is relatively short compared to what a human could do) in the fastest time possible.

Why high mileage? wrote:

I often see here advises to people who want to run faster a 10k or a 5k to increase their mileage. My question is what is the reason that more miles of easy to moderate pace running would be beneficial for faster 5-10k times?

Why not increase your intervals reps, increase your tempo miles, increase your fartleck miles? Why is it always increase your garbage miles? Why would running more garbage miles would better than running more miles at faster paces?

A lot of people suggest high mileage because it worked for the them.

I did 40-50 mpw from 2006-2012. My PRs were 17:04 for 5k, 1:21 for the HM, and 3:00:27 for the marathon.

Since then, I have gradually worked up to 100 mpw and my PRs have dropped to 15:22 for 5k, 1:11:38 for the HM (official split time en route during a 25k ), and 2:30:39 for the marathon.

I plan to run mid-2:20s this fall and my training indicates that is a very real possibility.

Mileage is king.

Kvothe wrote:

The real trick is to get your mileage up to a reasonable amount, no less than 100 mpw, then increase the pace of your workouts. Its almost always better to drop a few secs per lap on 10-12x1000 than to work up to 15-20x1000 (though that workout has its place in half/marathon training when done at the right paces). Your ultimate goal is to cover a relatively short distance (even the marathon is relatively short compared to what a human could do) in the fastest time possible.

Oh yes, 100 mpw, the magic number. 90 doesn't cut it and 80 is for hobby joggers.

GBohannon wrote:

Mileage is king.

It's important, but it's just one part of the big picture.

inferior coach know nuthin wrote:

GBohannon wrote:

Mileage is king.

It's important, but it's just one part of the big picture.

Duh. The most important part. Once appropriate mileage is reached (different for different people, but most don’t do enough), then it’s time to worry about the other stuff.

I see many people here that say they run 90 or even 100 miles per week. Most likely you have to maintain a job as well since you aren’t elite runners. So my question is do you do two sessions a day as people who also work and maybe even have a wife and kids? Or if you do one session a day how do manage to squeeze in 100 weekly miles? That 14 miles a day in average.

Because it works.

1. There's really no such thing as "garbage miles."

2. Most really successful distance runners do lots of miles and it makes sense to do what most people having the most success do.

3. I saw a comment from Peter Snell some months ago to the effect that the more miles you can do at or near race effort in training the faster you'll be and that the amount of that kind of mileage you can do is determined by how much easier mileage you run.

Hfcbh wrote:

I see many people here that say they run 90 or even 100 miles per week. Most likely you have to maintain a job as well since you aren’t elite runners. So my question is do you do two sessions a day as people who also work and maybe even have a wife and kids? Or if you do one session a day how do manage to squeeze in 100 weekly miles? That 14 miles a day in average.

Most people whose volume gets to the 90-100 range or more are running twice on at least some days regardless of whether they have a job or family. Naturally there are some exceptions. I don't really get the part about "how you do" two sessions a day. You do them by finding times when you can get a run in and do it. Everyone's day is different so there's no across the board answer. John Walker used to run 10 miles on his lunch hour and then do another session after work. Ron Hill ran back and forth from his job. Ron Clarke ran in the morning before work and in the evening after work. When I was a high school teacher I would run at 3:30 PM or so and do a second run somewhere between 7 and 9 PM. I knew of a guy who ran four times on weekends doing about 25 miles each day and then just a single run of about 10 miles through the work week. You just have to decide you're going to do it and then figure out when.

High mileage is overrated unless you are specializing in the marathon. Too many garbage or junk miles thrown in that mean very little. Doug Padilla, a very talented runner in the 80's, was well known for running very little mileage often averaging about 35mpw during his training. He followed more of a high quality training program that relied heavily on intervals both long and short to develop aerobically and anaerobically. He also trained at 4,500ft of altitude. In so doing he ran personal bests of

1500 meters: 3:37.95

Mile: 3:54.2

3000 meters: 7:35.84

5000 meters: 13:15.44

As an athlete, Padilla is one of the most decorated athletes in BYU history. While competing for the Cougars from 1978–81, he earned eight All-America citations and a National Championship in the indoor 2 Mile, regarded as one of the great moments in BYU Sports history. He rewrote the BYU record book, setting new marks in the indoor mile and two mile and outdoor 1500 and 5000 meters. In 1991, he was inducted into the BYU Athletic Hall of Fame. While still a collegian, he was called on to race two athletes that were current world-record-holders: Henry Rono of Kenya and Washington State, and Suleiman Nyambui of Tanzania and UTEP. Padilla came away with a victory over each, the latter to win the indoor national championship.

