Magic numbers don’t exist in training When runners come to me for help with their training, we discuss their goals. We discuss what their current running looks like and how much time they have available to train. And then, sometimes, they tell me that they don’t think they can run X time in their goal race because they can’t fit in X miles in training. There’s a notion that to run certain times and distances, you have to run a certain amount of miles in training. That there’s a magic number that, if you hit it, all your dreams will come true and if you don’t, we’ll you may as well give up altogether. It’s very easy too, to look at elite runners doing 100 miles per week, compare it to our own training and this more miles = faster running. This is certainly broadly true among the population of runners, but it’s not true on an individual level for an individual training cycle. The obvious limitation with the more miles = faster miles is injury. Too much too soon and you’ll li...
