Mileage

This past week for me was a down/recovery week. I’ve been trying to include these often throughout the year to allow the body to absorb training from the previous block of training and also freshen the body up to get ahead of any niggles or injuries etc. Most of us end up taking a down week every so often due to injuries, niggles, feeling run down etc but I’m trying to be proactive and get ahead of these issues! I still ran 6 days last week but the volume and intensity was significantly reduced:

Monday: 6.1 miles – 47.37

Tuesday: 6 miles – 47.20

Wednesday: 7 miles – 52.41

Thursday: 6.2 miles with Strides – 48 mins

Friday: 7.15 miles – 54.14

Saturday: 10.1 miles – 76.03

Sunday: Rest Day

So as you can see nothing too hectic in fact nothing faster than 7 min mile pace but the point of the week was to recover and get ready for another block of training. Actually the big win of last week was the fact I got 3 good strength sessions in and worked on a few weaknesses that needed addressing!

The above runs added up to a total of just over 42 miles for the week. The reason I mention this is weekly mileage and mileage goals is something I’ve been asked about and a topic that’s being talked about a lot recently and said I’d give my opinion on it which is just my opinion. I personally think there is too much emphasis placed on how many miles you run in a given week / month / year etc. If I run 90 miles in a given week, what does that actually mean? How much of those miles were easy, how much were fast and how much were junk mileage. Now don’t get me wrong running a high number of miles is important especially for marathon runners and those who are competing on a high level once its been built up progressively and gradually however a question I would always ask myself is: Is this high number of miles taking away from the overall quality of my training. A phrase I heard years ago that always stuck with me:

“The athlete who trains smartest and not necessarily hardest always wins”

Now by training smart this doesn’t mean that the training is going to be easy in fact its going to be very hard but if its done in a way that ensures you are training hard on the days you need to train hard and you train easy on the days you need to train easy then it will be very effective. Weekly mileage is always something I find interesting and I have included it in this blog before but mainly because for some reason its something everyone always asks, first we ask; How’s training? Second question; How many miles have you done? Maybe the question should be how many key sessions did you get completed this week? How did you feel? How is the fatigue levels? Etc…

If I gave myself a goal to run say 90 miles a week I would probably need to run every day of the week to hit this goal, but I know through trial and error and countless injuries I need a rest day every 7 – 8 days to allow myself to get consistent training in over a long period of time! If I had this weekly mileage goal and I felt I had a niggle in my foot or I was feeling very run down I know I might need to take a day off or even just run less miles but I am less inclined to do this because I need to hit my mileage goal. Something to keep in mind is the Principle of Diminishing Returns! So the way I like to think of this in running terms is doing more but for less return. So think of it I might increase my overall quantity but this could be at the detriment to the overall quality of my training! For me I know if I am doing 2 sessions plus a long run each week with a handful of recovery runs in between with a rest day every 7 days and I do this on a consistent basis I will continuously improve and get the best out of myself! That Should be you goal each week!!!

Thanks for reading folks! Any topics that you would like me to touch on would love to hear them, so just get in touch 😊

Have a great week 😊

Noel