2 Questions Regarding Mileage

[Garrett]

1) For those that have done high mileage training (and maybe even those who haven't) have you ever reached a point where you've experienced diminishing returns to the extent that adding more mileage was no longer worth it?

2) Have you found an ideal mileage number that allows for the highest fitness level while limiting your chance of setback (injury, burnout, etc)?

Feel free to answer either of these with "relax, just go out and run."

[Jwolf]

You'll probably get a lot of very detailed answers, but I'd say that it's hard to get a lot out of them without knowing very specifically about someone's background, experience, and the relative intensity of their runs. In my experience, injuries don't come from mileage but from too much intensity relative to your total mileage, and/or trying to build up mileage too quickly. Everyone experiences plateaus in training, so you might seem like you've hit a point of limiting returns, but if you had the time to safely keep increasing you could still improve.

But to quickly answer, even though I haven't really done high mileage yet... (and hopefully give a bit of context): my answer to both questions would be "no". My best training season by far was in spring 2007 when I didn't really try to build up to any specific peak, but I averaged about 70K/week in the meat of my training (peaked at about 85K). I was training for a 10K and a half-marathon. I didn't feel like I reached a limit. When I trained for a marathon in 2008 I hit about 90K/week (averaging at about 80K in the peak weeks). I definitely would have benefited from more, but was short on time.

[Pat Menzies]

It is unlikely that the average runner is ever going to reach the point of diminishing returns as far as miles go.
Most top athletes and coaches would list 70-75 miles as the point of diminishing returns but everyone goes beyond that because diminished returns are better than a plateau.
If you ask everyone on here to compare performances in relation to miles covered there will be a direct correlation.

[ian]

Yes, high mileage training is a game of diminishing returns -- the easiest improvements are behind you and it's going to take more effort to carve out some additional improvements. Whether these improvements are worth pursuing is entirely dependent on your own situation.

"Ideal mileage" is a number that will vary from individual to individual, but I would contend that it can also vary over time, either as your body gradually adapts to training or as you find yourself rebuilding from injury setbacks. As recently as three years ago, a big training week for me was 4 runs and 70K; any more and I'd feel worn out. This year I've averaged about 6/110K and had a few weeks as high as 7/160K. My keys have been:
- Patience (it takes more than a few months to build a running base)
- Speed restraint (it's safer to build mileage with mostly easy running than with too many tempos, intervals, and hills)
- Consistency (I don't take extended breaks after goal races or in the off-season and then have to restart)
- Fun (LSDs are an opportunity to chat with friends).

[MichaelMc]

I agree with Pat and Jennifer

To be technical I'd say you get diminishing returns after mile one. Sounds trite perhaps, but I really don't believe in some "tipping point" where suddenly there is no point in running more. Elites have built themselves up to the point where some can run staggering weekly mileage, and they don't do it because they like it, they do it because they think it'll make them better. While building up mileage safely to match these Elites distances would NOT result in similar times for 99.99% of us, it'd almost certainly result in MUCH faster times than we currently run. In reality most of us have other priorities in our lives, like clothing family members and food on the table... other interests even!

You can't isolate mileage, but if you could I'm sure you'd see a curve with less and less additional gain from every mile run. The benefits gained might still be very significant to each individual, though.

I ran a 3:19 marathon with a 10 week average training mileage of ~40km and a peak of 50km

3:10 with ~50km/week avg and peak of 60-65km

3:08 with ~75km and 85 (probably would have done better, but injury intervened)

2:59 with 105km/week and 115km

2:57 with the same as above

One should remember that accumulated mileage also counts for something: you can probably make gains for a long time off of one mileage jump. Bear in mind also that many, many other factors than mileage were involved in those times.

Some people may be more durable than others, but honestly I suspect that with proper care most of us could remain healthy and run MUCH more than we currently do. You may not HAVE the body for it, but you could probably build it if it mattered enough to you.

[Kristen]

I'll be following this thread closely as someone who is currently adding mileage. I really don't have anything to offer this conversation at this point, as I'm still on a 'voyage of discovery.' But I do wonder about the same things you're wondering... and I'm almost hyper-conscious right now about the right amount of increase each week, as well as the volume of quality workouts as I build mileage. I'm working on decreasing the latter for a bit and having more fun.

Edit: and reading a lot more...

[bruyere]

I've pretty much always been a chronic low-milrage runner... as in, lower than I should be. I always thought I wouldn't or couldn't run more (probably more about laziness than anything else).

