Georgetown Low low mileage

He was running anything from the 4x400 to the indoor mile, so it doesn’t seem ludicrous as he’s not a 5k/10k specialist

Spence mostly runs the 800/1600 and the 4x4.

Donavon Brazier specializes there and runs 30-35 miles a week. He’s also a world champ.

What’s your point?

He also runs like 75 mpw during his summers - so not crazy he would come down during racing

Generally I bump this. Doesn’t apply to all, but for the most part of you don’t run at least 70 MPW as a college runner you don’t stand a chance.

CopperRunner wrote:

Spence mostly runs the 800/1600 and the 4x4.

Donavon Brazier specializes there and runs 30-35 miles a week. He’s also a world champ.

What’s your point?

Source for Brazier running 30-35mpw?

bsbsksk wrote:

He also runs like 75 mpw during his summers - so not crazy he would come down during racing

Cutting mileage 40-50% from one season to the next is an interesting tactic. Can't say I've heard of many people successfully employing this.

"When he trained at Texas A&M, Brazier honed in on his speed with 25-mile weeks. Under Julian, he runs 35-mile weeks while incorporating strength workouts like fartleks. With improvements along the way—breaking the U.S. indoor 800-meter record in February and setting a 3:37 1500-meter personal best in July–Brazier learned to trust the new training."

...of course, "facts" in runner's world are subject to the loosest of "fact-checking" standards, so take it with a grain of salt.

Peter Snell ran 140 mpw. For some, talent produces the best times, for others its gutting out high mileage weeks, still others super respond to weights and strength training. If you aren't in the talent or get big benefits from strength training group, the only avenue really left to you is mileage.

I think that’s a little low but if you’re really making the miles count you can get really good in the mile and below off of lower mileage

LetsGetIt wrote:

I think that’s a little low but if you’re really making the miles count you can get really good in the mile and below off of lower mileage

Yes you can make it count with lower mileage ran faster, but there are people like him who want to run post-collegiately. To make the jump to that next level, even fitting into a professional group the mileage needs to be higher than 45 lol.

The difference between 45 mpw and 75 mpw is usually just a bunch of additional 3-5 mile runs or an extra mile here or there each day.

Train to run the race, not to have a weekly mileage number.

Lenny Leonard wrote:

The difference between 45 mpw and 75 mpw is usually just a bunch of additional 3-5 mile runs or an extra mile here or there each day.

Train to run the race, not to have a weekly mileage number.

Any elite 1500m runners ever run that low for more than a couple weeks? I'm sure a few EPO cheats but otherwise elite milers are in the 70-100mpw range most of the year, maybe dipping below for select races/peaks.

soccerxc wrote:

He was running anything from the 4x400 to the indoor mile, so it doesn’t seem ludicrous as he’s not a 5k/10k specialist

Even 1500 specialists like Jakob Ingebrigtsen or Marcin Lewandowski run 100 mpw, in base phase 110 mpw. Lewandowski has 47s 400m speed and closed 1500 races extremely fast, so it's not like the high mileage "ruins" his speed.

This seems to be more of a case of bad coaching/lack of work ethic, rather than optimizing 800-1600 times.

Brazier as example why low mileage is good for 800+1500 is also a pretty bad example, since he only ran 3:37 off 1:42 800m. Lewandowski ran 3:31 off 1:43 800m, doing 2-3x the mileage. This further proves that if you want to be a good miler, you NEED to get your mileage up. Brazier is with no doubt one of the most talented guys in the world, but the fact that despite his talent he can only run 3:37 due to the low mileage he is doing tells us enough.

Last, I want to mention that recent research has shown, the mile as event is between 75-84% aerobic (depending on speed of runner, and muscle fiber distribution). Spencer is talented, he has a high, natural VO2MAX but this low mileage non-sense is probably holding him back from what he could achieve in the mile if he got his 10k time to sub 30 and get stronger aerobically.

Taoufik Makhloufi runs 60 miles in base then 50 in competition phase, slightly higher than what Georgetown was doing. Makhloufi is significantly faster over 400/800 so he can do this but most Georgetown runners don't have a 46 400m and should never drop under 60mpw

darkstarcrashes wrote:

CopperRunner wrote:

Spence mostly runs the 800/1600 and the 4x4.

Donavon Brazier specializes there and runs 30-35 miles a week. He’s also a world champ.

What’s your point?

Source for Brazier running 30-35mpw?

This is extremely widely known, from the own kids mouth in many interviews.

One problem with Spencer is that even when he/Gtown is doing 40-50mpw they are doing a lot of track work and not a whole lot of quality aerobic work. Spencer is only a 50 second 400m guy. You really can’t get away with mileage that low. Not only that but they never really run faster than 600-800m pace, they lift incredibly light and lethargically, so his top end is never really going to improve, and his endurance needs work. He ran well when he was running 70+ mpw over the summer and in XC season, doing fast long runs and longer tempos. But they took a hard 180 between XC indoor track and I know I’m not a D1 college coach, but the lack of aerobic work seems to be the issue, among other things.

ThatAverageRunner wrote:

One problem with Spencer is that even when he/Gtown is doing 40-50mpw they are doing a lot of track work and not a whole lot of quality aerobic work. Spencer is only a 50 second 400m guy. You really can’t get away with mileage that low. Not only that but they never really run faster than 600-800m pace, they lift incredibly light and lethargically, so his top end is never really going to improve, and his endurance needs work. He ran well when he was running 70+ mpw over the summer and in XC season, doing fast long runs and longer tempos. But they took a hard 180 between XC indoor track and I know I’m not a D1 college coach, but the lack of aerobic work seems to be the issue, among other things.

He ran 49.2 in HS. That's fast, guy got wheels. This 400m speed, he turned into a 1:49 and 3:39/3:59. All very good times. If he did that on low mileage, we can say that it worked for him. His 3k is 8:11, which is in line with low mileage, but not terribly bad for his performance level (it's weaker than the 400-1600, but it likely would be 10-15s faster with more mileage and aerobic work). Even his over-distance XC races, are very solid with 24 flat and 30 flat for 10k.

If he still consistently runs around 1:49 and 3:39, I wouldn't be worried about his training. ONLY if he actually got worse and doesn't run close to these times anymore, for example if he only runs 1:51 and slower or 3:43 and slower, I would be worried about his training system and mileage.

Not everyone can be a 3:30-3:35 guy. Brazier and Murphy got a significantly faster 400m speed, that Brown will never even come close to, the 49.2 is still his PR and it's from HS.

Yeah, this indoor season he in fact didn’t get faster. Also, I guess you can grow from 45 miles a week but without that foundation from a younger age it’s harder to adapt causing a shorter career. The aerobic work could allow him to do more speed work, getting both systems working well.

Jgt11 wrote:

Taoufik Makhloufi runs 60 miles in base then 50 in competition phase, slightly higher than what Georgetown was doing. Makhloufi is significantly faster over 400/800 so he can do this but most Georgetown runners don't have a 46 400m and should never drop under 60mpw

<adds copious amounts of Jama Aden's EPO into the thread>