Why high mileage?

Running is fun, especially easy running. Most people who double are just doing 5-10 (most never reach 10 unless they are averaging over 100 in their other runs) easy. It lets you go explore places, gives you something to do in the afternoon - or in the morning before work instead of sit around until you drive to work. It takes almost nothing away from the main run of the day. I don't understand why even advocates of a low mileage approach wouldn't just go out and do an extra 5 mile jog a day. 35 mpw could become 65. I can understand for people who's jobs have long hours and force them to do all their training at one time or have some obligation where their running can only be done at a specific time window. Or maybe a middle distance runner who spends a lot of time on drills and weights.

But for everyone else, what are you doing that you can't double?

In every sample population, there's going to be anomalies at the low end and anomalies at the high end, but most members will fall somewhere in the middle. It's obvious that Padilla was an anomaly at the low end, but that doesn't mean it will work for everyone (as you've already said). For every Padilla, there are many more runners who have "made it" on high mileage - Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, wejo, Alberto Salazar, malmo, Mark Nenow, Pete Pfitzinger, Kyle Heffner, and the list goes on.

I'm not disagreeing with everything you've said - of course there will be some people out there who are the anomalies at the low end, but the problem is that a lot of people think that a lower mileage approach will cause them to reach their potential, when in fact, in all likelihood, they fall somewhere in the middle of the curve. Never trying higher mileage results in them never knowing if it would have worked for them.

Besides, who's to say Padilla couldn't have been even better? Obviously what he did worked well for him, but maybe if he had bumped up to 60-70 he would have had a larger aerobic base and the training you're talking about would have been more effective, and maybe he would have run closer to 3:30/3:50/7:30/13:00. Diminishing returns are still returns.

tl;dr - Too many people think that lower mileage works for them when in reality they've never tried going higher (or didn't do it right) to find out if it actually does.

Good points. In the case of Doug Padilla, when Doug did increase his mileage into the 50+ range or even a little bit higher he always ended up injured. As a side note, when he did his warm downs after a track workout he did run incredibly slooooooowwwww.

I keep seeing posts like this. Why??? All races above 800 meters are predominantly aerobic. How do you get faster in these aerobic events? By increasing your aerobic capacity. How you do increase your aerobic capacity? By running aerobically, not anaerobically. What intensity do most people do intervals at? Anaerobic paces above their lactic threshold. That's why you don't do low mileage with mostly intense intervals - you aren't going to improve your aerobic system, you're instead teaching your body to work anaerobically. Running anaerobically above your lactate threshold too much and too often is known to eventually induce lactic acidosis, increasing the PH level of your blood, deteriorating your aerobic fitness, leading to injury, burnout (i.e. overtraining), weakening your immune system, etc.

That's not to say that there isn't a time and place for intervals, but the breadth of your training should be lower intensity aerobic running. The more you can do the better.

Like Lydiard preached, the training pyramid should consist of aerobic training at the base and anaerobic training at the top. The amount of anaerobic training you can do in a training cycle is limited (it eventually eats away your aerobic fitness) so the cap of the pyramid is always the same size. The cap of anaerobic training sits on top of the aerobic base. The bigger your aerobic base, the higher the pyramid will be. Skip the important aerobic base phase and only focus on the anaerobic phase - you're gonna have a hard time improving.

This also doesn't imply that all running during the anaerobic base is "easy". Lydiard had his athletes do two 1 hour (10 mile) MP tempo runs a week, an alactic sprint style fartlek once a week, plus a tough 22 mile mountainous long run on Sundays. The important part is keep the efforts during this phase mostly below your lactic threshold (or anaerobic threshold).

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.

A person running 100 miles a week should be fast already. A 7 mile run should really only take 40-45 minutes. Twice a day that's only 90 min. I remember reading that Alan Culpepper ran his recovery runs starting at 6:30 mile pace and then down to 6:10 sometimes. A person who shuffles along at 9 min pace and does 100 miles a week is another story, however. In those circumstances running for time on feet would probably be a better idea (maybe 10-12 hours a week).