Then one year, I increased my mileage before a marathon and PBd by 14 minutes or something like that.

This spring, I hit 200k in a month for the first time ever and made it to a 1:39:56 half marathon. I'd thought that was ridiculous mileage that I could never do - I'd thought it was unreasonable and insane when I set out.

This year, I've hit 70k/+ week several times and it was no big deal. No injuries, no great fatigue, and a couple of pretty good race results. If you count my speed work, this week, I should hit 80-90km. The results remain to be seen....

As for "just relax and run"... this and "just shut up and run" are things that have been told to me a fair bit! There might be something to it.

ETA: Yeah, OK, I have a feeling that didn't really answer your question at all! But hey, it's input....

[dgrant]

2) Have you found an ideal mileage number that allows for the highest fitness level while limiting your chance of setback (injury, burnout, etc)?

For me right now this seems to be 80-90km/wk, but that's dependent on so many other factors. What's the pace of those runs? Is that 7 runs in the week or split up among 9 or 10 runs in the week? How often am I taking cutback weeks? What was the previous week's long run distance? (I seem to bounce back better when a long run is no more than 25-30% of the week's mileage.) Where's my weight at?

So many considerations, but I can definitely attest to the relationship between more mileage and better results.

I've only had a few 100km weeks and they felt fine. I'm not sure why I didn't maintain them... my log notes don't seem very thorough.

[Doonst]

I've only had a few 100km weeks and they felt fine. I'm not sure why I didn't maintain them... my log notes don't seem very thorough.

yer a bum?

[eljeffe]

1) For those that have done high mileage training (and maybe even those who haven't) have you ever reached a point where you've experienced diminishing returns to the extent that adding more mileage was no longer worth it?

2) Have you found an ideal mileage number that allows for the highest fitness level while limiting your chance of setback (injury, burnout, etc)?

Feel free to answer either of these with "relax, just go out and run."

By running more are you guaranteed to run faster? No, it would depend on what you were doing. My "diminishing return" is getting hurt or burnt out when I add in too many junk miles. Higher mileage helps my endurance at the expense of my top speed. I consider my "fitness" to be a careful balance between the two.

My ideal mileage is however much it took to do my workouts properly that week. Right now I'm doing mainly zone 5 max effort running, and my mileage is much lower than it was when I was doing mostly zone 1 easy running. I'm getting fast though.

[MichaelMc]

My "diminishing return" is getting hurt or burnt out when I add in too many junk miles. Higher mileage helps my endurance at the expense of my top speed.

What are those?

I've never found any kind of running I could add to my program that makes me slower, barring injury, and the more I've run the less I've been injured. Of course I add miles carefully.

Do you think you lose speed temporarily because you are tired, or do you think running these miles actually makes you slower?

[QuickChick]

I found I couldn't run as hard when I was running more miles in the summer. When I was running 80+ a week my "steady pace" was consistently 10-15 seconds slower than it was in the spring when I was doing 60-70. Probably over time I would be able to build to more while still doing good interval workouts and tempo runs. I like the "just run" attitude- works for me.

[Garrett]

By running more are you guaranteed to run faster? No, it would depend on what you were doing. My "diminishing return" is getting hurt or burnt out when I add in too many junk miles. Higher mileage helps my endurance at the expense of my top speed. I consider my "fitness" to be a careful balance between the two.

My ideal mileage is however much it took to do my workouts properly that week. Right now I'm doing mainly zone 5 max effort running, and my mileage is much lower than it was when I was doing mostly zone 1 easy running. I'm getting fast though.

Had you not put in so many hours cross training earlier and focused solely on running would you have approached your training any differently? Is cross training a substitution for junk miles?

[Pat Menzies]

Any type of hard running is going to temporarily suppress performance. If you do a long run you're not going to be ready to sprint the next day. The reverse is also true but people care less if their long slow run is slower than normal.
Increased miles gets a bad rap for "making me slower" because you shouldn't be trying to get faster at the same time that you are increasing miles. You should be working on areas where you can still hit goal paces.
You may find that you are slower in workouts when your mileage is higher but as long as the right stress is on your body, you're accomplishing the same thing.

