Probably has some historical reasons for existing:

Pre-GPS a lot of us didn't know the exact distance we ran (sometimes we drove them in our car as a check).

Accounts for variations in terrain/weather. You can run much faster on an all weather track than on a grassy field at the same effort.

When trying to encourage runners to take easy runs easy, giving them credit by time removes the incentive to push the pace.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

It's just measuring training load based on time instead of distance. Also incentivizes athletes to run slow, but at that level that shouldn't be necessary. Assigning an actual "mile" distance is just stupid though.

Can't help but think of the You Tube channel Jerry of the Day

Yea but this is 2020. If Gwen runs too fast her coach can look at her TP and track TSS and tell her to slow down.

Yea but...Jerry can measure ACTUAL training load. Like, using data and stuff.

Oh, I complete agree. Seems highly antiquated, especially for an elite group.

Yes, but Jerry Miles is a holdover from an earlier time.

Some people still keep a paper training log, even though you can get a Garmin that automatically records far more/better data...just because that's how they've always done it.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

out with the old, in with the new i say.

just watching gwen do the math to get to the "jerry miles" in this video was painful. when her actual GPS miles are right there, nicely compiled and tabulated. for jerry too, presumably.

We knew them in college as 'Badger Miles' as it was know this was how the Wisconsin teams tracked their miles and it was hard to argue with what they were doing. 7 minutes for every mile. We found that it kept us from pushing the pace too much on our easy days. Noone had GPS watches at the time (early 2000's) and we had routine routes that we knew the approximate distances of or how long they'd take us but we still ran for time. Also I think helped the coaches keep track of us knowing we'd all finish our runs at roughly the same time. I kept a handwritten training log but honestly never used it for much at the time. Coach had the plans and tracked/planned what we were doing.

Now as someone who trains mostly solo (with GPS cause who really doesn't these days) and with more discipline to run easy on my easy days I can't figure out any reason to use it but in a team atmosphere of highly competitive individuals it worked.

This makes me feel less crazy. I do something similar but only indoors on the treadmill (and when translating stair master work into miles). I hate the TM and seem to run far slower on it (but with a higher proportional perceived exertion) so I always credit myself a minimum of a ~9:00/mile pace (sometimes more like 9:10/mile). If faster, I’ll credit the faster pace. On stair master “hill” work I do, I credit myself a mile for every 9’ too.

Omg you think running coaches for elites use tss?

Everything I know about elite running I learned from Jim Vance

That explains a lot

I'm inferring that you do NOT think of Jim Vance as an elite running coach? I am shocked.

Because he’s a triathlon coach.

Can you tell me one national or world class RUNNER he has coached?

If you want to see how elite runners train, read scott fauble’s book. Entire training for a nyc cycle laid out by him and his coach. There’s no hocus pocus running tss in there. Ive been around a lot of national class runners in my life (including at my wedding) and not a single one of them ever trained with that. Im sure some good runner somewhere does, its not the norm whatsoever.

you and i are not on the same page with regard to the hilarity of my sarcasm.

the TSS wasn't really the point. "Jerry Miles" or "Badger miles" are dumb, period. That was the point.

It all started when he coached at Wisconsin. This is before college kids had GPS, and pre-gps period.
Jerry had the guys team count 7 minutes of easy running as a mile. It was a way to keep the easy miles easy. Basically, you couldn't do your easy runs at 6:00 pace and count it as 10 miles. Because you had to go for 70 minutes. Not 10 "real" miles.

My understanding (Lived with a guy who ran for him) is that it enabled the guys to actually run easy. Because no one gave a crap about the actual miles you ran. Only the time and if you ran "appropriately". "Jerry" miles became a way to follow the hard days hard, easy days easy model.

This is 15 year old info. So it could be off a bit!

Thanks. I guess it's a chicken and egg thing? Are they an elite runner because they came to their coach, or were they an elite runner first?

I can tell you that Bobby McGee is 100% an elite run coach, (Olympic Champion, WR holders, mentor to Gwen, Katie, Hunter, etc), and is my personal mentor for nearly 17 years. He and I have developed a number of protocols, tests and progressions, which have proven to be extremely effective with Ben Kanute. Just take a look at his 70.3 results, and his peak ITU result last July at Edmonton WTS, where he finished 7th, with a very competitive run. But of course, how I coach a triathlete is very different from what I would do with a pure runner.

And you probably don't know when I coached 2 young high schoolers to 4:14 and 4:17 1600m times, both qualified for the state XC meet in California, and one finishing 2nd in the 800m at the California State Meet for track and field, before going on to be Big West Freshman of the Year for UC Santa Barbara.

And then when I coached 2 high school water polo players at Coronado High School to become collegiate swimmers, for UCSB and Cal Poly, including one who took 4th at the California State Swim Meet, (blew his breakout at the turn or he would have likely won), and went on to swim 19.13 for the 50 free.

But what do I know? I'm just a triathlon coach.

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Jim Vance
http://TodaysPlan.com.au (Disclosure: I am contracted with Today's Plan)
http://www.CoachVance.com/
Twitter @jimvance