How much is too much?

[clodhopper]

For the elites like Bisto, Oxo, RoadRunner, TGD etc .

And me. Cant I be elite? I have, after all trained my body to withstand the hottest curries available from our local takeaway and can eat vast quantities of Stornaway black pudding

[Big Bad Baz]

And me. Cant I be elite? I have, after all trained my body to withstand the hottest curries available from our local takeaway and can eat vast quantities of Stornaway black pudding

Now you're talking!

[bestathlete]

At present I get between 35 and 45 miles in per week. Also about 60-80 cycling on a sunday.
My road mileage will gently increase from now to early April (for FLM).
For me it's not the total number of miles that matter, rather the effort of each run. Only my +20milers will be easy pace runs and of course even easy pace can get hard to maintain after 2hrs. All other runs will either be interval sessions (currently 3 a fortnight), or midweek long run at just below marathon pace, or short run (5mile) ideally at just above marathon pace)

The most ive ever ran is 63 miles in one week. I have no doubts however that running twice a day is the singlemost best thing anyone can do to improve performance (im talking about a steady 4 or 5 in the morning and whatever you would usually do PM) This would add 20-25 miles PW if you did it say 5x a week. Unfortunately I can't manage to get up early enough to do this myself (have tried). But i have seen major improvement in lads who started to x2/day.

In the past I have suffered with injuries that can be directly attributed to over-mileage (stress fracture, Tendonitis) and I therefore altered my routine accordingly. I now only run 'a long way' every second weekend when marathon training. the other weekend I do 10 very fast, or race. And i only run one day per weekend. I nearly always have Friday as a rest day, unless i'm off work when i train harder than normal.

[ajohns352000]

And me. Cant I be elite? I have, after all trained my body to withstand the hottest curries available from our local takeaway and can eat vast quantities of Stornaway black pudding

Definitely an elite if you can do that

[A.P.E Knott]

My theory is ,you do as little as you can to be as good as you can be.
Meaning,at this present moment i run about 35/40 mpw and come around 6th in v45 at our local fell/trail races .
I know if i increased my mileage to 60/70mpw i may hit the top 3 .
But ,and this is the point, my body will not take this mileage ,others can but i can not.
So the best i can do is the best i can do on 35/40 mpw.

[Penguin]

good question penguin
well ive several times tried to do 60miles a week but with a very hectic job, family, beer nites its fitting it all in
.
my trouble is i go up to this mileage and still try and race every week and i get sick and run down
45 miles a week seems alright with a speedsession thrown in or hillwork

and you

think at present i am averageing 60+ not sure just running on time out, changed me training onto fells so it's taking more out of me at present.. so mon, wed, fri are 1hour plus runs with some nice hills in and amongst.. sat hills and sun long fell run with fog, o and there are more hills on sundays as well..

[RichT]

I think I'm doing quite well training wise at the moment as I'm doing between 12 and 25 miles per week including races. If I run on my own I run as fast as I can, usually because I've got to get back to pick the kids up or for a meal. Forcing myself to run fast on the downs and flats as well as the ups seems to be good for my racing speed.

Agree about climbing - I try to do as much as possible most runs. 2000ft in just over the hour in Lyme Park gets me quite knackered.

Need some longer duration runs before Jura though, trusting that I've got a place!

[IainR]

I do 40 as a bare minimum. But rarely get much over that, early 50's very occassionally breaking 60 mpw. But I also try to maintain 2500m of ascent in that, normally aiming for around 3000-4000m of ascent. Living in Snowdonia that isn't too hard to attain as long as the weather is good.

That's 6 days running and one day football game. So
Sunday long 10 - 20 miles
Monday 6 - 8
Tuesday hill sprints then football training
Wednesday 8 - 10
Thursday 6 - 8 with the club in the hills at night
Friday 6 (or whatevers neccessary to hit target)
Saturday rest day, and football game.

I find that OK to maintain, putting in the quality sprint sessions is the hardest part of the training.

[Madmick]

I'm a mostly 'run as I feel person', I run for 45mins every morning Mon-Fri on different routes on different terrain.

I train for hockey on Mon-Wed nights and play on a Sat so that's my only 'speed' work (mostly all sprinting in physical fitness sessions as part of hockey).

After many strains, I've found that I can't do short track/road speed sessions under 1k as a result of hockey as I keep straining my hamstrings, so do 3 mile sessions as quick as I can on a Thurs night every other week.

I've found that training on undulating routes on the road gives me speed for the fells, rather than purely running in the hills all the time, although my climbing speed is crap, but am deadly in a sprint finish!

[greendale rocket]

i find unless i can achive at least 70 mile per week i am getting no where near my potential,i think to keep running consistant i need to do 75% of my running off road to avoid injury.consistancy is everything when you are a distance runner.