OP won’t fess up that he never ran 100mpw and that his PRs suck.
OP won’t fess up that he never ran 100mpw and that his PRs suck.
It's not hard to do physically. It is hard to justify dedicating so much of your time to that when you have real responsibilities in life. It's fine in high school and college when your time is cheap. It's another thing entirely when you have a real job, a spouse and kids.
Just started the first month of my next marathon buildup with 50 mpw. A nice start. 100mpw would be fun to try, but I don't have the time. I'll get it between 70 - 80. Enuff.
100 miles is not a magic number. Ran 50-60 miles a week and was a sub-16 5k runner in high school. I ran all my PR’s in college and beyond on 70-80 miles a week. Now that I am a master, I run about 40 miles a week with about another 15 miles (equivalent) on the elliptical. So maybe I could say I do about 55 miles a week ( although I am skeptical about the benefits of the elliptical) but I am running as fast at 45 as I was at 35.
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!?
I ran a 100 mpw when I was in high school in the summer of 1983. I was the only one doing this mileage. Many people ran faster than me, who were running 50-80 mpw.
After I reduced my mileage to 70-80 mpw, and ran my workouts faster, I raced faster.
100 mpw is not a "magic" number, and you have to run too slowly to get the mileage in. Try instead running 70-80 mpw with more miles at a faster speed. You can always tell peope you run over 100 kilometers per week
Old Ball Sack 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!?
No one gives three sh1ts what they did back in your day, gramps. You also probably thought woman couldn't run or their uterus would fall out, were racist, and thought that smoking helped open your lungs and let you breathe better.
Idiot.
Still do.
Back in the day when men were real men. wrote:
Yuhhhhhhh wrote:
Ok boomer
And we did it in shít shoes.
https://imgur.com/a/EPcJFhI
Tigers were elite shoes that you had to get from a sporting goods store. Guys racing in them were top tier, or parents had money. For the rest of us it was Adidas from the department store.
NWARunner wrote:
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.
You definitely make a lot of good points especially about sleep. I have noticed a major correlation between injuries and athletes that I am coaching not getting enough sleep.
I myself built up to around 120 per week after college and it made all the difference. However, some athletes will not benefit the way I did or simply can not handle it.
But, when I am bringing their mileage up I do it exactly as you did. Volume first at a slower speed, get used to it, and then quicken the pace over time.
robert678 wrote:
animaxcg wrote:
Didn't do it in high school but man it would have been easier than in college when I worked 30 hours a week had 2 STEM majors and I got in over 100 MPW my senior year and had a 4.0. So it's not impossible. just have to be dedicated.
Also did 120+ mile weeks working 50 hours a week after college (a little easier than college since I had money to eat out occasionally and didn't have homework keeping me up so I got extra sleep)
How fast did you run in college and after college?
High school (16, 32): 4:44, 10:40
College (5k, 10k) 15:40s 33s
Post college: (5k, 10k, marathon): (15:30s, 32, 2:28)
Back in the day wrote:
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
That JS clown thinks the best should be running 60 or 40 mpw with a crazy amount of 800s and 400. Please visit his thread and tell him off.
Sub 4 miler here (believe this provides some good context). I believe I was equivalent good over 800 and 3k so hard to say whether I was more “speed” or more “endurance”. But I didn’t have success running more than 80 mpw. Sweet spot was 75-80. Any less and I wasn’t strong enough aerobically, any more and I couldn’t workout nearly as well. I would bomb many more workouts when doing over 80 and just generally have trashed legs. (I did all the right things, trust me.).
Point being: mileage seems to another important individual variable. (At least for middle distance, 3k+ I think you’ve gotta put in a bit more mileage than 80).
it depends wrote:
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.
I am doing my first 100 mpw ever this week. Started on Sunday and ran 20 mls. Then Monday-Thursday doubles. In order to be able to run twice a day, I started to wake up at 5:30. Unfortunately my body hasn't learned to fall asleep earlier yet. Hence, I slept only 4 hours a night. On Thursday evening I was very tired. Luckily Friday was the Independence Day and I didn't need to wake up early. So I slept 10 hours. I ran only once esterday, a 10 mile run incl. 5 x mile repeats on afternoon. After 6 days I have 151K in the books. I am going to run an easy 15 or 20K today to make that 100 mpw complete.
This 100 mpw has been much easier than what I thought it would be. The key is those easy morning runs. In my case they added 40K to weekly volume. Without them it would have been comparable to other weeks that I have managed to do before. I also skipped all classes this week like HIIT and Body Attack that I sometimes have attended which made it easier to achieve the needed volume.
100 mpw is not a big deal once you find out how to sleep more, i.e. learn to fall asleep earlier.
Btw, why a person who runs 10 minutes miles would want to run 100 mph? He or she is probably running 15 or 20 mpw.
big HONKING birds wrote:
One thing I forget is how a lot of parents do hustle and run at ungodly times like 4am, or during their 1 hr+ lunch hour. I respect that. I just don't respect it if you're taking the majority of the evening after work to run.
Who cares what you respect. Evenings are free time that one can allocate to running. Some people work shifts and are not at home in evenings anyway. I had a corporate job before that included a lot of traveling. I spent 3 or 4 nights a week either at an airport hotel somewhere or landed at the home base around 1 am and went back home. I honestly don't understand why running in evenings seem to be a sin but everything else is fine.
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!?
You are correct. 100 mpw, week in and week out year round, is rather easy. And since anything that easy isn't worth doing, that's why I don't do 100 mpw.
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!?
The older a man gets the faster he was in his youth.
pr100 wrote:
The Truth Hurts wrote:
... but that's off of three hard workouts a week...
Some would say: if you want to build up mileage then don't do 3 hard workouts a week; get the mileage up with only easy running, then add a bit of higher intensity stuff once you've managed a few months of higher volume easy running.
I adjusted to that schedule after trying everything else.
The buildups I refer to were all easy runs. I wish I was lying.
NWARunner wrote:
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.
Comeback in 15-20 years and see if your still running 80-100 mpw.
Kids, just do what I did and run a virtual PR.
I ran 2:26 off average of 70. In my own mind, I think if I had continued and done 100+ long term I would have got close to or below 2:20 in the right race. Even back then I thought: who cares? So I backed off the miles forever. Point is, I still believe (secretly) I coulda and so I brainwashed myself to 220 without the effort. Try it!
P.S. I bet a lot of people do this.