running question

mpw = miles per week... right?

So you want to run 50 miles a week, or 200 miles a month?

Are you at the level now to jump up to running 50 miles a WEEK?

*Edit* looked at your logs... you are running 40-50 miles a MONTH right now. Probably wouldn't be wise to triple your running miles so quickly.





Edited by KSH 2009-08-21 2:41 PM

200 miles a month is what I prescribe for someone going for a really solid marathon time and wants to focus on running only.  Even if you are running 7:30 splits, that is still over 6 hours of running a week.  And not many people here train that fast, so add more time for slower runners.  You're talking almost 8 hours for someone who runs 9:00 miles.

But to answer your question.  I am a believer in 4+ to improve, 3 to maintain.  That is 4 or more focused and consistent workouts to improve overall abilities at a sport and 3 to maintain the fitness level you've gained over time.

It takes anywhere from 6 - 8 weeks to reap full benefit from a training phase and it would take the average person about 8 weeks just to ramp up from 20 miles a week to 40 miles a week (using the generic 10% rule of thumb).  That is a long time just to get your mileage up to that level.  So doing a run focused 16 - 18 week block would work in building up and seeing a decent amount of gains.

Of course, at the end of that you are probably trained well enough to run a marathon

Edited by Daremo 2009-08-21 2:53 PM

I would say 25mpw would be sufficient to maintain your run fitness throughout the tri season. But certainly agree with Karen that you should approach that 50MPW gradually and cautiously.

After you "get up to 50 mpw over the winter and maintain that for a couple months," you should be folding in more quality workouts as well, strides, hill work, tempo runs, as you cut back and maintain.

I think it depends on what you're aiming for when you get back are you looking to keep your pace or your endurance?

Pace wise it's possible to keep those gains you make (if any) and it will depend on how you train.   I am no coach but i did do a variety of shorter distance this year after coming off three consecutive marathon training cycles i kept up some intensity to keep up the pace and focus on some shorter distance while building for Tris.

As for the endurance or longer distance part all i would say is that you 'might' lose some but it could probably come back more quickly if your overall fitness is good.  I've had several cutbacks this year and am now back to marathon length long runs - no significant problems but then this is my fifth year of running (it's the tri thing that's new to me).

In the last year my paces have gotten significantly faster over all distances (and i've raced 30k, 21.1, 10k and 5k this year) and i can credit that consistent effort, speed and tempo work oh and some time spent just taking it easy and running for fun!

Best of luck.

Edited by juniperjen 2009-08-21 2:56 PM

Yes, miles per week.
Sorry, I'm not talking about tripling my miles quickly.. I'm training for a half marathon now (that is the end of Oct) then continuing to increase mileage conservatively as I train for a May 2010 full marathon (which will be my 5th full), I've been running for 10+ years.

My question was how quickly and how much I'll lose my run fitness when I cut back the mileage again when adding tri training back into the mix.  I guess you could apply the question to any of the three sports.. if you focus solely on one for X months is it worth it, how much do you retain when you then cut back to add in the other two disciplines?

i think you can cut back from 50mpw to 25-30 of solid quality work, along with the other tri training, and maintain and possibly even improve a bit. thats a lot of extra training + the running in there.

X2 to all of this.

That's pretty much where I went in transitioning to tri training originally:  I'd trained at up to 42 mpw (running only) and eventually dropped down to the 15-30 mpw range now (depending on whether I have a mary or HM coming up).  I've taken more than an hour off my marathon PR since making that transition, so you definitely can hold onto run fitness on reduced mileage.  IMO (and I guess bear's as well) the key is mixing up your run workouts very purposefully so that you don't waste any of your limited run training sessions.  When you're running 40-50 mpw, you can get by with (and even benefit a bit from) a lot of fairly generic "junk mileage" workouts...at least in my experience.

It's not like you would be eliminating the run altogether, or cutting back to minimal training: running 25mpw is nothing to sneeze at. My impression us that 75% or more of the folks on here don't run 25 mpw on a regular basis, and many of those do IM-distance races.

IMHO the cycling equivalent would be to ask how much your cycling would suffer if you cut back to 100 mpw after a few months of 200. Again I would think your cycling would benefit from the period of higher volume and not suffer at all at the lower level, provided you are doing quality workouts,

Thanks bear (and other responders)... that's what I was asking and I see that the answer would be to keep the 'quality' of the running (or cycling) workouts once you cut back the mileage, which makes perfect sense.