[Robbie-T]

Any type of hard running is going to temporarily suppress performance. If you do a long run you're not going to be ready to sprint the next day. The reverse is also true but people care less if their long slow run is slower than normal.
Increased miles gets a bad rap for "making me slower" because you shouldn't be trying to get faster at the same time that you are increasing miles. You should be working on areas where you can still hit goal paces.
You may find that you are slower in workouts when your mileage is higher but as long as the right stress is on your body, you're accomplishing the same thing.

I agree, This is how I've always trained, as long as my effort level was at the right spot then I wasn't so worried if my paces were a bit off. In time and with repeated workouts, the effort level stays the same and the pace slowly gets faster.

It has a lot to do with consistency and training your body to accept change.

[eljeffe]

My "diminishing return" is getting hurt or burnt out when I add in too many junk miles. Higher mileage helps my endurance at the expense of my top speed.

What are those?

I've never found any kind of running I could add to my program that makes me slower, barring injury, and the more I've run the less I've been injured. Of course I add miles carefully.

Do you think you lose speed temporarily because you are tired, or do you think running these miles actually makes you slower?

I define junk miles as a workout that doesn't fit into my "long run,tempo run, interval run, hill run, progression run, recovery run" idealogy. Basically a workout I don't need to do, that would compromise my scheduled "long run,tempo run, interval run, hill run, progression run, or recovery run" by making me unable to perform it to my standards. Will it make me slower temporarily? Yes. Will it make me faster in the long run? You tell me. I see you are very consistent in your running, putting up virtually the same marathon times the last couple years. That's fantastic, but I don't want to run another 3:02, or dual 2:57s, or whathaveyou when I know I haven't even come close to a plateau yet. Getting faster requires speed work, and the process is accelerated if you put more into it. Or at least this has been the case with me. Of course I don't mean to compare our running as I am well aware it's apples and oranges and my off season running results are just fun numbers to put into my triathlon training next season.

By running more are you guaranteed to run faster? No, it would depend on what you were doing. My "diminishing return" is getting hurt or burnt out when I add in too many junk miles. Higher mileage helps my endurance at the expense of my top speed. I consider my "fitness" to be a careful balance between the two.

My ideal mileage is however much it took to do my workouts properly that week. Right now I'm doing mainly zone 5 max effort running, and my mileage is much lower than it was when I was doing mostly zone 1 easy running. I'm getting fast though.

Had you not put in so many hours cross training earlier and focused solely on running would you have approached your training any differently? Is cross training a substitution for junk miles?

I don't really consider triathlon training cross training, because out of a 20 hour training week, maybe only 5 hours of that were spent running and each bike or swim workout has threshold, tempo, endurance, or some sort of structure and purpose to it. In this off season (an off season where I'm not doing Ironman next season), I'm not cycling or swimming with any structure. My running has structure and I am focusing on what I need to do to get faster, while maintaining my endurance.

[VeloCarrie]

Any type of hard running is going to temporarily suppress performance. If you do a long run you're not going to be ready to sprint the next day. The reverse is also true but people care less if their long slow run is slower than normal.
Increased miles gets a bad rap for "making me slower" because you shouldn't be trying to get faster at the same time that you are increasing miles. You should be working on areas where you can still hit goal paces.
You may find that you are slower in workouts when your mileage is higher but as long as the right stress is on your body, you're accomplishing the same thing.

I agree, This is how I've always trained, as long as my effort level was at the right spot then I wasn't so worried if my paces were a bit off. In time and with repeated workouts, the effort level stays the same and the pace slowly gets faster.

It has a lot to do with consistency and training your body to accept change.

I belong to the church of Robbie -T. I've only been running for a year and a half, but haven't been getting any faster this summer. With this 100 day challenge and the increase in miles this past month, I've noticed an increase in stamina and getting faster, even in my slower runs. I am getting a lot of information on this thread - thanks for contributing to it!

PS. Running to me isn't just a sport. I don't think any miles are "junk miles." IMHO. Just getting out and enjoying yourself and escaping the daily grind really helps overall mentally, I find.

[Kristen]

PS. Running to me isn't just a sport. I don't think any miles are "junk miles." IMHO. Just getting out and enjoying yourself and escaping the daily grind really helps overall mentally, I find.

+1 x 1000!

[MichaelMc]

Will it make me faster in the long run? You tell me. I see you are very consistent in your running, putting up virtually the same marathon times the last couple years. That's fantastic, but I don't want to run another 3:02, or dual 2:57s, or whathaveyou when I know I haven't even come close to a plateau yet. Getting faster requires speed work, and the process is accelerated if you put more into it. Or at least this has been the case with me. Of course I don't mean to compare our running as I am well aware it's apples and oranges and my off season running results are just fun numbers to put into my triathlon training next season.

