100 MPW isn't hard people!

It's hard, or at least very time consuming, if you are slow, which 99% of people are. If you are a good runner and can easily average 7 minute miles, 100 mpw is only about 1 hr 40 mins per day. If you are not great runner averaging 10 minute miles, you'll have to run over 2 hrs 20 mins each day to get there. Running for over 2 hours a day is hard on the body, no matter how slow.

it's not hard to do one or two weeks at 100 MPW but factor in tough workouts and 14-20 weeks for a marathon training plan. Say you work full time and have a wife and kid and thus you sacrifice a lot of time to run 100 MPW and that means you are getting only 6-7 hrs of sleep per night. You will find after a month that a tiredness and lethargy will start to affect your workouts, which you may no longer be able to hit. 80 MPW sounds much more manageable, and likely better for your fitness. Forcing 100 MPW doesn't make much sense in this case

I was more referencing college and high school runners today. It is hard to run a lot when you have a 50 hour a week job but during your younger years there is enough free time. I see what young athletes are doing now and it is nothing compared to the glory days of american running back in the 70s and early 80s.

Its not even the time spent running, it's everything else. Most people have to drive somewhere that is conductive to running that distance, than factor in time spent getting ready, coming home and showering etc. You're are talking a minimum of 3 hours a day.

That's not to say the average person doesn't waste 3 hours a day, but it's more of a time commitment than you're saying.

asdfghjkl wrote:

I was more referencing college and high school runners today. It is hard to run a lot when you have a 50 hour a week job but during your younger years there is enough free time. I see what young athletes are doing now and it is nothing compared to the glory days of american running back in the 70s and early 80s.

Well, it got results, I think we can all agree this era of runners have aged ROUGH..

The high volume toll has a very short shelf life, and many things have to be dialed in. Form, nutrition, genetics, and luck..

We're at a unique time, almost 2 generations removed from the running boom..what can we replicate, what can we improve upon, and what should most runners typically avoid that were common practices, 30-40+ years ago?

As a high schooler in the 90s it was all about low mileage and speed. Well it didn’t turn out too well did it?

However the teams coached by 70s Lydiard devotees had an easy time dominating. Everyone else was running a total of 4 miles with hard intervals while their guys were doing 10 mile tempos. On the important race days they crushed it.

So yeah go run 100 mpw. It works as long as you are smart about it and stay healthy.

Man the 90s were rough

"even in High school"

3/10

but yeah it's not hard if you're young and work your way up to it gradually.

DC101GDub wrote:

it's not hard to do one or two weeks at 100 MPW but factor in tough workouts and 14-20 weeks for a marathon training plan. Say you work full time and have a wife and kid and thus you sacrifice a lot of time to run 100 MPW and that means you are getting only 6-7 hrs of sleep per night. You will find after a month that a tiredness and lethargy will start to affect your workouts, which you may no longer be able to hit. 80 MPW sounds much more manageable, and likely better for your fitness. Forcing 100 MPW doesn't make much sense in this case

This is true. If you're married with kids you should focus on your family.

I know some married men in their 30s with kids who still train like they were in college (with not much to show for it) and I don't see how you'd regret not breaking 2:40 more than not spending time with your children.

asdfghjkl wrote:

Back in my day you weren't considered a real runner unless you were running around 100 mpw, even in High school. Why do people now think 100 mpw is so tough!?

Its not hard. If you want a $40K job and related lifestyle. Things are expensive now. My avocado toast is a fortune. Lol but even pizza is flucking expensive.

For a while I worked an 50-80 hr week, have 2 kids and ran 100mpw. But zero social life. I obviously still have job and kids but more enriching life. Miles isn't everything. Maybe in the summer.

live a little wrote:

asdfghjkl wrote:

Back in my day you weren't considered a real runner unless you were running around 100 mpw, even in High school. Why do people now think 100 mpw is so tough!?

Its not hard. If you want a $40K job and related lifestyle. Things are expensive now. My avocado toast is a fortune. Lol but even pizza is flucking expensive.

For a while I worked an 50-80 hr week, have 2 kids and ran 100mpw. But zero social life. I obviously still have job and kids but more enriching life. Miles isn't everything. Maybe in the summer.

My bulls&$7 meter is going off on this post.

My injury-prone body will not allow me. :(

Zfkdkdk wrote:

My injury-prone body will not allow me. :(

I feel like I hear this a lot, but I was very injury prone, every year of middle school and every year of high school, I had a pretty big injury that took me out at least a few weeks (luckily no stress fractures). I ran all my mileage fast and thought I was doing a ton when I saw I hit 50 for the first time. My junior year I hit 4:48 and 11:26 for the 16/32 off 30 mpw after being sick or injured for 2 months and running everything at 7 flat or under.

My senior year for track I decided to try building my mileage by running slower and doubling. I hit 70 mpw for 11 weeks straight and ran 4:33 and 10:07. My average pace? Lucky to be under 8:20. In the afternoon I did 55 mpw w/ a 5-6x1000 @ Thresh workout and a 4 - 5 mi Marathon Pace tempo workout each week until the season started and skipped the tempo for races. All the between mileage was 8:00 - 8:45. In the mornings I did 3 miles M - F @ 9 flat.