So how does this apply to high school runners? My kid never got over 45 miles per week in XC/35 in track season, and his longest run was an 8-10 mile run once a week. Practices were track intervals or fartleks/tempos of about 5-6 miles plus 3 mile "easy or recovery days" before or after meets, which were often twice a week. His times were reasonably good (best on his team) 16:3X/ 9:5X, but he always struggled to maintain his pace on the last 1/2 of a 5 k or the 6th-7th laps of the 3200. Was he just not running enough mileage?

nimblenw wrote:

So how does this apply to high school runners? My kid never got over 45 miles per week in XC/35 in track season, and his longest run was an 8-10 mile run once a week. Practices were track intervals or fartleks/tempos of about 5-6 miles plus 3 mile "easy or recovery days" before or after meets, which were often twice a week. His times were reasonably good (best on his team) 16:3X/ 9:5X, but he always struggled to maintain his pace on the last 1/2 of a 5 k or the 6th-7th laps of the 3200. Was he just not running enough mileage?

Applies the same. Wake up, go for a run. Then run after school at practice. Problem solved.

nimblenw wrote:

So how does this apply to high school runners? My kid never got over 45 miles per week in XC/35 in track season, and his longest run was an 8-10 mile run once a week. Practices were track intervals or fartleks/tempos of about 5-6 miles plus 3 mile "easy or recovery days" before or after meets, which were often twice a week. His times were reasonably good (best on his team) 16:3X/ 9:5X, but he always struggled to maintain his pace on the last 1/2 of a 5 k or the 6th-7th laps of the 3200. Was he just not running enough mileage?

What was your kid doing in the offseason? XC and track seasons are like what, 2 months at most? The aerobic base for a high school xc or distance track runner is gonna be determined by why they did in the offseason, not in the 6-8 weeks during the season itself. 6-8 weeks of racing and workouts at practice is essentially an anaerobic peaking phase.

In the off-season, he actually ran less maybe 25-35 miles a week depending on the training plan. His team wasn't very competitive, and I think the coach was concerned about kids getting injured or quitting. What is considered high mileage for high school runners? I'm trying to keep the tread on topic.

nimblenw wrote:

In the off-season, he actually ran less maybe 25-35 miles a week depending on the training plan. His team wasn't very competitive, and I think the coach was concerned about kids getting injured or quitting. What is considered high mileage for high school runners? I'm trying to keep the tread on topic.

Decent programs should have boys over 45-50 and girls over 35-40 during their senior year base building phases (assuming that the athlete has been in the program for a couple years).

Competitive and efficient athletes should probably be 60ish on the boys side and 45-50 on the girls side by the time they leave HS.

High mileage program get up to 75-90 for boys and 60-75 for girls. I have heard of even bigger numbers. I have never taken any athletes that high, but am not necessarily opposed to it assuming I had an efficient athlete who was improving, healthy, and begging for more.

Low mileage 1500 training 3:29.77

High mileage 10k training 3:28.81

nimblenw wrote:

In the off-season, he actually ran less maybe 25-35 miles a week depending on the training plan. His team wasn't very competitive, and I think the coach was concerned about kids getting injured or quitting. What is considered high mileage for high school runners? I'm trying to keep the tread on topic.

I would think 100 mpw before senior year of hs or 80-90 before junior year, 70-80 before soph year would be good for most hs'ers in terms of aerobic development. Sadly many high school coaches are more worried about keeping kids healthy or minimizing attrition than they are about athletic development and preparing kids for ncaa running.

Kvothe wrote:

nimblenw wrote:

In the off-season, he actually ran less maybe 25-35 miles a week depending on the training plan. His team wasn't very competitive, and I think the coach was concerned about kids getting injured or quitting. What is considered high mileage for high school runners? I'm trying to keep the tread on topic.

I would think 100 mpw before senior year of hs or 80-90 before junior year, 70-80 before soph year would be good for most hs'ers in terms of aerobic development. Sadly many high school coaches are more worried about keeping kids healthy or minimizing attrition than they are about athletic development and preparing kids for ncaa running.

Yeah, who cares about their health? Why not go full Lindgren: 250 mpw or bust!

In all seriousness, your tongue-in-cheek post adds nothing to the thread. Do you have any real thoughts?

Speaker of Hard Truths (the real 1) wrote:

Because it works. Stop looking for shortcuts.

