100 miles (Read 1082 times)

What does your coach say about this idea?

i do around 50 a week. but when summer comes around boost up lil more maybe 65 mpw would be better. 100 is an extreme now that i think about it.

Agree with everyone else...don't even THINK about trying to run 100 miles a week in high school. If you are lucky enough to run in college, your coach would probably frown on it then too. To be able to handle 100 mile weeks, you need to have a few years of solid mileage as a foundation AND your body needs to be fully grown, I think.

Nobody here can tell you that if you run 100 miles a week you will be sub-15, or conversely, that you will almost certainly get injured and burn out. We don't know you. No one knows what it will do to you. I'll preface this by saying that I've run as much as 131 miles in a weekk and have averaged 100-110 mpw for extended periods. This started when I was about 23 and I did it often until I was 28. If I could go back to college, the biggest change I would make would be to run more miles. We only ran 40-50 mpw in college and I was not good. I did not get good and go on to post a 10K time 30 seconds faster than my former university's current record until I consistently ran over 70 mpw. That was like a platform from which I could go on to bigger and better things. In my individual case, the increase was rather quick. After college, I quickly went right up from 40 mpw to 60 mpw. Within a year after that I was doing 70-80 mpw and dabbling up to 100 mpw. Another year and I was often hitting 100 mpw. So 2 years from 40 mpw to frequently 100 mpw -- and going from 2200 miles in a year to 4000 miles in a year. It is IMPORTANT to note that when I did this, I had already been running consistently for a decade -- since age 12. My joints, muscles, tendons, and ligaments had already had time to strengthen and my form was good. In high school, you don't have time in the bank to develop this toughness. So you are more LIKELY to get injured, but not in any way guaranteed. Have you had any injuries? DO you consider yourself injury-prone? People talk about how fast you can get running 100 mpw. That is true. What they typically ignore is that if you currently run 50 mpw, you have a LOT to gain from consistently running 60 mpw, then 70 mpw, then 80 mpw, etc etc. There are gains at all levels. You WILL NOT be as fast running 100 mpw six months from now as you would be running 100 mpw a year from now after spending time at intermediate levels on the way there. In other words, you are increasing the risk of bad things happening (injury, burnout) while giving up some of the gains you could have gotten with less risk. I would recommend working your way up there and see how it goes. Give you body the time to acclimate. If you do 50 mpw now, work up to 70-80 mpw by next summer. Then up to 100 mpw the summer after that. I did my 131 mile week cold-turkey when I was in the 70-80 mpw range. It hurt. A lot. I was always sore, tired, and slow. I likely got little out of those last 30 miles for the work I put in. As for not running 100 mpw in college, if you are running for a GOOD program you will likely be running close to that during cross country and track if you run the 5K/10K. Not-so-good programs get people who showed less talent in high school, and are therefore not going to train them as hard. Good programs also have depth and can afford to injure people on high mileage going for the fastest 7 guys possible, while smaller schools need everyone healthy every week. If you really want to see how good you can be, you need to escalate your mileage in a SMART manner and see what you can handle. You will see best results at the highest mileage that allows you to remain uninjured and recover between workouts. This will differ by individual -- I had a teammate who ran 14:53 and went to Nationals on less than 50 mpw. He could have been a lot better, but he got injured easy and could never do the miles to improve that time. I wish someone had told me all this when I was younger. I could have run 3-4 minutes faster over 10K in college and been comeptitive there, rather than running my best times at age 28 when the team aspect was long gone. 100 is just an arbitrary number. Run smart, not arbitrarily.

Spaniel -- A little off topic, but... When you were (or are!) running 100 or so mile weeks, how many "hard" workouts were you doing and how many easy/recover miles were in that 100? The reason I ask is that I'm increaseing mileage very slowly in preperation for a spring marathon and I I am into the 70-80 MPW range, running 2 hard workouts per week (speed work or a stamina workout), one long run per week (14 - 18 miles) with the rest easy/recovery. I'm likely going to cap the MPW around 90-95 after base building. I've been injury free for a year or so and have seen steady improvement in my 10K times off of mileage in the 55-65 MPW range during 2008. I sometimes wonder if I could see bigger gains by adding a third "hard" workout, but I'm tentative about doing it. I've tried it a few times without problem, but it hasn't been consistent. I know that each runner is different, but in your opinion in terms of risk/reward, is it worth adding a third hard day? Is two hard, plus one long run with rest easy sufficient? Is there much to gain from a third hard day? Any advice/input you've got is greatly appreciated.

Spaniel -- A little off topic, but... When you were (or are!) running 100 or so mile weeks, how many "hard" workouts were you doing and how many easy/recover miles were in that 100? The reason I ask is that I'm increaseing mileage very slowly in preperation for a spring marathon and I I am into the 70-80 MPW range, running 2 hard workouts per week (speed work or a stamina workout), one long run per week (14 - 18 miles) with the rest easy/recovery. I'm likely going to cap the MPW around 90-95 after base building. I've been injury free for a year or so and have seen steady improvement in my 10K times off of mileage in the 55-65 MPW range during 2008. I sometimes wonder if I could see bigger gains by adding a third "hard" workout, but I'm tentative about doing it. I've tried it a few times without problem, but it hasn't been consistent. I know that each runner is different, but in your opinion in terms of risk/reward, is it worth adding a third hard day? Is two hard, plus one long run with rest easy sufficient? Is there much to gain from a third hard day? Any advice/input you've got is greatly appreciated.

Typical work back when I was a real runner M - easiest day; 8-12 miles very easy (6:40-7:00 pace) T - AM - sometimes 4-6 miles easy 6:45-7:05; PM intervals totalling 4-5 miles of volume with a total workout of 9-10 miles W - AM - sometimes 4-8 easy; PM, easy 8-10 miles R - AM - occasionally 4-6 easy; PM medium-long workout 10-14 miles with 4-8 miles of at-pace work (tempo, long fartleks, hard progression etc) F - AM - sometimes 4-8 miles easy; PM 8-10 miles easy Sa - 10-12 miles; sometimes easy, sometimes some moderate effort depending on rest of week's workload Su - long run 16-22 miles; typically 4-8 miles of fast finish/tempo incorporated Total for week - 85-110 miles So Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday were good hard efforts. Saturday could have some work too but I never perfected working in a real 4th workout. I did 3 workouts consistently, and that worked well of me. You just have to try it and see how the recovery works out for you -- if you can do it, you'll reap rewards. To easy into it, reduce the volume on the Tues/Thurs workouts and add back as you acclimate to it. At the beginning of the season, I'd start with 3 miles of intervals but move to 4 quickly. 5 miles was only in the last few sessions before a key racing season when I was in excellent shape and over 100 miles. If we add up all the paced efforts: Tuesday - 4-5 miles Thursday - 4-8 miles Sunday - 4-8 miles Other - 2-3 miles (fast finishes on Sat or other easy runs feeling good) Total - 14-24 miles So out of a 100-mile week, only 15-20% of the miles were really good efforts (marathon paced or faster, I don't believe in doing much work in the dead zone between marathon pace and easy pace).

When I look at anyone doing that much volume I have to ponder the grind of those miles day in and day out. That's the hard part. I can do what I'm doing now without too much issue, my normal morning routine and an additional 4-5 easy miles when I can at noon. But for 100 milers where you're doing 2-3 hours of running every day. Yeesh.