mlyonsdc wrote:
One of my best friends did just this, just this year. 45 yo male no significant running history what so ever other than recreational fitness over the last few years. Ran his first marathon (2nd ever race) in April at 4:03 BQed in Sept with 3:22 then backed it up in Nov with 3:11 which now gets him early registration for Boston. He only runs 3 days a week and maybe 25 mpw. He does one track interval workout one hill repeat and one long run in which he pushes pace. Lifts weights and rides spin bike the other days of the week. He was just as fat and slow as me 6 months ago and I have been at this a lot longer than him! To make it even more interesting he is doing all this on a mostly ketogenic diet, but that's a whole other topic and thread!!
There are are a surprising number of people who can run BQ marathon on low volume.
Particularly if they drop a lot of weight. The point isn't that one can't run well on low volume. It's just that its' not the first way to go when performance becomes your concern.
(In other words, "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet.")
Quote:
I have tried many times to run 5-6 days consistently and can never seem to be able to do it and when I do I can not seem to get any quality running in. I think I would not only feel better but also get higher quality workouts with 3-4 quality runs in a week than 5-6 runs when most of the time I am tired and slow. IDK, my buddy is really making me re-think the process including my diet.
If 5 to 6 days a week of consistent easy running is making you feel worn down something is wrong. It could be any number of things but the most common is this I see this story all the time:
Runner X does 3 days per week at... let's say 7 minutes per mile for a few months with some consistency. Usually he's new to the sport but sometimes he's someone who is just new to that sort of consistency over months. Eventually his race results show improvement. He gets excited at the improvement. I suggest he aim for some volume. I tell him to take the extra mileage easy.
After a few weeks, he feels worn down. Runs go poorly. He doesn't like running so much anymore. "I just can't handle high mileage". I make sure to let him know he's supposed to be running that extra mileage easy. "Oh I am, so easy. I just not built for it"
Sometimes that's the end of the story. But if he keeps a running log and actually lets me see it, what I far more often find is that those 3 days per week at 7 minutes per mile became 6 days per week at... you guessed it 7 minutes per mile. Or (if he got excited about his good race results), even faster. Because people have this bizarre tendency to associate themselves with a training pace, to wrap it into their identity. "I run 7 minutes per mile. That's who I am"
And sure that pace that feels easy to him on 3 days per week. He starts each run feeling rested. But it nothing like that at all when running 6 days per week. It wears him down. And after a few weeks of it Runner X says, "I just can't do high mileage".
I have lost track of the number of "injury-prone" friends of mine tell me how easily they run their easy days when they really don't. Some of the most experienced runners I know. In the world of Strava stalking it's plain to see. I've even occasionally seen it in my own logs looking back. I thought I was going so easily but there are the paces, day after day, making it clear I really wasn't. There is the steady slow progression of injury/fatigue/poor racing in the comments making it clear.
I think we all have a blindness to it in ourselves. And the result of that is years wasted to injury and/or inadequate training.
The simple fact is that unless you
- have some sort of vitamin/iron deficiency
- are enfeebled by old age
- have a chronic injury/medical condition
you
will run-race faster better on 6 days per week of running compared to 3. Not necessarily in the short term, but definitely in the long term -- if you can get to the long term. Most people who do it right see results within weeks. Some people take months.
People tend to get annoyed at me when I tell them this stuff. "You're over-generalizing" or "I'm different". Or, my favorite (because it boosts my ego to be told this): "You are an 'elite' runner [ha] and what applies to you doesn't apply to me"
Nope. You are not special. Neither am I. Our bodies all pretty much respond to controlled stress the same way. The key is to actually control it. And the single biggest requirement of that is to respect the distance and moderate your effort.
- You have got to give your body a chance to get used to volume. That means either increasing gradually or in the very least, temporarily dropping speed.
- You have got to run easy runs EASILY. The kind of easy where you finish feeling like you hardly did anything. Where you are left champing at the bit because you want to run fast. It is impossible to run too slowly on an easy day. There is no such thing. Don't worry about pace, worry about effort.
- You have got to limit the hard days to one or two per week until you are completely accustomed to the mileage.