Quick Guide 2: Volume

The first question every runner asks their coach is how many miles they should run each week. It varies a lot, depending upon the runner and the race they train for. Let's consider a couple of examples first.

Derek Clayton, Steve Jones

Clayton, right

Jones

Derek Clayton dropped the marathon world record from 2:12 to 2:08 in the 1960's. He trained at least 140 miles per week, often 170 and peaked over 200. His record stood so long that people thought whoever beat it would have to train even more.

Steve Jones ran a 2:07 world record marathon on almost exactly half the mileage Clayton did. He did it with far fewer long runs and far more track work. In "The Lore of Running," Tim Noakes says that Clayton, who had a short career plagued by injuries, ran too much and should have run more like Jones.

Clayton had a VO2max of 71.6, which is typical of 2:30 marathoners (male or female), but he could run at a very high percentage of that for two hours. He was able to do that because his training runs were typically 17 miles "at breakneck speed." I think that had he run less, he would've been a 2:13-2:16 marathoner - which most people would be happy with! - and be a footnote in Australian Olympic history.

On the other hand, some would say: imagine how fast Jones would have been had he trained like Clayton! I think he would've burned out and slowed and probably never raced well again.

Juantorena, Coe, Ovett

Juantorena

 

Seb Coe, center, Steve Ovett, left

 Alberto Juantorena, a converted 400m sprinter who set the 800m world record in the 1970's, has said he never ran more than 1000 km in a year. If we assume he had an off-season and he wasn't including his warm-up or cool-down, he might have run as much as 30 miles per week. His record was broken in the 1980's by Sebastian Coe, who ran 50-70 miles per week (different sources give different numbers). Coe's rival, Steve Ovett, was probably, like me, best at 3K, a distance rarely raced; he once reportedly ran 130 miles in a week and 90-100 was not uncommon. I doubt any of them would have thrived on the others' training.

Base training

Here's what I suggest to start getting ready for racing a variety of distances:

1) Run at least 30 minutes every time you run.
2) Run as many days per week as possible.
3) Do not run more than twice per day.
[I never thought that was an issue until someone did it.]
4) Try to build your time spent running until you average an hour per day (6.5 to 7.5 hours per week) for 6 to 8 weeks.

I can already hear the complaints! "That's way too much. I couldn't do that without getting hurt. That's just that 1960's long slow distance Lydiard thing." Even if you don't try it, at least consider it and keep reading.

There is a tiny amount of science and a lot of anecdotal evidence supporting running for an hour. Each mile you run helps, but each mile helps less than the previous one, giving diminishing returns. Each mile run also increases the risk of injury more than the one before it does. The "sweet spot" seems to be about an hour for most runners - but there's a lot of variation.

Most people run much less than this and some run very well on less. At age 17, I ran a marathon in 3:05 doing less and Strava has reported that people who logged a sub-3 marathon averaged less than this. I'm guessing most could've run faster had they run more (I ran a 2:42 at age 19 on 70 miles per week).

Even if you don't do it, consider how you would do it. A pure ultramarathoner might run 4 hours on a Saturday and find that that leaves him 1/2 an hour per day for 6 days, then the following Saturday run 2.5 hours, on Sunday run 2 hours and then 1/2 an hour per day the rest of the week. [In fact, this is a pretty good plan for ultras.] A pure sprinter has no need to run more than half an hour and would end up running 30 minutes per day twice a day, every day. Of course, most people will run a variety of distances. I once gave an athlete this challenge and she set the timer on her treadmill for an hour and stepped off it the second the bell rang, every day for 42 days and then asked me "okay, now what?" While that was hardly ideal, I could work with it. I have a favorite way to schedule a week and it will become apparent by the time I finish this series.

Pace

The next question is: how fast should one run in training? If one runs 7 hours per week, most runners have a typical training pace about a minute per mile slower than their marathon pace or 1.5 minutes per mile slower than their 10K pace (or about 1.5 times their mile race pace). Those who run less, run a little faster, but not much faster, maybe 15-30 seconds per mile faster.

Building base

I'm suggesting what's probably a huge increase in mileage for many runners. A few people can double their mileage all at once and only struggle for the first week or two; they seem to be the exception, as most people get injured if they increase too much too fast. What seems to work is a gradual build-up, increasing weekly mileage no more than 10% and not more than once every three or four weeks; in addition, backing off by 20-40% one week out of 3 or 4 seems to reduce the risk of injury. I found that a change of 5 minutes per day was significant and the easiest way to increase mileage is to squeeze in one more workout each week, but others find two-a-days seem like constantly changing clothes and showering for little time spent running.

The easiest way to run further is to run a little slower. If you find your average pace has slowed 30 seconds per mile for more than three weeks or more than a minute per mile for an entire week, however, back off! You're trying to do too much too soon.