Go on Letsrun if you want to see how truly horrible people enjoy being to each other. It’s a pity because there’s some good information in there but the regulars will turn it into a slag fest almost immediately.
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The best ones is when someone ask “whats a decent 5k” and then the fuck heads come up with shit things like, “if you are not running sub 15 5k you are wasting your time! Stop running and go back to eating”. Letsrun is a truly toxic wasteland.
For what is worth I think volum is the most approachable way to train. Problem is, IMO, time on the legs is will cause issues with time (cumulative mileage). Parker valbey cause some commotion about a year ago, when she said on a interview that she does most her miles on the arc trainer and mostly run for workouts 3x week and 30 miles. The rest of the week are Arc machine workouts and swimming. She is probably the best young american runner right now. Maybe there is something on her training we all can learn
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That’s what I was thinking of as well but didn’t want to mention any names due to the garbage that is in the forum. There’s a few gems like when David Torrence went for a downhill sub 4 mile when at Cal. Or some real funny (likely troll threads) about a guy who purposely was taking a coworkers Strava KOMs. But as mentioned most turn it into a an unhealthy environment.
Yeah but Parker does what she does because she’s injury prone, not because the cross training is magic sauce.
You would be hard pressed to find a world class 5000m runner that doesn’t at least run 70 mpw on occasion, and most are above that. Bernard Lagat used to be the prototypical example of a low mileage runner because he “only” typically did 60 mpw. Although supposedly that did not include any warm ups, etc.
Top coaches and athletes know what works to maximize potential. Of course not everybody can run higher mileage. But those who can should and do.
You may find it difficult to drop some of these preconceptions from running. 
Not least because the goals are different when you look at it as a single sport, as ingle time.
I don’t know her but I think people are starting to realise that there are lots of routes to becoming a faster runner without centring on volume. It may be a goos, simple focus for some but if there are other key factors and other routes then I’d no longer describe it as being ‘king’, and maybe cross-training is ‘magic sauce’ for those who get injured on purely increasing volume?
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Idk. I don’t think it matters if she is injury prone or or not… She proved a talented runner could do cross training and still be the best college runner. I think it has to do more with talent and genes than anything else tbh…
I think the jury still out for this one… Pretty sure some coaches will experiment with some combination of low mileage (just workouts miles) and cross training (the arc training is very similar to running dynamics) to make their athletes stronger.
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I agree we are all an experiment of one. I’m a long time runner who found cycling through injury. I coached track/XC which included coaching my daughter through this timeframe up until she ran in college.
As mentioned above, Parker Valby trains with low running volume due to injury risk. There are many other females who do the same with great success. On a personal note, my daughter began including cycling into her running program (reduced running volume). In a year, she went from 19:22/5k to 17:59/5k in XC. I was her coach and the only key variable that changed was the reduction in running volume and increase in cycling volume. Of course, she aged a year.
Often you will hear of female athletes training in this manner due to repeated injuries. Due to low body fat levels and training, the female athletes have amenorrhea which can lead to estrogen deficiency and negatively affect bone mass. My daughter and two of her roommates/teammates all had this and were diagnosed as having low bone density. They were at high risk of stress fractures. Training in the above manner is a necessity, but not all coaches adhere to this and the athletes continually “break” and the athletes leave the sport.
I’m out of coaching, for now, but if the time comes, I will train athletes to include more cross training. I do think volume is important, but being a complete, healthy athlete is also important. 
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It’s not really out. Her college coach, who is a sleezebag by the way, though that’s a different matter, does not do this with his other runners.
Amenorrhea is a nutrition issue, not a training volume issue. The dirty little not so secret is that the sport is rife with eating disorders. A major cause of the injuries a well.
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Yes, in most sports where weight is a factor in athletic performance, eating disorders exist. While amenorrhea can be brought on by nutritional issues or lack thereof, there are also many other factors that can contribute to it: hormonal issues, medications, weight, exercise, stress, etc. Our family went through many specialists regarding the condition as it relates to my daughter. Agree to disagree - just trying to add to the topic and how cross training helped us.
I cant agree more with the notion of ‘being a well rounded athlete’ aspect.
