RunnersRoundTable included a link to a “brilliant” post that discusses the importance of mileage in preparing for a marathon. There, after noting the low-mileage/high-mileage (relative terms for sure) debate, it is written:
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I believe the conventional high mileage training is the way to go. Not only do the additional miles increase the endurance capabilities of the athlete, but the higher mileage training is conducive to to faster speeds on the road as well. It is debatable whether this extra training increases the risk for injuries, which is a legitimate concern. As long as you run with correct form, slow down on easy/recovery runs and keep long runs at a comfortable pace, injuries shouldn’t happen which means that if you are getting them at a somewhat consistent basis, the thing to do is to find out what mechanistically and physiologically is wrong and deal with them, rather that make adjustments to running less [fewer] miles.
These are sentiments with which I have noted once or twice I am in agreement.
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September 17, 2009 at 8:06 am
Jake
Agreed. I used to believe I was injury prone, and would stick to running as few days as possible. But when I tried adding more miles at an easy pace (which I had to teach myself was much slower than I though), most of my problems cleared up.
My new motto: Most problems can be solved with more mileage!
September 17, 2009 at 10:04 am
Daniel
Oh my, that is ironic given cross-blog conversations prior to Boston this year.
High mileage totally makes sense to me. Year-round high mileage makes even more sense. But for me, either because I’m a rookie or because I’m over 40, or both, I’ve had to keep my mileage low to avoid injury this year. Over the last months I’ve had to sit out for weeks every time I (slowly, cautiously) approached 50 m/w. So for now I’m only running 3 days a week and recovering 4.
Still, after the NYC marathon I’m training for, I’m thinking about running easy miles on consecutive days and boosting the m/w. I’ve been training on the razor’s edge between injury and not-injury for a few months and I’d like to steer farther into the safe zone next year.
September 17, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Runnermatt
The “debate” aspect of the show is a bit specious. Is there really a debate if one wants to run a 3:30 marathon or a 3:00 marathon? The only question is really how much time can you devote to running and generally that is not a debate.
What I do question is whether the improvement with more mileage is linear. Of the 2 marathons for which I’ve trained.
Denver 06’ – averaged 27.4 mpw in the 10 weeks prior (not counting 2 week taper)=3:14:13
Boston 08’- average 41.4 mpw 10 weeks prior (not counting 2 wee taper) = 3:09:32
Granted Boston may not be the best example but my time there wasn’t even as good as what the altitude conversion would be for my Denver time. Of course this year was to be the true test running 50+ mpw leading up to the Denver Marathon this year.
September 18, 2009 at 2:53 am
Ewen
For the best possible marathon, mileage is hard to beat. For older runners competing in shorter races (10k down), I’m not convinced. I’m thinking now that training to retain (as much as possible) speed, “spring”, range of movement, recovery, is more important than mileage.
There’s also the fact that older (and slower) runners take longer to run their mileage.
It’s interesting that Steve Moneghetti at 47 is arguably running as well as he did when he was an elite marathoner (30:00 now for 10k), but off less mileage – 140k/week now vrs 200+k/week then. Although now his longest race distance is the half marathon.