+1 it makes you faster who cares why

GBohannon wrote:

Kvothe wrote:

I would think 100 mpw before senior year of hs or 80-90 before junior year, 70-80 before soph year would be good for most hs'ers in terms of aerobic development. Sadly many high school coaches are more worried about keeping kids healthy or minimizing attrition than they are about athletic development and preparing kids for ncaa running.

Yeah, who cares about their health? Why not go full Lindgren: 250 mpw or bust!

In all seriousness, your tongue-in-cheek post adds nothing to the thread. Do you have any real thoughts?

Apologies. I see you have already posted your real thoughts on page 1.

epicTCK wrote:

Speaker of Hard Truths (the real 1) wrote:

Because it works. Stop looking for shortcuts.

+1 it makes you faster who cares why

A bit on that "why"... an excerpt from the book "Healthy Intelligent Training" on the aerobic base phase and high mileage:

Train, Don't Strain

The purpose of this (aerobic base phase) was to systematically build the aerobic capacity to the highest level possible before commencing faster work. The biggest stimulus to the development of aerobic capacity is often uninterrupted time spent at higher aerobic or sub-threshold levels: especially with regard to the development of the very fine blood vessels in the running muscles (the capillary beds) and the muscular walls of the heart itself.

...

Lydiard found that most healthy competitive adult distance runners could handle a volume of around 10-12 hours of steady to strong aerobic running a week, and still improve significantly. This effectively would result in a figure around 100 miles per week for a good runner, and became a good yardstick to aim for.

...

Lydiard noted that if an athlete was able to add slower easier recovery running in secondary sessions, according to his or her ability to maintain the workload, that even finer results could be attained.

...

The trick was to do as much strong aerobic running as possible while improving week by week but not so much that general fatigue would result. Lydiard found that the best way to balance the weekly schedule was by varying the distances and efforts so that the athlete was always able absorb the training and come back for more. The axiom here was Train, don't strain.

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 like to do 10 in the morning every day, 16 on Thursday, and 20-24 on Saturday. That leaves me with only needing 2-3 doubles to hit 100, and I often feel good enough to run more.

For the 5K specifically I felt like I ran better workouts when I was doing something like 8 AM + 6 PM every day with maybe 15 miles for the long run. I could also run pretty close to my top-end marathon with that training but not quite.

Well, you obviously weren't really training/racing hard like a high school or college runner when you were running 17:04. I went from 17:40 my first ever XC race my junior year of high school and ran 14:30 in college. Also ran 4:06 mile and 1:51 800. split 48

I never did more than 55-60 miles per week because i would get injured/sick/over-trained/uninterested/you name it. If i could handle 100 mpw, would i have been faster? Maybe, but i would have required a different, more durable body. That's not how it works. Durability and mental toughness are parts of talent and you get what you get.

i bet you have a low pain threshold and do a 24-25 mile run in training for the marathon as a "confidence booster"

my friend started running in his 20's and is now a 2:32 marathoner (started at 3:30 or something), but the amount of volume and workouts he does blows my mind. I am a 2:28 guy and if i did the workouts he does, i would be a 2:22 guy. He doesn't trust his ability to push in a race or sharpen with a taper. He only trusts his current fitness and really can't push hard. i'd say he doesn't have a racing instinct or ability to suffer. you kinda sound like that person too.

I'm a pretty good runner and i don't think running is very fun. i hate running more than 5 days a week and 2-3 is ideal. Doubling, yeah right. Never.

The season I ran a 4:06 mile and 1:51 800m in college was the worst year of running i have ever experienced and I had my best results. The 1:51 was the last race of college for me and I didn't do any running for 6 years after that. I didn't even do a cool-down and threw my spikes in a garbage can before getting on the bus back to school. Never ran more than 60-65 miles a week and don't understand your logic of "just go out and do an extra 5 mile jog a day". My logic is, "just don't do any miles and enjoy your life"

You obviously love running and identify as a runner as your personality and I respect that, but not everyone is that way. Please understand that.

People who like to run 100 mile a week baffle me. i run 12 miles a week now and play other sports and have other hobbies. I did a comeback and ran a solid half and marathon, but it was terrible, despite being faster than most people.