Barry P plan slow runners high miles?

I asked a question similar to this and was told that the numbers of miles are still important.  So, I guess us slower runners just have to spend more time on the road...  

I find this impractical and find an upper limit that comfortable for me, I hope you can do the same.  There are only so many hours in the day.

Few AGers are doing 85-100mi weeks for IMs.  Few are even doing 40-50. 

The Barry P plan works for any runner, but it is geared to running (not triathlon).

Always always always go by time....

a 10 mile run for someone running 6 min miles is VASTLY different than a 10 mile run for someone running 10 min miles.

Always setup your schedule by time.

Of course, once you have a handle on the time/distance correspondence you can set it up by distance....but time is much much easier.

I did my first marathon on ~25 mpw with my longest run at 16 miles (once).  The "race" was 6 weeks after a HIM that I trained for, but never ran more than 10 miles at a time leading up to it.  I finished the marathon in 4:18....which was 2 minutes faster than my goal of 10 minute miles.  I was just running to get a feel for the distance......and I got quite a feel the last 3 miles.   No walking, but pretty miserable.

I'm runing another in April and am at 30-35 mpw now. I have no plans to go over 45 mpw, but my long run will be 20 (3 times).  My goal is 3:50....and then I'll look at a goal of 3:30 and BQ for my age sometime in the Fall. (or next Spring if I thnk I need another marathon before I actually try to "race" one)

I have made steady improvement by running almost never fast.....though this time I do one treadmill interval workout a week, and a "pace" run that I keep at 8:20-8:30.  My long runs have been in the 9:30 range but that has started to creep down as well. (I'm going to make a conscious effort to go back to 9:40 for the long slow runs). (I also bike and swim about 3 hours per week, and trending up)

I can't even remotely fathom a time when I feel the need to run 90-100 miles in a week.....recipe for disaster at this level.

I don't do Barryp's plan, but I do run high volume slowly. 

The plan for me is to get in a ton of base miles at easy peasy pace with 2-3 interval sessions on the bike trainer this winter.  As I get closer to my Ironman slide the running back to 40ish miles per week, add a long bike per week, and kick the swimming up a bit.  I should be bouncing between 15 and 20 hours per week, which is on the higher side but not extremely high for IM training.

One of the hardest things in IM training is figuring out how much of your limited time and training stress to allocate to each of the three disciplines.

His plan can be applied to any level....or any durations.

I don't know any AGers that run 85-100 mpw consistently that are tri training. I don't know many IM AGers that ride minimum 12 hours on the bike and 4 hours swimming a week.

I'd say most IM athletes here on BT average maybe 10-12 hours of training a week. Yes that goes up in build  times before IM, but not that many do 15 hours a week and less 20 hours a week.

I'm slower runner than you and for me frequency and consistency is key to solid IM run. I've done 4 hour runs in first IM build and only benefit was to make me fatigued and unable to do all my workouts.

That is the kind of mileage you'd do if you were only running (not triathlon) and at an elite level. Even if you were just running marathons that would be highly unusual for an AG'er. I have no idea where I'd find the kind of time it would require if I added biking and swimming.

I would choose a run-centric training program which would include tempo and interval training to improve speed on much less mileage. And there is NO WAY I would run 30 miles in one day. Mileage is important but so is quality and focused effort.

I'm honestly not sure where you've been constantly hearing about 85-100 miles for improvement in IM marathon running for an AGer. I've followed most of the running threads here in the past year, and have been more surprised at how low some of the mileage figures are, rather than how high. 80-100 miles practically never comes up for somebody doing all 3 sports; perhaps once or twice for somebody who's doing a run focus and neglecting the other sports, and who's trying out crazy high miles just to see the effects.

You're following a BarryP style plan, so you're already familiar with running just about every day, and you know the claimed benefits of this approach for reducing injury risk. (I do _roughly_ that plan myself, though mixing it up a bit more right now.) To get from there to marathon mileage it's not that hard.

(i) Figure out what you want your longest training run to be. 18 miles? 20 miles? What will your typical long run be during your peak training?
(ii) What percentage of weekly mileage are you willing to have your long run be? In the 1:2:3 plan it's around 30%, and that's a typically recommended ceiling for reducing injury risk. Do you want to follow this figure, or are you willing to roll the dice and have the percentage be a bit higher than that? 

Together, (i) and (ii) will tell you roughly what mileage you need to target for peak marathon training. The rest is filling in details. Or making compromises. If your typical long run will be 18 miles, then that suggests ~55 mpw at peak. Unfortunately, even if there are cross-over aerobic benefits from swimming/biking to running, the only way to prepare for the pounding of running is to run lots. 

If your plan for the IM is to do a substantial mix of running and walking, then that may change the calculations somewhat. I know that a lot of people do IM off much less than 50 mpw. I'll have to leave it to others to say how that might affect the volume needs. Good luck.

I heard the 85-100 mile coments off a link posted here that was on another popular triathlon group.  They were talking about peak mileage not sustained mileage.  I also heard a a lot of the same things when I posted asking about how I can improve my slow running on this board.  Many said 35mpw over 3 runs was not enough.  I needed to split up those runs and increase the mileage to 60 minimum.    To do well even more.

The whole reason I am asking this is because I did my first IM last year. I died on the run. I maxed out my training at 35 mpw with three run workouts.  part of my problem was nutritional (missed a feeding on the bike @ mile 90 ) but I also know fitness played a part.  I am trying to avoid this again.  I am encouraged to hear that most of you are doing well on less.  I'm only doing a 70.3 and a marathon this year  and I hope i can find the time to build to 60 mpw at peak (20,7,10,7,10,7)  We'll see what time allows.  I may need to cut that back to 5 days a week running to allow for adiquite cycling and swimming.

My marathon plan peaked at 40mpw and mostly lived in the 35mpw range...

I train in the 10-11:00min/mile range. I mostly dropped biking and swimming for marathon training.

I wouldn't DREAM of peaking at 85-100mpw for anything. At all. 

60mpw is doable for someone our speed, but I wouldn't count on maintaining swimming and biking through that if you want to have any sort of free time.

I followed this plan last year for a 50K trail race. My highest mileage week was 68. That was plenty for me to PR at the race.

80-100 MPW seem kind of high for just marathon training. Seems crazy if you're training for an IM.

This sounds pretty good. Though I'd suggest one change: try to include at one other "long-ish" run in the week, so that your longest run is not double the second longest run. If you look, for example, at the Pfitzinger marathon plans, he always has a run in the 12-15 range in the week in addition to the longest run. I haven't followed this plan for a marathon yet, but I've ready many comments from folks here who have, and they often report that this medium-long run turned out to be a key part of their training, and it made the long run far more manageable. This is also similar to the distribution of distances in the 1:2:3 plan that many folks here use for shorter distances, including 70.3. In that plan, the longest run of the week is only ever 50% longer than the two next longest runs.

mostly easy, sometimes hard!  Day 54 in a row for me... never been stronger!

It's all about time for me, not miles necessarily.  

Not sure what died means and I have yet to put together a good IM marathon.  I will say maxing out at 35mpw is not enough for an IM or marathon.  But I have seen several of my training partners run sub 4 hour IM marathons by averaging 25-30mpw for at least 6 months and maxing out at 40-45mpw.  What they ALL had in common was superior bike fitness and incredible consistency.  They never have periods of training droughts and usually do a little run focus over the winter months.  If anyone of them could actually swim they would be dangerous!  I don't know what your bike fitness was like, but bonking in the IM marathon can be attributed to about a dozen variables. 

Running more is where I would start, but 85-100 mpw is borderline absurd.  I don't even see pro triathletes approaching that mileage.