Dstew wrote:
I was not really advocating one approach over the other but merely to state that what works great for some does not work for others.
But as you insisted, I went from a max of 70-80 K per week up to 100 K per week with a combination of 10% increase max in mileage and a decrease in speed. To when I hit 100 K, my only concern was mileage and if I did anything it was to make sure my heart rate was less than 60%, etc in order to slow me down. Exactly the same shoes, weather, surface, etc, etc.
I cannot advocate because in my case, when I winged it and ran too hard for too long but with a minimal amount of frequency I was injury free and set personal bests. When I followed a plan and did things by the book, I suffered a number of injuries.
Or to put this another way, it was asked can one reach goals - qualify for Boston - and run relatively injury free with three days of running per week my answer was that I did that and therefore there is at least one exception to the "accepted" way of doing things.
As
I insisted? Are you saying you were following MY plan? If so it is a shame I didn't know!
I wouldn't suggest someone try to keep their HR <60% on easy runs, my basic "easy run" HR range for myself and others is 65-80% of max. I also feel that 10% mileage increase per week is too high to sustain for any length of time for most runners: I argue for runners to start at 5-8% increase on average and monitor how their body reacts. I have SOME speedwork in virtually every runner's plan, and pretty substantial speedwork for ambitious runners who've been running for a while. What you describe doesn't sound much like one of my plans, honestly.
I BQ'd off of 3x per week myself, so I agree one can do it. I know a runner who has run 2:4x on 3 runs per week, so I can't say one can't run "fast" (whatever that means) that way. All I CAN say is I don't know any runners running 3x per week who couldn't improve their running with a WELL PLANNED program with more days/distance. They may exist, but I think it would be an odd physiology: even the 2:4x guy agrees he could go faster with more running, he just doesn't want to drop his other sports. Makes sense to me. There are probably MANY (bad) programs with 4+ days per week that will produce
worse results than a good 3x per week program. I don't advocate a 4, 5 or 6 day a week program
in general, but I do think if one is determined to run to their potential, running more days would be part of it. Other priorities may trump that, though!
(they finish on the same course at scotia; note the different colour bib)
