quality versus quantity

It's a lot less than you might think, according to legendary Boston area coach Billy Squires. But you have to do enough to break through to a decent level of fitness.

When that happens, you will find yourself running like "a kite in the wind", he says in his book Speed with Endurance, co-written with Bruce Lehane.

To establish fitness, they say: "You have to work your way up to covering six miles per day on average six days a week." Now this will sound like nothing to some people here, and a lot to others. Whatever: it is do-able, isn't it? Squires and Lehane virtually guarantee that if you do this minimum, you will lift yourself beyond the ranks of "recreational running" and be able to produce "lower" levels of performance.

It's back.

The very day after I enjoyed a luscious trail run in old-style Nike Frees, a celebration of things back to normal... the iron is getting through, the legs felt good; I took it easy-ish as a compromise between the "quality versus quantity" argument -- soundly won by quality -- and the helpful suggestions of coach Bobby McGee that maybe, just maybe, given my winter of injury rehab, virus attack, basement-level serum ferritin and serious attempts to "run" in knee-deep snow and/or ankle-deep mud, it might be wise to do some of the now-despised moderate-pace runs....

yes, the very next day I sprang out of bed (well, OK, I didn't...I staggered), looked out of the window and there is was. Again. Snow. Deep snow and still falling. No., I'm not happy now. This is some kind of sick joke. Like... you couldn't get to the Pole so we'll come to you????? Enough already.

Rewiring my brain to lose the obsession with miles has had two mega-boosts this week, first with news of how Spartathlon winner Scott Jurek trains, and second with an inside take on what the 2:10 Kenyans like Ben Maiyo and "Baba" Kiogora are doing.

The "quality versus quantity" debate is drawing some passionate and well-informed comments here and elsewhere on this site. As a result of my research, I've already stopped doing "easy" morning runs, "recovery runs" and anything else that smacks of long, slow distance work.

What was the best advice your father ever gave you?

Seb Coe: "He told me 'nothing good in track in field happens quickly'. He was conscious that you have to be specific about training, that you shouldn't do things that did not add value. He could never see the value, if you were running 800m with two laps close to 51 seconds each, that you should do otherwise. Long, slow, steady, distance was never going to get you there."

Former Olympic champion and world record holder Seb Coe talks about his father's coaching in an interview in the Daily Telegraph's "My School Sport" series. Thanks to coach Gabino Toledo for the alert.

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.

If I seem to have gone quiet for a couple of days, it's because I've been having my brain re-wired.

It all started when I found Rich Gibbens' site www.powerrunning.com. Rich has got the finest collection I've seen of science-based articles questioning the "more miles the better" school of thought. The "aerobic madness" theory has dominated distance running -- and caused so many injuries and wrecked careers -- for too long. It's way past time for a change.

But change is hard: it hurts the brain.

Rich is one of a handful of independent thinkers who are closely examining what the latest research into training, physiology, biology and genetics, has to tell us about running faster. If the conclusions were put into practice, they would revolutionize the way we train. But you only need to look at the advice in Runners' World and Running Times and suchlike to realise that it's not going to happen any time soon.

Talking of speed work, intense training, oh, and poetry in motion, which we hadn't mentioned, but that's what we're all about, right? .... check this out: