Www.Run4prs.com for a free week or personalized workouts! Many people show off their monthly mileage totals on social media. It is a great way to track your progress in some respects, but in other respects, it is easy to get ‘caught up in the numbers game’ of running. Two runners of the same abilities might run vastly different peak mileages in marathon training yet run the same finishing time. It is less about what your weekly mileage is and more about finding the sweet spot of mileage for you during this season of your training.

1. Progressive overload: more usually is better until it’s not

1. Aerobic base: science

Legendary coach Arthur Lydiard’s philosophy was that it all starts with mileage. That's because endurance training stimulates many physiological, biochemical and molecular adaptations. All his training programs would consist of an 8-10 week base building phase.

1. stimulates more fuel (glycogen) to be stored in your muscles

2. increases the use of intramuscular fat at the same speed to spare glycogen 

3. improves your blood vessels' oxygen-carrying capability by increasing the number of red blood cells and hemoglobin 

4. creates a greater capillary network for a more rapid diffusion of oxygen into the muscles 

5. increases mitochondrial density and the number of aerobic enzymes through the complex activation of gene expression. This increases your aerobic metabolic capacity.

2. Time of feet: science

Time on Feet follows the principles of Lydiard training to reach peak performance. This is achieved by using a systematic approach to training. The emphasis is on conditioning in the early stages of a programme, in order to give the individual a feeling of a 'tireless state.' This is looked at as a crucial phase if achievements are to be made later.

2. There becomes a point where running more is not productive

1. Overtraining signs

Constant niggles

Feeling run down

Mentally feeling down in the dumps

Train smarter not harder: 

How much running can you physically and psychologically handle?

For example, the mitochondrial enzyme content of rats has been shown to reach its maximum adaptation with running 60 minutes per day, five days per week. 

A study published in European Journal of Physiology in 1998 on horses training for 34 weeks found that increases in muscle fiber, # of capillaries number of capillaries per fiber plateaued after 16 weeks of training. After the first 16 weeks, the horses were divided into two groups: a control group and an overload training group, which trained with higher mileage. Both groups increased mitochondrial volume and VO2 max with the increased mileage over the next 18 weeks, but there was no difference in those variables or in muscle fiber area and capillarization after 34 weeks despite the two-fold difference in training volume between groups over the final 18 weeks. Clearly, there is a limit to muscles' adaptive response to training.

If you look at the training data of elite athletes, you find that the optimum training volume for the world's best athletes lies somewhere between 75 and 110 miles per week

What is REDS syndrome?

Relative Energy Deficiency in Sports (RED-S) syndrome, or what’s more commonly known as the Female Athlete Triad.

Not eating appropriately for the amount of energy an athlete expends