I only improve when going HARD. Mileage doesn't have any effect

As others have said, periodization.

OP, how fast are you and how old are you? With better training than 20-30mpw, I bet you could be faster. A good example is to look at how most elite athletes, top college programs, and top training groups are doing things. I guarantee you none of them are doing just 20-30mpw with intensity and getting by because there are no shortcuts to optimal training and performance. You need the aerobic strength, from those higher mileage weeks, long runs, and tempos (**While still touching on speed, form, and strength) to help you be able to do the intense workouts later.

That said, yeah you correct, you wont race as fast unless you are doing the nitty gritty of getting in faster reps, but there is a time and place for everything.

Again, as others have said on here, periodization.

Im not advocating that you run 100+ MPW, I know that different people racing different events respond to different types of training, but if you are training for anything that requires you to be strong aerobically, then yes, you will need more running than what you are currently doing.

Even guys who were 800 specialists like Nick Symmonds run up to 70mpw. Do you do it all year long? No, but if I recall correctly, even in his competition phases he was still running 50-60mpw compared to other elites who put time in between 80-120mpw for the track.

So in conclusion, though it may feel good to run 20-30mpw and do hard workouts, you need to 1) Run more 2) periodize your training 3) understand how training works and that all facets of it add up to you being faster.

This thread is nonsense. Everyone knows that the wider the base, the higher the peak.

The fact a few on here say that is not working for them only shows that they are not aware

of how that has helped them over the years.

What you guys should do is try taking a few years off. Then try your interval-based approach!

It´s very typical for LRC that people here don´t bash unconventional training methods as long as there is high mileage involved, like Ron Clarke, Mark Nenow or Ed Whitlock, but if they do low mileage, high intensity training then people make fun of them for being slow or - if they are super fast like Seb Coe - then "they must have run more miles than they recorded in their logs".

Isn't Bernard Lagat known for running relatively low milage at high intensity?

well,, wrote:

It´s very typical for LRC that people here don´t bash unconventional training methods as long as there is high mileage involved, like Ron Clarke, Mark Nenow or Ed Whitlock, but if they do low mileage, high intensity training then people make fun of them for being slow or - if they are super fast like Seb Coe - then "they must have run more miles than they recorded in their logs".

I'm not making fun of him or bashing him. Im saying that he can probably do more which will cause him to improve. Im not advocating he run mega miles of 100+ a week. I'm saying based that he can probably benefit from more mileage. It isnt a 1 or the other, but rather optimizing training in such as way as for him to get the most out of his body.

If he is running 20-30 miles a week, being generous on giving him more time, running 7:00 pace average for all of that running he is getting in 2h20m - 3h30m of running at most. What athlete will improve (in any sport) with just that much training?

Even if he theoretically were to do plyos, bounding, weights etc for 1 hour a day or cross train an hour a day. He would be spending more time on those activities than actual running and only getting in between 9h20m of training and 10h30m of training. That is not training optimally. I don't care who you are. No elites, training groups, or high end college teams train that low. He is just selling himself short.

To your point about Seb. Yes, he did run less mileage than most, but even he and his dad Peter Coe talk about Seb running 70 mile weeks during phases of his training. Again back to periodization.

I did.

And I found that running distance did very little for me. Only once I started running short intervals (slowly, but intervals), did I see results. Switching over to almost complete interval training got me in FAR better shape, which then allowed me to run further distance, more efficiently.

This thread reminds me of how some people react to some of those limited academic studies that take one group of runners, have them do intervals a few times per week for 6-8 weeks, and compare their improvements to the control group that only did easy running for 6-8 weeks to show that the interval-trained group showed distinctly more improvement. To which anybody that knows training replies, "Well, duh."

To many posters on this thread, why are you assuming that your training needs to be all one way or the other? Why either all mileage (with the occasional tempo) or lots of intensity with very low mileage? What about an integrated training program that has moderately high mileage with moderate workouts (that vary in type and evolve and progress through a season) that you can do consistently with the occasional race-specific work to help you race your best at the right time?

OP, it sounds like you are basically doing the pre-peaking phase for a month, seeing improvements, then crashing and having to start again. Try finding a middle ground that might show less obvious improvement for a few months but will sustain your improvements far better in the long term.

@ Cavorty wrote:

Cavorty, what kind of test did you have(and how much did it cost?)? I'm interested in getting one done. As I'm the opposite of you as far as training goes. I'm interested to see if my suspicion is true, that I'm mostly slow twitch.

Sorry. Only just saw this.

The study was a company called Fitness Genes -

I work somewhat with dna testing for thoroughbred racehorses, so have a reasonable handle, and I thought that they did a good job.