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I don’t even know what ‘well rounded’ means in this context. Should I be able to flip tractor tires? Shoot a basketball? Do 100 push ups? If my personal goals were to involve running a distance as fast as I can, why do I care about anything that doesn’t contribute to those goals? If that’s not my goal, then optimal training is hardly worth thinking about.
I think well rounded in the context of most of us is the ability to go through life reasonably pain free, to have energy and enthusiasm for other things, to be able to run with good form (not the middle aged shuffle), and to have a wide range of cadences and abilities across many disciplines.
Mixing training between strength, running, cycling etc can help achieve that.
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Much to my demise when I was younger, I thought that if I wanted to be a better/faster runner, then I ran more. That was all that I did - no weights, stretching or cross training. It worked for a while until muscles got overworked, overdevelop and I had developed imbalances and I wasn’t healthy. Every free moment that I had back as a young Father was spent running. I didn’t want to reduce mileage for the sake of stretching, cycling, or even performing exercises that made me move in other planes of movement. In hindsight, I would have reduced mileage and included some of the above. In my opinion, I would have been a more well rounded athlete and, perhaps, been a bit healthier. Would have I been as fast? We won’t know, but moving forward - that’s how I will coach others and myself. I’m not trying to make hybrid athletes who compete in Cross Fit. I want to develop well rounded runners.
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Ok but stretching is snake oil. Never seen any evidence it does anything useful.
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So many of us look at what the “successful” athletes are doing to find the “secret sauce” and while a lot of athletes are running high mileage, the question is, is that what makes them great, or are they great and so they can run high mileage? Also, is high mileage truly necessary for them? As outsiders looking in, volume is really the only easy-to-digest piece of the puzzle that we have access to from these athletes and it likely doesn’t tell the whole story.
We’ve seen so many athletes fly too close to the sun for too long, and while some athletes might need that extra mileage to push them into the top 10 at Chicago, I’d bet that adding that extra mileage is only the icing on the cake for those elite athletes. Most of us, and many of them can probably get at least 90% of the way there without high mileage.
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Fair point, it will vary as any opinion does.
I think that in most situations coaches are talking about what they regard as a healthy level of general fitness. Avoiding the extremes of very thin marathoners, that achieve faster times but at the cost of health and injury risk would be the extreme example perhaps.
For me it means being able to lift stuff in the garden occasionally without injury, get heavy stuff in and out of the loft, carry my sleeping kids about in the pitch black, swim to shore if I fall off a ferry, survive a bear mauling. That sort of thing.
Kinda depends what we mean by high mileage, lots of runners talk about 70 miles per week which is absolutely laughable to me. Even if I could do it there no way I could hold down a job while recovering from 12hrs running a week. But if you’re light and fast maybe that’s only 8hrs.
For me I can comfortably run 3hrs a week with consistency, at a push 4hrs and with proper dedication 5hrs that’s as much as you’re getting from me before p medical problems start happening 
. But. I can cellotape 10hrs if swim bike on top without issue…
I remember doing 80 mpw with a full time job and 3 hours of daily commute time. Ran twice a day often, barely slept, still got faster. I would give almost anything to be 28 again.
Now my current coach wants me to do upper body weights. I will of course protest at our next call. I am naturally quite strong. Can open pickle jars and do as many as 8 good form pull ups on 0 upper body training. I have no need for this nonsense.
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I don’t know if i’d put ‘survive a bear mauling’ in the ‘well rounded athlete’ criteria 
I agree with the other points and @adenega you’ve essentially described what i’m talking about. Sounds like you could climb a fence if you needed, manage through life without struggling (pickle jar), have enough strength to use a jack and change a heavy wheel on the side of the road, etc.
If you’re a marathon runner that lacks enough upper body muscle mass to bring the box from costco inside, you better be getting paid a lot for running.
This conversation has also brought an interesting thought. What is ‘high weekly mileage’ to you? I think its all relative to where a person is in their own running career. For me ‘high’ is anything past that 45ish MPW mark. I’m sure for a lot of folks thats just a normal week of running and high is 70+.
I also disagree with the blanket statement that ‘stretching is snake oil.’ If you’re not able to move within a standard range of motion, stretching can help. Will going from standard ROM to full side splits help me run a faster 5k? Unlikely.
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