Forums >General Running>What weekly mileage do you need in order to feel good?
Sultan of slug
I've seen plenty of people allude to a weekly mileage baseline that they need to hit in order to feel strong. What's yours? How has it changed over the years?
I for one feel like my form is out-of-whack if I go for several weeks running fewer than 5 days a week or if my weekly mileage is less than 30.
I've been battling injury this year, and I finally took a few months this spring/summer to run minimal or zero mileage. I then started building back up from 15 miles/week. It took me several weeks to get back to a point where I felt like things were clicking. Just last week I did 50 miles, which makes it one of my highest-mileage weeks ever. I'm sore, but there's spring in my step, and I feel like a beast (and I haven't been running with the Garmin, so I have no evidence that I'm not a blazing fast superstar).
Petco Run/Walk/Wag 5k
Like so many things in life, it depends! Also my favorite answer before retirement! LOL
It used to be ~20-25mi, but may be changing as I train for my first full in Feb. Am using a modified Galloway r/w plan tweaked as necessary for the 6 races in the Austin Distance Challenge. Am listening to Galloway's advice to older farts like me, and Coach Ashley, and putting more recovery time into schedule after long runs - which hit 4hrs time on feet/16 mi this past Sat. To keep my head straight my goal is to run 6hrs in training so I know I can finish no matter what. I might push weekly to 30mi, but have to monitor for injuries that have popped up in the past.
bob e v 2014 goals: keep on running! Is there anything more than that?
Complete the last 3 races in the Austin Distance Challenge, Rogue 30k, 3M Half, Austin Full
Break the 1000 mi barrier!
History: blessed heart attack 3/15/2008; c25k july 2008 first 5k 10/26/2008 on 62nd birthday.
35, to feel strong 70.
Get off my porch
don't feel particularly strong yet. over the last one and a half years i've been increasing weekly mileage steadily with occasional setbacks. shooting for 40-50 per week, see how that feels. maybe go for more if i can find the time.
Funky Kicks 2019
Physically I probably feel best at around 40 miles per week, but mentally I need 50 minimum. I'm happiest at 70 miles per week but have been battling injuries so I haven't seen those kind of miles in a few months.
Leah, mother of dogs
70-80.
Unless recovering or something, I like at least 60 miles a week.
I feel mentally stronger at 70+, but I don't know if that's really strongly tied to physical strength yet, since I'm only about 2.5 years into this running experiment.
"When a person trains once, nothing happens. When a person forces himself to do a thing a hundred or a thousand times, then he certainly has developed in more ways than physical. Is it raining? That doesn't matter. Am I tired? That doesn't matter, either. Then willpower will be no problem." Emil Zatopek
For me - about 5 miles more per week than what I actually did last week!
I always have the feeling - "if I just did a little more I would be so much better off".
For me, I usually feel best right at 40 MPW. If I get to that level and stay there everything seems to click for me...if I'm below that my running isn't that great and I don't fell strong and if I go on up to 45/50 MPW, bad things seem to happen to me.....
As you can see by looking at my log, I'm not feeling all that strong these days.....
Champions are made when no one is watching
I'm normally a 50 mile a week runner. I start feeling PR good at 60 a week. The problem is that I get tired. I wish that didn't happen. The high mileage runners are impressive to me because I can never figure out how to do it.
Around 50 mpw. 80 mpw when training.
The high mileage runners are impressive to me because I can never figure out how to do it.
+1 - I'm right there with you...
Latent Runner
I'm thinking this is more of a psychological versus a physiological question for me.
Currently I'm running between 65 and 75 miles per week, which from a physiological perspective is probably too many for my relatively modest 5K and 10K race goals. That said, last week when I needed to cut my mileage a bit due to giving blood, I actually felt guilty in that I had only managed to run a total of 31.5 mile between Monday and Thursday. I definitely felt better after logging 11, 12.5, 12.5 respectively between Friday and Sunday.
Fat old man PRs:
rather be sprinting
Ummmm I will let you know when I figure this out. In the past, 35-40 has been peak fitness for me (right now it's around 20-25 with 2 days crosstraining swim and bike as I come back from a stress fracture). I tried up to 54, but that didn't end well for me. I think it's harder for me to balance high mileage in my schedule, because weight lifting is also very important to me, and I don't want to sacrifice strength (and speed) for endurance.
But of course my goal races are much shorter than other people's. I don't plan on racing longer than 5k until I'm maybe 40 years old.
In addition, I recently changed my diet to a much higher % of carbohydrate, which should theoretically support more mileage and better recovery--I believe insufficient intake has held me back in the past.
PRs: 5k 19:25, mile 5:38, HM 1:30:56
Lifting PRs: bench press 125lb, back squat 205 lb, deadlift 245lb
Walk-Jogger
I like to aim for 50 miles per week, but I also like to keep my average running speed at or faster than my marathon race pace; looking back over my log for the past year it appears that I've only done 50 miles or more on 21 weeks. Six weeks were over 60 miles, but it seems like each time I get up to 60+ miles I have to follow it with a cut-back week due to fatigue. I think I feel stronger when I cut back from 50 to 35-40 miles per week just because I need the rest.
Retired & Loving It