How to run faster: the debate continues

Ever heard of Mark Nenow and his solo 150-mile weeks? Neither had I until Gary Ditsch (gditsch) responded to my "Brain re-wiring" piece. (Here's Gary's comment.)

Here's my response to Gary and thanks to him for the intro to Nenow!

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Hi Gary... I'd encourage you to have a closer look at Rich's powerrunning site, Gary, as it really isn't focused on Noakes' central governor model. Rich (and Marshall Burt) are really trying to get a message across that quality is more important than quantity, and they have extraordinarily interesting ideas about the frequency of training and the physiological effects of training at race speeds.

So, I wouldn't get side-tracked by Noakes. Rich has adopted the CGM as an important part of his theory of running simply because it explains a lot of the phenomena that other models don't. Personally, I don't think the question is "Can fatigue happen outside the central system?" That's irrelevant, I think. The question is more: "Why do we get tired and want to stop running way before we reach our physical limits, and way before we are in any danger of really hurting ourselves?"
Fatigue starts in the brain; the evidence (I believe) is now beyond question.

"Short cut?" You're kidding, right? We know there are no short cuts, just various varieties of dedication and pain :)

Thanks for the introduction to Mark Nenow! What a phenom! The best interview I found was this one by Ricky Quintana on trackshark.com. Get this:

RQ: There are so many ideas out there about how you trained. I guess I should hit them one by one. How much mileage did you do?

In that period of time, I ran a lot of miles. The 100 mile per week mark is kind of goal. This was kind of the convention of the time. I ran way over 100 miles per week EVERY week. I’m sure some weeks I touched on 150 miles per week. It was pretty hard running. Once you get in shape, your body is wired to do this. I would roll these miles week in and week out at a pretty good clip. Probably, all of them under six minute mile pace. A lot of them under 5 minutes pace or under. It was long running at a sustained pace, but my body was able to sustain a pretty fast pace back then. In terms of mileage, I did plenty of miles.

RQ: I guess you did that on doubles.

Yes, I did it on 13 runs a week. Twice a day except Sunday.

RQ: How long were your long runs?

I would run 22 miles on Sunday. That was the longest for sure.

This is actually right in line with what Rich Gibbens at powerrunning and Marshall Burt are saying: guys like Nenow do this type of training because they can. They have built up to it. And we can too. But what tends to happen is we get caught up with the mileage and not the quality.

Running "lots" of miles really fast, as you put it, is just what these guys are talking about. Except that "lots" gets defined by your state of fitness, and the measure is power output (the speed you are running) not the numbers of miles you cover.

So.. for instance, someone following the Elite Training Group plan would start out doing their long run at a goal marathon pace -- ie not jogging or running "easy", but running comfortably fast. When they first start, they might only cover 5 miles at the pace they have set. Eventually they will cover a full 13.1 or 26.2 miles at pace. So the weekly mileage naturally increases to what they can actually handle, not to some arbitrary figure like the beloved "100-mile week", in which your goal is to cover the miles, no matter what pace you run them at. Once a runner is covering (say) 26.2 miles at their target marathon race pace, then they set a faster pace and start again... so the mileage for that period will probably show a decline. (This is being repeated across a number of distances each week..."mileage may vary".)

In time, it is conceivable that an "ordinary" runner would start to cover the same distances in training as Nenow and at equivalent speeds. But, both Rich and Marshall factor in PLENTY of rest and regeneration time. Something that seems to be absent from Nenow's schedule, apart from his 4-6-week non-running break at the end of every year.
What they're saying is that you have to take your power with you into the long runs. Not do long runs, plus "recovery" runs and easy morning runs and somehow hope that you will magically get faster and faster despite the debilitating effects of running 100, then 120, then 150 miles a week.

Even Nenow says about his lack of high-speed (track) training: "For the most part, it was strength running and plowing the miles. I didn’t get on a track except to race. I think looking back on that, it was to my detriment for sure."

Then we mere mortals also need to be asking ourselves is what is the real value of our non-quality miles (ie miles that are not at goal race pace). Do "easy runs" and "recovery runs" actually add anything of benefit besides the psychological boost of bumping up the weekly mileage total? Is there a better way of recovering, a way that would prevent injury, that would leave our legs even fresher and "hungry" for fast running? Food for thought is one of the studies on Rich's site (I think he's got it there) on post-marathon recovery. It shows how runners who rested recovered more quickly than those doing easy runs.

Nenow banged out 100-150-mile weeks until his body gave up on him. According to the stats, this is a man who set superb American records at 10k: 27:20.56 on the track (1986) and 27:22 on the road, was a 2:14 marathoner and yet...never made the Olympics, never medalled in a world championship and never set a world record. And his career came to a grinding halt due to injury. "No, I had some hamstrings issues. Kind of compartment issues with my hamstrings. Kind of up high where the hamstring attaches. 1988 –1990, I had a couple of surgeries and never got back."

Cool stuff. Thanks Gary!