Is 42 mpw a good mileage for an amateur?

Perspective or semantics or something at play. I don't know if we know the gender and age of the OP but for a Open class male running 42 miles a week 18:45 is average. If that demographic can't run around 18:45 with those miles one certainly isn't an average athlete by general standards. 67 % age graded. Would 50% age graded be considered average? I think if you include people who run much less and aren't fit.

If you want to define above-average as besting most of the hobby-jogger hordes, sure, OP is above average. Some would define average as meaning the person is significantly under trained relative to probable potential - and compared to age/group competitors. There are local 5Ks where 18:45 wouldn't even put you in the top 50. OP's gender and age aren't noted, but assuming a 30-something male, that 5K time age-grades to the lowest level of achievment, "local class".https://www.runnersworldonline.com.au/age-grading-calculator/

Lets also not anchor to your PEAK weeks during the year but AVERAGE....42 MPW on average is ~2200 miles a year...I bet that is in the top 10% of runners, worldwide.

i'm 29, male.

I think 80 mpw would be out of my reach. But 70, for example, doable.

But that would mean to train every day, for an amateur but:

- it increases the probability of injury because in fact there are no days off

- often leads the less balanced subjects towards a dependence on physical activity

- makes it impossible to follow a real training program because you cannot enter high-intensity workouts (which require recovery).

The third point is related to the talent. How can i understand if i can bear? no injuries and good sleep quality?

To answer his question, yeah 42mpw is average maybe even a little on the high side for his 5K time assuming he is aged between 15-60.

Pretty much every (male) runner I see that covers that mileage a week also run at least 18/19 min 5ks, so your 5K time is also average, normal, fine etc. It would be actually be unusual to have someone do that mileage and not run those times. Something would be wrong with their running if that's the case.

Regular 30-40 weeks and i'd say most people should expect to hit 17-19 5Ks. From my experience 95% of runners that turn up to local 5Ks (parkruns in UK) barely hit 10-15mpw average, so in this sense you are above average if only because you are trying more.

It would be interesting to ask each partecipant for his weekly mileage and then report it in some excel file, with the final time in a 5K-10K, etc...

Is 42mpw good? I'd say so, depending on responsibilities.

Working 40 hours week its comfortably possible to find the time to do 70-100 or more provided you don't have to work longer hours and you really WANT to do it rather than going on that night out on Friday etc.

Throw family into the mix, however, and things get harder if you want to do parenting properly spending decent time with your kids during the week and do everything else necessary to contribute to married and family life in a meaningful way. In that case, 40-50 is a pretty decent effort!

Yeah, at the end they are about 2.5 h/day considering the shower and other dead times.

But there's no meaning to run all that time, even if you like. Unless you are a pro, it's too risky and it will not change your life. Maybe you can get a 16:00 on 5k but the price is high.

I am 43, have spouse, two kids, and full-time job. I am currently running 65-70 mpw. this is just average on my running club.

It's all relative. I used to log most weeks in the 60-80 mile per week range before kids. I felt good for the most part.

Now with kids, work and coaching, I am a 40-50er. I'm exhausted all the time. But I love running.

So in my case, a 50 mile week is more stressful than a 80 mile week was 10 years ago.

You do well above the average wrote:

I know many people that claim to run that really only do about 10-20 miles per week. I'd say that even 25 miles would be the average for people that like to go to the occasional road race throughout the year. Most people don't run every day, so 25 miles could be 5 different 5 mile runs, and that's kind of a lot and not many people run that much.

So you running 42 mpw is really pretty good, and 18:45 is certainly above average as well.

This is true. I always think I run more than I do, but whenever I look at my monthly average I’m running less.

Skipping one run in a week doesn’t seem like much, but it really adds up

80 mpw in easy runs is the best for overall health!? That seems fairly absurd and a very long time pounding your joints on pavement when you are just trying to run for overall health and fitness. I agree that the speed and vo2max work does all of the things you listed, particularly the load on the CNS that you referenced, but completely neglecting that system is a recipe for disaster. Even if you touch it weekly via way of airdyne bike, versa climber, or hard swim intervals. Also Ultrarunners can burn the F out of themselves trying to maximize volume. Basically if I'm gonna run 80 mpw I'm going to be shooting for a running specific goal

gtsolid wrote:

I'm running 5k in 18:45.

i usually spend 7 mpw warming up and the remaining 35 in the real workout.

i've no particular talent, i only run because i like it.

Am i on the average for my time? i wish to improve the weekly distance.

5k in 18:45 is about what you can expect from about 42 mpw. If you improve the weekly distance to about 75mpw, you can knock about 2 minutes off your time. I ran 16:47.6 after training for 2 years averaging about 70 mpw:

Interesting... but not especially informative, unless factoring gender, age, and weekly mileage is an average over a long period prior to noted race time.

gtsolid wrote:

It would be interesting to ask each partecipant for his weekly mileage and then report it in some excel file, with the final time in a 5K-10K, etc...

Indeed, if you are working full time, 42 mpw is good. Are you male or female? How old are you and how long have you been running?

Throw in 1 - 2 workouts per week (tempo, long intervals, fartlek, hills, whatever you dig) and your times will come down. If you are interested in racing, you will likely get faster.

Remember to take a week or two off from running every few months, keep it fresh.

I've actually been averaging about that, maybe a tiny bit more. It is hard to sustain -- I work but with a flexible schedule.

Heck, you could run a marathon on 42mpw if you don't mind a crawling jog the first 20 miles.

I was doing 20 - 24 mpw right out of college and working hard to build career.

Ran 4:09 1500 and 16:10 5k. I wish I'd taken a stab at more volume...

As with many of the other posters, 40-45 mpw was my sweet spot. I had a few weeks of 100+ over the years, a few years of 70 mpw (during college), but during my working career 40-45 was the best trade-off between available time and minimizing injuries. I did it for close to 50 years.

Unfortunately, I'm only doing 25-30 mpw now, much slower, following a(n unexpected!) heart attack and some bad hips, but I'm still at it!

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

In terms of health, it's less about mileage per week than about intensity. Hard, anaerobic efforts are NEVER healthy, even threshold efforts which are just moderately hard are probably too hard for maximization of health.

I don’t know that I would go so far as to say it is always unhealthy to train at or beyond anaerobic threshold. After all, we have an entire energy system, two even, designed to aid those efforts. And a strong anaerobic

effort can boost your aerobic fitness.

A 5K race is run roughly 90% at aerobic pace. Anaerobic (Glycolsysis) and Phosphagen energy systems, comparatively, are not significantly trainable. The most productive way to improve distance running times is to train aerobic fitness and lactate threshold. quote]Mikeh33 wrote:

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

In terms of health, it's less about mileage per week than about intensity. Hard, anaerobic efforts are NEVER healthy, even threshold efforts which are just moderately hard are probably too hard for maximization of health.

I don’t know that I would go so far as to say it is always unhealthy to train at or beyond anaerobic threshold. After all, we have an entire energy system, two even, designed to aid those efforts. And a strong anaerobic

effort can boost your aerobic fitness.[/quote]