My experience is that more miles does indeed result in better times. Eventually we will all plateau regarless what we put into it, but age will probably dictate that rather than some arbitrary mileage. I agree completely that speedwork is an essential part of getting the most out of training. Mileage alone will produce results, but IMHO speedwork adds elements mileage can't. For that reason I've always had significant speedwork in my programs and an element of it in the program of everyone I've worked with. Wouldn't be surprized if I have more total speedwork in my program than you have in yours, although the percentage would likely be lower. Either way, I have as much in there as I believe I can benefit from.

Sorry you think my progress has stopped; I don't see it that way. I've PR'd in each of my past 4 marathons in addition to setting Mile, 5k, 10k, 15k, 10 mile and half marathon PRs this year. Not TOO bad for a 46 year old. I don't think the term "junk miles" has any validity: basically every mile you run that does not injure you contributes something. I do believe "the process is accelerated if you put more into it": once you have put in as much speedwork as your body can adapt to (not just "handle") then easy mileage is what one should add if they want to accelerate the process IMHO.

Funnily enough any triathlons I do are just off season fun for my running. This year is my adventure race year though. I'll see if I can help win the Sinister Seven team title again and take on Death Race Solo. I'll continue to enjoy your progress vicariously.

[eljeffe]

Wouldn't be surprized if I have more total speedwork in my program than you have in yours, although the percentage would likely be lower. Either way, I have as much in there as I believe I can benefit from.

Sorry you think my progress has stopped; I don't see it that way. I've PR'd in each of my past 4 marathons in addition to setting Mile, 5k, 10k, 15k, 10 mile and half marathon PRs this year. Not TOO bad for a 46 year old. I don't think the term "junk miles" has any validity: basically every mile you run that does not injure you contributes something. I do believe "the process is accelerated if you put more into it": once you have put in as much speedwork as your body can adapt to (not just "handle") then easy mileage is what one should add if they want to accelerate the process IMHO.

Funnily enough any triathlons I do are just off season fun for my running. This year is my adventure race year though. I'll see if I can help win the Sinister Seven team title again and take on Death Race Solo. I'll continue to enjoy your progress vicariously.

In fact I would be shocked if you didn't have an exponentially higher percentage of speed work in your program, the reason being I did ziltch for RVM this year... not a single track workout, and just the one hill workout. I had planned to, and then was advised against it by virtually everyone including Ian and my coach. They all said the dangers of bumping up the training during the recovery phase from Ironman would be counterproductive. So I basically did just as much volume as I could handle, and that worked OK for that race. I don't think I performed anywhere near potential as far as execution was concerned, but that's another story. I'm now completely recovered from Ironman and ready to start doing the speedwork again.

I did do lots of speed work for my Boston training though. I was often surprised to see that with warm up, cool down, and recovery intervals, a track workout could be 18-20k. I also noted at that time that it was the miles I didn't run, that made the miles I did run count for more. I remember at that time Robbie-T telling me that it's good to be able to hit those paces on tired legs, but I couldn't help but think what kind of paces I'd be hitting if my legs weren't quite so tired.

This time I'm more inclined to take an extra full rest day off per week if it means I'll be running that much harder in training.

And one last thing about plateauing. It doesn't mean you've maxed out your potential, just the potential of your current methods. To me it means shake things up, and in my case it's helped me get out of my rut of running the same 40 minute 10k every time. I just hope I'm running shades of what your doing when I get THAT old.

[Pat Menzies]

So you're saying you ran faster than ever when you didn't do speed work?
You will find that when you max out the ability you have to get your legs moving faster that it will be volume and the capability of higher volume to support a correspondingly higher percentage of speed work that keeps your performance improving.
Your raw speed won't actually improve that much but your paces will start carrying over to the distance above. You will hold your old 5km pace for 10km, 10km speed will carry over for the half etc.

[eljeffe]

So you're saying you ran faster than ever when you didn't do speed work?
You will find that when you max out the ability you have to get your legs moving faster that it will be volume and the capability of higher volume to support a correspondingly higher percentage of speed work that keeps your performance improving.
Your raw speed won't actually improve that much but your paces will start carrying over to the distance above. You will hold your old 5km pace for 10km, 10km speed will carry over for the half etc.

Technically, yes, but we have to remember that I was doing bike speed work and there is some crossover there. I think my coach was more trying to make me into an efficient runner capable of running well after a hard bike ride, than just a pure faster runner. I don't fully understand all the concepts my coach was using just yet, with the accumulated fatigue and crossover between cycling/running, but I do know they seemed to work. I used to say "I can't hit my A pace, but I can run my B pace all day long.". I used to struggle holding 4:30/k, but now I can probably hold that for 4 hours. I want to be able to hold 4:00/k for 3 hours.

But to get back to the thought of "You will hold your old 5km pace for 10km, 10km speed will carry over for the half etc." theory, yes that's true, but I need to go back a step and get my 5k speed up higher as that's currently my limiting factor. This was recently confirmed when I tested at the Peak Centre For Performance. The physiologist said "you need speed work, right now, and fast".

Another point/tidbit: when I was bike training with this really fast triathlete friend of mine, and trying to hang on his back wheel during sprint intervals we were noticing that I was overtraining because I couldn't get into my max heart rate and he could. I've found in the past 2 weeks here, that my max heart rate is actually higher than I previously thought! I hit 186 in training this week, when before the highest I'd ever seen was 182. In my 5k race last weekend I hit 185. I could not get up that high if I was fatigued, typically 177 was the highest I'd ever see in big volume weeks.

[Dstew]

I can only speak from my own experience.

At 40-50 kilometers per week with a max of 70, I qualified for Boston twice and so being able to do that and still have time for golf and other activities, that was perfect for me.

Did attempt to see how fast I could go and worked my way up to 100 kilometers per week. The result was a stress fracture and I seemed to follow the research that suggested that once someone suffers such an injury that the threshold for injury also lowers. Add in my height and weight of 5'11' and a weight of 185- 195, eventually even 40-50 kilometers per week started to catch up with me. My theory is the accumulated damage has gotten to a point that my body is no longer willing to tell the difference between hurt and harm. Thus I am quite happy at 20 - 30 kilometers per week with a max of around 40 and adjusted my racing plans to focus on the sprint trail races in my area.

My theory is that if I lost weight and built up my core and other muscles at the same time and took a very gradual build up of miles that I might even be able to go back to 100 kilometers per week or more and then see how fast I could really go but ... have no interest in that.


From my research after I got hurt would seem to indicate that the law of diminishing returns is properly framed as the extra miles adds a significant risk of injury when compared to the additional running benefits. And even when done properly there are so many factors including genetics that come into play so that it is impossible to say where that threshold is for the individual.

[La]

Any type of hard running is going to temporarily suppress performance. If you do a long run you're not going to be ready to sprint the next day. The reverse is also true but people care less if their long slow run is slower than normal.
Increased miles gets a bad rap for "making me slower" because you shouldn't be trying to get faster at the same time that you are increasing miles. You should be working on areas where you can still hit goal paces.
You may find that you are slower in workouts when your mileage is higher but as long as the right stress is on your body, you're accomplishing the same thing.

I agree, This is how I've always trained, as long as my effort level was at the right spot then I wasn't so worried if my paces were a bit off. In time and with repeated workouts, the effort level stays the same and the pace slowly gets faster.

It has a lot to do with consistency and training your body to accept change.

I belong to the church of Robbie -T. I've only been running for a year and a half, but haven't been getting any faster this summer. With this 100 day challenge and the increase in miles this past month, I've noticed an increase in stamina and getting faster, even in my slower runs. I am getting a lot of information on this thread - thanks for contributing to it!

PS. Running to me isn't just a sport. I don't think any miles are "junk miles." IMHO. Just getting out and enjoying yourself and escaping the daily grind really helps overall mentally, I find.

There are two kinds of "getting faster", IMO.

The first kind is what Carrie is describing: as you do more mileage and build up your endurance you will get "faster" because your pace will fade less as your runs progress. This happens to most new runners (in the first couple of years) as they get generally fitter and build up muscle endurance.

The second kind speed improvements happen with training focused specifically on getting faster (speed work, tempos, hills, intervals, etc.). There are many ways of going about it depending on how much time/energy you want to devote to it.

Oh, I just thought of a third (which applies to me, and could be a combo of the above two): losing weight! As I lost weight I was able to run "faster" for the same perceived effort. Training faster allowed me to race faster, too. Your weight loss can be as a result of increased calorie-burn (more training), or a calorie-reduced diet, or a combination of both.