Best low mileage runners

Seb Coe should not be on this list. For god sakes he used to double with 5 miles in the morning and often did 5 miles in 30:00 BEFORE track sessions! Some including Canova claim to have witnessed him doing very long runs in the winter too.

Jack Foster topped out around 75mpw, if that can be considered 'low' for marathon training. 2:11 marathon at age 40 and still crushing it at age 50 with a 2:20.

I'm pretty blown away that Tony Sandoval has not been mentioned yet.

In the 1980s, the guy ran 35 mpw and ran a 27-45 10000m and 2h 10 min marathon. Plus he was a medical doctor working something like 100 hr weeks.

The guy was just an unreal human being and was denied a shot at Olympic gold due to the 1980 boycott.

Juantorena.

Not even close, he's the best example .

Juice Springsteen wrote:

I did a thread that was kind of the reciprocal of this a while back. Thinking of runners who did really well on what we would consider low volume. I’ll start.

Donavan Brazier-800 guy but still.

Peter Callahan- I remember Jason Vig saying he only ran like 40 MPW at one point and he made the Olympics or worlds for Belgium.

Hideaki Yamauchi- the guy who ran the Hoka 50 mile and 100k attempt- apparently he only does like 60s as an ultra guy.

Me. 0-50 mpw. Have a bunch of Strava CR's.

Mahavishnu1500 wrote:

Seb Coe should not be on this list. For god sakes he used to double with 5 miles in the morning and often did 5 miles in 30:00 BEFORE track sessions! Some including Canova claim to have witnessed him doing very long runs in the winter too.

There is an older thread on this topic here, I forget the title nut it was about low mileage success stories. Jim Spivey put some posts on it. In one he mentions that he did the longest run of his life, an hour fifty three, with Seb Coe.

90sLowMileage wrote:

For every good low mileage runner there are literally HUNDREDS of better high mileage runners.

Low mileage runners justify their laziness by pointing to the handful of elites that ran low mileage.

High mileage runners justify their addiction by pointing to elites who almost all run high mileage.

Elites run high mileage because its their full time job and what else would they do all day?

You can only fulfil your potential.

Bruce Tulloh won the 5000 metres European Championship on 28 miles per week.

Despite doubling his mileage later on, he never managed to beat his best times.

High mileage is a waste of time.

Guys were running high mileage before running was anyone's job. Ron Hill was doing 120-130 a week, Derek Clayton and Jerome Drayton were doing even more. All had full time jobs outside of running.

HRE wrote:

Guys were running high mileage before running was anyone's job. Ron Hill was doing 120-130 a week, Derek Clayton and Jerome Drayton were doing even more. All had full time jobs outside of running.

This is a good point. It should be added a lot of white collar professionals are still able to set Strava CR's over lunch. I know a guy that set a record on a bike and a running segment all in the same week, and it was over a lunch. He has a great career as an accountant.

+1000

Hobbyjoggers running 100mpw for a PR that no one in the world cares about make me sad.

YeaThats wrote:

+1000

Hobbyjoggers running 100mpw for a PR that no one in the world cares about make me sad.

THEY care about the PRs. Aside from that who cares about anyone's PR?

What came of the B Test? wrote:

alsal wrote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/athletics/3078642.stm

What came of the B Test?

(It was clean)

This was already covered in this thread

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=6307763

this is a brilliant post.

basically response to stimulus is individual.

the workout is designed for maximum response, adaptation.

some guys get the response with less mileage.

but if you just look at the quality, a guy like lagat or spivey will be similar to everybody else, at world class.

a coe would have really done a lot more than advertised.. with the quality being through the roof.

at the end of the day, with middle distance, you need the speed and the max oxygen uptake which is why they call it middle distance,

if the speed requires 10x400 for one guy and 5 x 400 m for the other guy, to get the adaptation so be it.

whatever the cells need to get the response.

therefore training is individual specific.

with that said, 35 miles per week for 1500 and 5000 k is BS

but you can do 800 to 1500 on a minimum of 50 miles per week with half quality.

20 miles quality per week is a lot.

Mike Musyoki, 10k Olympic bronze and former HM world record holder.

dadsfadsfdasfdsafdas wrote:

Willy Lomilesman wrote:

Bob Kennedy?

Doug Padilla ran like 13:15 off ~50-60mpw

Henry Marsh was running 8:10 steeples on similiar mileage

Doug Padilla 50-60mpw?? Not even close. Try 35-50 MPW. The mileage for Henry is pretty accurate.

A recurring topic here is this. Here's a good thread from the past:

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=705629

Additionally, Bernie Allen was 9th at Boston in 1974 in 2:17 on 40-50 mpw. In 1969 he set the course record at Enschede, 2:16:54, beating Mamo Wlde among others after 10 weeks at 60-70. Interestingly, in late 1975-76 Bernie did 100-110 hoping to make the British Olympic team and slowed to 2:26. More interestingly, in 1983 he was doing about 120 and got to 2:15:31 at age 37.

Staying with the UK, a Scotsman called Alastair Wood won the London to Brighton, 53-54 miles, not exactly sure. Afterward he said something about how he'd run more miles that day than he did in a normal week. He also had a 2:13 marathon. And Cavin Woodward once set the world record for 50 and 100 miles in the same race. Seventy miles was a really big week for him.

In the US, Duncan McDonald took Prefontaine's 5,000 record and later ran a 2:12 marathon. He was always reputed to be a fairly low miles guy though I don't have an exact number. And Park Barner did some phenomenal ultra running in the '70s. His training was always a couple easy 4-5 mile runs to work and back.

I have coached a guy on just 55 mpw and 1:32 at 30 k as a pacemaker. He felt strong at that point and had run 2:09 -2:10 marathon if allowed to finish .