After college, Padilla was a 12-time US national champion while setting seven American records. His indoor two mile and indoor 5000 meters records each stood for over 20 years. A two-time Olympian, he is a veteran of five world championships. His accolades include victories in the 5000 meters at the 1985 World Cup and the 1986 Goodwill Games. From 1983 to 1987 he won five consecutive national indoor championships, four national outdoor championships, and two U.S. Olympic trials. In 1985 he was the IAAF World overall Grand Prix Champion. He is still the only runner to break the four-minute-mile barrier inside the state of Utah.

Padilla was a very fast sprinter. When he was in top shape, he was known for his ability to outkick many other world-class runners, including the 10,000-metre European, World and Olympic champion Alberto Cova of Italy.

I'm not saying that this will work for everyone but it is a training program that has worked for others.

Exactly. People fit all kinds of hobbies into their busy lives when they really want to, and many hobbies are much more time consuming than running. 100 miles/week takes less than 12 hours/week. Running is actually one of the only sports where it's totally feasible for someone with a full time job to do basically the same training as Olympians.

As for why from a training perspective, it's because in general, high mileage works and low mileage doesn't. That's just the bottom line. You can set up a straw man by describing a specific high mileage approach that doesn't make sense for a particular runner, but that's just substituting a different question for the one you asked.

Notably, even famous low mileage advocates typically run fairly high mileage if they're successful. Their advocacy is typically a response to the erroneous notion that miles/week is the only thing that matters. Obviously it's not. The total mix of training is important. But mileage does matter, and very few people have success on a truly low mileage system.

As for the specific alternatives to high mileage offered by the OP, it isn't an either/or situation. Many runners find that higher volume of slower paces supports higher volume of faster paces. So first you increase your mileage, then your tempos get longer, then your long interval workouts get longer, then your short interval workouts get longer, then you realize that your 5k pace has become your 10k pace.

Hfcbh wrote:

I see many people here that say they run 90 or even 100 miles per week. Most likely you have to maintain a job as well since you aren’t elite runners. So my question is do you do two sessions a day as people who also work and maybe even have a wife and kids? Or if you do one session a day how do manage to squeeze in 100 weekly miles? That 14 miles a day in average.

I work as a teacher and coach, so that definitely helps from a scheduling standpoint. A typical weeks looks like this:

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday

4:45am - 11 miles

3:30pm - 3 to 5 miles while running around monitoring athletes at practice

Wednesday

4:45am - 12 to 13 miles including main workout for the week

Limited running at practice; not worth logging

Saturday

6:00am - 15 to 20 mile long run with medium workout included

Sunday

6:00am - 8 to 10 miles recovery

I am between 95 and 105 just about every week and feel like I have time to spare. I have always been a morning person though and, thankfully, my newborn loves the running stroller and my wife is super accommodating.

FWIW - I maintained the above schedule while also taking 6 credit hours at a time towards my MA in Administration. I am not saying this to “brag” as it really was not that difficult or stressful. I just like to point out that people who use time as an excuse for not running more are generally fooling themselves.

Granted, some jobs are much my demanding than my own. Between coaching and teaching, I arrive at school around 7:30 and am usually done by 5:30 with my second run already complete. Plus, I only have to “go in” 36 weeks per year. I know that many people on the private sector have it much, much worse than this.

Hfcbh wrote:

I see many people here that say they run 90 or even 100 miles per week. Most likely you have to maintain a job as well since you aren’t elite runners. So my question is do you do two sessions a day as people who also work and maybe even have a wife and kids? Or if you do one session a day how do manage to squeeze in 100 weekly miles? That 14 miles a day in average.

Unlike others here I only run once a day. I typically run between 80-100 miles (not high mileage, but pretty moderate). My schedule looks like this:

Monday-Saturday 10-16 miles per day

Sunday 20+ miles