Fast and slow-twitch muscle-fiber is mostly down to variants of the myostatin gene.

The biggest revelation to me was that I was designed to run reps/intervals, and it explained why I was much better at that type of training than I was at racing.

jcaweiioj fd; wrote:

OP, it sounds like you are basically doing the pre-peaking phase for a month, seeing improvements, then crashing and having to start again. Try finding a middle ground that might show less obvious improvement for a few months but will sustain your improvements far better in the long term.

This guy gets it! OP, try 50 miles/wk with two quality workouts and a long run for 16-20 weeks. You’re not built differently than everyone else, you’re just making a rookie training error.

This ^

genetics love this stuff!

What I did:

1.23andme for the sequencing they do something like 600k snps.

2.Downloaded the snps (single nucleotide polymorphisms) from 23andme

3.Ran my snps through promethease for 12 bucks they send you a database match using snpedia which is a ton of pretty good stuff also some decent tools.

For exampleI have the sprinter muscles :

rs4253778(G;G) in the gene that codes for the protein Alpha-actinin-3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actinin_alpha_3

SNPedia database info for same snp

https://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Rs1815739

Training always have more speed than endurance but I am taking the Ed Whitlock approach cause I am an old 62 and I believe Ed's success of constantly upping the volume not intensity for overload with a few tempos and races is the way to go as we grow old. Only been doing this for 5 months but I feel pretty good just run with a paper bag over my head.

You uploaded DNA information to a company? Good luck with that.

And the rest of you: MILEAGE DOESN'T WORK FOR EVERYONE. JUST BECAUSE YOU THINK YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING, DOESN'T MEAN JACK.

I bet you missed the point. Not everyone is built the same way. I will add...if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.

Bruce Tulloh:

Looking at the 5,000m and 10,000m distances, when I broke the European record for three miles, my average mileage for the previous ten weeks was 28 miles a week, including warm-ups and races. The training was hard, but it didn’t take much time, with sessions such as 15 x 400m with a 50-second recovery, or 2 x 2,000m fast.

An actual week of training during that summer is shown below:

Mon: warm-up, 2,800m time trial, on grass;

Tues: 6 x 880yd on track, averaging 2mins 10secs;

Wed: 8 x 700m on grass;

Thurs: warm-up, fast strides, 2 x 440yd in 56 and 58 seconds;

Fri: rest;

Sat: warm-up, 2-mile race.

(total miles for the week = 30)

In the following three weeks I ran fewer miles but had 10 races (mostly club races) where I led all the way. If I could run 13min 12sec for three miles on 28 miles a week, while working full-time, then this kind of training is going to be perfectly adequate for an athlete trying to break 30 minutes for 10k – and more than adequate for someone trying to break 40 minutes! You may argue that natural ability has a lot to do with these performances, but all anyone can do is fulfil their genetic potential. In my case, even though I doubled my mileage in later years, I merely equalled that time, never improved on it.

Truce Bulloh wrote:

If I could run 13min 12sec for three miles on 28 miles a week, while working full-time, then this kind of training is going to be perfectly adequate for an athlete trying to break 30 minutes for 10k – and more than adequate for someone trying to break 40 minutes! You may argue that natural ability has a lot to do with these performances, but all anyone can do is fulfil their genetic potential. In my case, even though I doubled my mileage in later years, I merely equalled that time, never improved on it.

Oh man, I love this post. It's from an article with the title "Time efficient training ideas". Here is another one:

"I ran 3:52.02 in the mile running an average of just over 40 miles a week, almost all of it high quality. I believed that if I ran 80 miles a week I would run 3:42. Wrong, I upped my mileage, lowered the quality, and never ran faster.” – Craig Masback, CEO of USA Track & Field, Track & Field Coaches Review, December 1999, page II

Did something like this in the 35-40 miles range, also working full-time with kids, very time-consuming workloads and interests in literature and no sufficient sleep quality. Managed to race 5 miles on a hilly XC-course with an elevation gain of more than 600 feet in 26:44.

The information you people are giving is worthless. You say that you've tried running more and it didn't help but you give no details as far as how long you ran higher mileage, what that mileage was, what the paces were. Obviously just running more in and of itself may not make you faster but the more miles you put in the greater the adaptations in the body and you can run more volume of speedwork. The speed makes you better right? Being able to run more speed will make you even better.

Takinadump wrote:

The information you people are giving is worthless. You say that you've tried running more and it didn't help but you give no details as far as how long you ran higher mileage, what that mileage was, what the paces were. Obviously just running more in and of itself may not make you faster but the more miles you put in the greater the adaptations in the body and you can run more volume of speedwork. The speed makes you better right? Being able to run more speed will make you even better.

"all anyone can do is fulfill their genetic potential"