Many amateur marathon runners run more miles annually than elites- this is wrong!

Can we really compare the most talented professional to the amateur?

The level of talent and abilities is too different. Runners like Kipchoge and Bekele can take time off and jump back in much easier and faster than amateur who may lose too much base if they stopped more time.

Ggggg wrote:

blablabla

Where did you read Kipchoge's notebook?

Kipchoge has access to EPO, the amateurs don't.

Kipchoge definitely has not released a training notebook and anything out there is fake. He does say though that he takes significant time off after a race but no idea what time off means to him, he has also said he often has rest days on Sunday during peak training. That said there is some logic to your statement in that amateurs probably run way too much compared to their time goals.

Elite marathoners typically do well over 100mpw for a substantial part of the year, even if they do reduce for a few weeks after a marathon.

A pretty small percentage of amateur marathoners approach that kind of mileage.

What is often forgotten is that most amateurs are running the Marathon 1 hour+ what the elites are racing. It’s not even close to being the same race.

Also 100 miles per week can average at least 2 minutes per mile more for your average Joe. That’s 3+ hours more training per week for the same mileage.

I remember Kjell Erik Stahl saying that he thought one reason he could run so many sub 2:20 marathons in such a short time span was that he was slower than the best (and this from a guy who'd run 2:10) and the slower racing didn't damage his muscles as much as happened to the faster guys.

When I got into my 40s and could no longer run well under 3:00 I found a similar thing. I was nowhere near as wrecked late in marathons as I'd been when I'd been faster even though I was running as hard as I could. And recoveries were almost immediate, I didn't feel all that much worse the next day than I'd feel after a normal weekly long run. I'm not sure that you can draw a lot of conclusions from comparing one 2:01 guy with the average or even better than average marathon runner.

Just because someone suffers from OCD, it does not necessarily make them a great athlete. The amateurs you speak of likely lack talent, so they keep on running further in order to become competitive at something, as there is less competition at the greater distances. The ultra world is full of OCD hacks like this. I can't tell you the number of guys I ran against in high school and college that were slow as molasses that kept on running longer and longer distances so that they could start winning medals. If you look at 10K PRs of the elite marathoners, they are in the mid 26s to mid 27s. Most amateur Americans are lucky to run sub 32:00. No amount of long distance running is going to give that guy that kind of speed (a lot would have a hard time running 1 mile at Kipchoge's pace). In summary, a guy like Kipchoge is a fast runner that ups the mileage to run a fast marathon. A US Amateur is a slow runner that runs longer distances to try to weed out the better athletes from competing.

otter wrote:

What is often forgotten is that most amateurs are running the Marathon 1 hour+ what the elites are racing. It’s not even close to being the same race.

Also 100 miles per week can average at least 2 minutes per mile more for your average Joe. That’s 3+ hours more training per week for the same mileage.

I know some guys that have run in the 2:12/2:13 range, and some women in the 2:27-2:30 range.

They take a full 7-10 days completely off after their season, typically two separate seasons in a year, their goal race being the end of the season, often a marathon. So they have about two roughly 5 month training blocks give or take a few weeks. The guys peak mileage is around 125, the women is around 110-120. They don't hig 100 miles per week until after about 6 weeks, and they are under 100 the last two weeks before the race. So two months of their 5 month training blocks is 80-85% or less than their peak mileage, and it takes about 9 or 10 weeks to get to that peak mileage.

I think insufficient post marathon recovery is just a part of a bigger problem of a lack of periodization in training. I see a lot of injuries when people try to bump up their mileage while also increasing the length and intensity of workouts. The last thing you want to do as an amateur is try doing the hardest workouts of your marathon training while you are running weekly mileage that is well above what you are used to running. And I think this is because people are doing very short training cycles to be able to run 3+ marathons a year.

nub wrote:

Kipchoge definitely has not released a training notebook and anything out there is fake. He does say though that he takes significant time off after a race but no idea what time off means to him, he has also said he often has rest days on Sunday during peak training. That said there is some logic to your statement in that amateurs probably run way too much compared to their time goals.

I think again

Here it’s a month and something after London, and he talks about his recovery and first phase of training. It’s not government secrets.

There are more details about his training on the net so relax.

Elite runners race Marathon (32.5 to 37.5) x 1500m pb (or current fitness). Gone are the days of 4:30 one mile runners winning Boston or NYC Marathon.

Distance running must be the only sport in the world where the so called pros only compete once or twice a year.

They just can’t hack it in a real sport like football, soccer, baseball, basketball, golf or even bowling.

Runners complain that they don’t make the millions like superstars in other sports.

They pay athletes millions to perform but not to train for 5 months, race for two hours and vacation for two weeks before repeating the cycle.

"Many amateur marathon runners run more miles annually than elites- this is wrong!"

Except this is not true.

Co-Flounder wrote:

Distance running must be the only sport in the world where the so called pros only compete once or twice a year.

They just can’t hack it in a real sport like football, soccer, baseball, basketball, golf or even bowling.

Runners complain that they don’t make the millions like superstars in other sports.

They pay athletes millions to perform but not to train for 5 months, race for two hours and vacation for two weeks before repeating the cycle.

What about boxers and ufc fighters?

Don’t the only fight a few times a year?

Good point.

I think the up and coming guys fight more often than the major heavyweights and stars of boxing and ufc.

Co-Flounder wrote:

Distance running must be the only sport in the world where the so called pros only compete once or twice a year.

Only in marathon.

Do you know the athletics meeting?

Co-Flounder wrote:

Distance running must be the only sport in the world where the so called pros only compete once or twice a year.

They just can’t hack it in a real sport like football, soccer, baseball, basketball, golf or even bowling.

Runners complain that they don’t make the millions like superstars in other sports.

They pay athletes millions to perform but not to train for 5 months, race for two hours and vacation for two weeks before repeating the cycle.

The long term damage a marathon does to your body is very different then those sports. Those sports don’t deal with something called glycogen depletion. A marathon will mess you up for months.