That could/should work. Right now i’m a very firm believer in weekly mileage > basically anything else. My Tuesday and Thursday runs are recovery runs that add 10 miles now and eventually 14 miles a week which will help bring that mileage up a ton. Giving that up would keep me a bit too low.
I’m sure the cycling work would help offset some of that but im personally lacking in the leg strength department vs the cardio department so longer endurance rides (outside of a dedicated cycling block for a long distance event) dont exactly play into what i’m looking for right now…
Now with all of that said. I’m looking to do my first 70.3 next year and i’ll likely bring the bike volume up.
yeah, volume is king…
you are probably doing it right
but as you age… it will become harder…
at 45 my body is starting to fall apart… can’t keep the same weekly mileage
45 and running is amazing. Keep it up. Sounds like you know what your limits are and that just makes it that much more interesting to train within/around.
Oh… I dont know my limits… My body is a mess… my right knee is falling apart…but i still try to do 25 to 30 weekly miles… not training to race has been good to me. I take time off if I want. Do not put pressure on myself to finish wo if I dont want/dont feel like it. I am having fun just keeping some level of fitness…
Theres a limit to whats feasible of course. At my level i’m talking 30-40mpw with a peak of 50 for a block. I’m certainly not a 70mpw athlete like some of these 2:30 marathoners.
I think volume is king anywhere under 40mpw. If you’re exceeding that, you should be focusing on more intentional sessions for your goal. Would love your take?
I started running at the end of June on average three times a week and gradually increased the volume during the first two months. In September I started to increase the pace and do a few sets and I ran my first race in an event with an average pace of 4:30 per km over 3.5km. In training only did a couple hundred meter each time on such a pace. At the end I felt discomfort in the Achilles tendon area, I iced it and took anti-inflammatory ointment that week and the following weekend I did another race with the same distance even faster at 4:20… As a result, I ended up limping and soon realized that ice and anti-inflammatory ointments alone weren’t going to fix it. Two days later I started physiotherapy and it’s been two months without a full recovery. In the medical exam made it shows lots of liquid and a calcification on the achiles.
Throughout this run build phase, I’ve done exercises to strengthen my joints in general and my feet in particular. Even so, this was the result.
Fortunately, the pain in my foot doesn’t stop me from training on the bike and until next summer my schedule is 100% for mountain biking and Traineroad. But after that I’m going to try again with even more strengthening and more gradually increasing the volume and especially the pace.
You’ve got a pretty good change of walking through any metro area and knowing that every person you pass will never and has never run that distance faster than you. Commendable and definitely the result of hard work.
It very easy to try to work harder and gain not much more than training at the actual speed you should…
say, your 400s call for a mile pace… and your mile pace is 5:30, do not try to run it at a 4 minute mile pace… You probably could, but you will not gain much, and probably not be able to hold the pace for many reps…
also, listen to your body… rest, a skipped run doesnt make you or break you…
You make me laugh. every ‘5k pace’ interval for half mile or K which i’ve done recently is supposed to be ~7/min pace and ends up being low 6’s and i’m absolutely spent after a half dozen… Wise words
It’s worth listening to the David Roche interview on the Rich Roll podcast. He talks about how he set a new Leadville 100 course record off low milage training.
Personally I’m not convinced by the high milage approach. Seems to be correlated to results by many but then you get to hear about all the injuries!
I ran a 5min mile, 1.17 half and won my age cat in a prestigious 50mile mountain ultra this year off 30mpw. Apart from one track session a week I just ran slowly around local roads and trails.
For 2025 I’m not planning on increasing milage. I am increasing strength work though. I think the ability to run with good form and pain free is the key to my success.
I did do some specific work for the ultra. It involved 4250m of ascent (or more importantly descent), so I went to some mountains and spent 5 days running and mtbing on the slopes 3 weeks before the race. Apart from that I place a lot of value in hiking over the winter. Fun days out in the hills give great strength and fitness I think. Can only manage a few of these a year though so the majority of my training is around my local trails which are undulating at best and often muddy.
I’m 50btw and not prepared to be one of the many runners I see who shuffle along awkwardly, blatantly nursing discomforts. I want to feel fit and healthy. Race results seem to come naturally when you feel like that.
Go on Letsrun if you want to see how truly horrible people enjoy being to each other. It’s a pity because there’s some good information in there but the regulars will turn it into a slag fest almost immediately.
The best ones is when someone ask “whats a decent 5k” and then the fuck heads come up with shit things like, “if you are not running sub 15 5k you are wasting your time! Stop running and go back to eating”. Letsrun is a truly toxic wasteland.
For what is worth I think volum is the most approachable way to train. Problem is, IMO, time on the legs is will cause issues with time (cumulative mileage). Parker valbey cause some commotion about a year ago, when she said on a interview that she does most her miles on the arc trainer and mostly run for workouts 3x week and 30 miles. The rest of the week are Arc machine workouts and swimming. She is probably the best young american runner right now. Maybe there is something on her training we all can learn
That’s what I was thinking of as well but didn’t want to mention any names due to the garbage that is in the forum. There’s a few gems like when David Torrence went for a downhill sub 4 mile when at Cal. Or some real funny (likely troll threads) about a guy who purposely was taking a coworkers Strava KOMs. But as mentioned most turn it into a an unhealthy environment.
Yeah but Parker does what she does because she’s injury prone, not because the cross training is magic sauce.
You would be hard pressed to find a world class 5000m runner that doesn’t at least run 70 mpw on occasion, and most are above that. Bernard Lagat used to be the prototypical example of a low mileage runner because he “only” typically did 60 mpw. Although supposedly that did not include any warm ups, etc.
Top coaches and athletes know what works to maximize potential. Of course not everybody can run higher mileage. But those who can should and do.
You may find it difficult to drop some of these preconceptions from running.
Not least because the goals are different when you look at it as a single sport, as ingle time.
I don’t know her but I think people are starting to realise that there are lots of routes to becoming a faster runner without centring on volume. It may be a goos, simple focus for some but if there are other key factors and other routes then I’d no longer describe it as being ‘king’, and maybe cross-training is ‘magic sauce’ for those who get injured on purely increasing volume?