I'm now in college and I've done 3 weeks at 100 mpw and lots more 80+. I wouldn't say jump into it right away, take a full year to hit 100, but don't just give yourself the excuse of being injury prone, roll out twice a day, stretch a bit, do core, and run easy to build up and then once you're there, cut the pace back down. If you have literal bone strength issues, obviously you shouldn't do it, but I think most people can, they just go too fast to get there. If you're in college, you should have time unless you're not committed. My first week over 100 took 12.5 hours of running and my most recent week that high took 11.5 hours. The first time was with a 4 - 5 mi double everyday with a long run of 17 miles, the second time pretty similar but no long run double.

Just read the wejo: why I sucked in college or a Lydiard book or something. Snell got a stress fracture when he ramped up mileage to 100 in a couple months, so he took some down time and then built right back up and was fine as long as he took his down weeks. He was running around 6 flat to 6:30 avg, so if you wanna play that game, then run 10 - 12 hours instead.

Sorry for that rant.

Back in your day, a lot of 800m athletes were ruined with that 100 miles per week for everyone.

Most people aren't durable enough to run their desired miles. For me it's always about too many injuries rather than too little time. And I run a tiny fraction of 100 mpw.

Your rant is welcomed.

I've been up to 80mpw, running twice a day - everyday, until I felt like I got a stress fracture. Basically it was downhill after all that. 3 years later, I'm running 10mpw and I've been convinced by you all to try to get back up there.

This time around, I think I will try to use time as the guideline for running as opposed to distance.

Djddk wrote:

Your rant is welcomed.

I've been up to 80mpw, running twice a day - everyday, until I felt like I got a stress fracture. Basically it was downhill after all that. 3 years later, I'm running 10mpw and I've been convinced by you all to try to get back up there.

This time around, I think I will try to use time as the guideline for running as opposed to distance.

Thanks. I completely forgot to mention it, but sleep was also one of the biggest factors for me staying injury free. Most of high school/middle school I would get between 5 - 7 hours of sleep (I got a phone for my birthday, so I had to use it!), but I dedicated myself to getting 9 hours a night that whole winter/spring and I could tell the difference if I only got 7 or something, it sucked. When making that transition, I also switched from distance to time, which helped keep it easy, I think, because I wouldn't push the pace to get done faster, since I had to run for more time if I got back early anyways. Good luck, but also be smart about your increase in mileage, I'm not trying to say go straight to 100 mpw, but kids in college who have been running for 4 years consistently and are training for 1500 and up shouldn't be messing around with 60 and less, especially by the time they're seniors.

I really hate when people get "holier than though" and start telling people what they should and shouldn't focus on. Perhaps you resent hanging out with your family and want everyone else to be miserable like you? People have goals. No one criticizes the lawyer working 100 hours per week to make partner, but it's a freaking uprising here if someone with a family runs a couple hours each day.

No one is saying you can completely neglect your family, but you don't have to turn into a boring and fat dad who has nothing to show for his life besides a job and a mid-life crisis from only living through his kids. Parents who give up on themselves end up putting pressure on their kids to fulfill all of their lost dreams and making them miserable.

assuming you start running as a freshmen, you'll need some good and consistent training to reach 100mpw by junior or senior year. the biggest issue is finding time to run 100 mpw. it can be quite difficult. the easiest approach is to do doubles and perhaps try to do some 7-8 miles jogs every morning but not only will these miles take an hour to do, but you also gotta get dressed and do stretches before or after these runs. because you'll be all sweaty, you're forced to also take a shower. if you do all these things in a timely manner, it'll probably take 1 hour 20 minutes out of your morning. that means you'll have to wake up 1 hour 20 minute earlier than normal people would which means about 6:00am. you then also gotta take into account that some people have A Period class which is class before school begins. if this was the case, then you gotta wake up another hour earlier which puts you at 5:00am. due to your normal track/xc practice after school, you'll be getting out around 5:30-6:00 depending on how long or far you run. by the time you get home and take a shower, it'll already be like 6:30-7:00. and then you gotta eat dinner and do your homework which will probably bring you to 9:00-12:00 and you will barely have enough time to sleep.

aside from a few very gifted individuals, you can only be a high school standout if you do 80+ miles per week. if you go this route, you better not take any A period classes or any AP/HP classes or you'll be screwed. if you do, your best bet is to talk to your AP/HP teachers about what you'll be learning over the school year and then jump ahead and study these topics over the summer.

now for my opinion. don't bother doing 100 mpw or doubles in high school. if you're a female, you can't put this amount of stress on your body or it'll affect your female issues (see mary cain video) and if you're a male, you probably haven't finished puberty yet so too much stress can affect your growth, but you will also naturally get faster as time goes by without hammering your body. generally speaking, running 30 mpw as a freshmen and going +10 every year so that you're at 60 by your senior year is pretty good. you can obviously run a little more over the summer since you're running a lot easier. by 50-70 mpw, you really hit the margin of diminishing returns, so don't bother with stressing you out as a high schooler.

I recently started running high mileage for the first time and it wasn't as bad as people made it out to be. I topped out at 100 one week and averaged 90 miles for about a 3 month span, so didn't quite hit the threshold of what is being described but was close.

I was working 50 hours a week and traveling on average once a week per work (generally flying 2-4 hours). The travel part made it tough, but handling the mileage even with 2 workouts a week and 20+ mile long runs was pretty manageable.