Hi Jay-

I was just wondering if you can every run too much. I'm 16 years old and in my junior year of high school. I'm doing about 120-130 miles a week. I usually do about 10 miles steady before school (waking up at 4 stinks) and then XC practice after school. On saturdays I race (5K), but always feel like I need to run more, so I do another run later that night. On Sundays I go crazy so I do about 20-23 miles, depending on how i feel.

Hopefully one day I can start runnning marathons; right now I'm also doing half marathons and placing in the top 10 overall for each (and first in my age group).

But when I got injured from not replacing my shoes (grion pull), I had to cut back my milege and take days off. I felt like I was going crazy. It had been 7 months since i took a day COMPLETELY off.

Is this normal/alright or am I excessive?

-M

Thanks for the question, M.

Let's back up for one moment and talk about two Nike runners who are amoung the best distance runners in the world, Mebhrahtom Keflezighi and Dathan Ritzenhein, aka Meb and Ritz. Meb just won the marathon in NYC and Ritz broke the American record for 5,000m this summer. Both were serious, serious runners at age 16 who trained hard and that is no doubt part of their success because it takes years to develop the aerobic capacity necessary to run distance races at a world class level. But, here's the deal—neither ran anywhere close to 120 miles a week at 16 and neither ran over 20 miles in training until they were past the age of 22 or 23.

I can't tell you what to do and to be perfectly honest, you don't want me to. The fact that you asking the question means that you think you're running too much (you are) and that you might be better off running less (you will). Do you have to go down to the 30-40 miles a week most "serious" high school sophomores or juniors run? No. 50, 60, 70, even 80 miles a week are, in the right yearly macrocycle, sound training volumes. But 120 isn't doing you any good, especially if you're getting injured at 16 as your body unfortunately will become less resilient to injuries with each passing year; you don't want to deal with serious marathon type injuries in high school.

If you love running then run. If you think about racing PRs every day you go out for a run then keep dreaming those dreams, but also adopt a faith that running less will allow you be more competitive not only in your high school years, but in your college and post-collegiate running as well.

Good luck and I sincerely thank you for your candor and your question.

Coach Jay,

I am 45 years old and have completed five marathons in the past eight years. I was a 4:15 miler/9:10 2-miler in college and after a 10 year break, resumed running 14 years ago. In each of my five marathons my legs have turned to stone at miles 18-20, even though my breathing was as if I was walking a slow pace. In my first marathon I utilized the Jeff Galloway training method, with a plan to run 2:50. I ran the first 18 miles at 6:30 pace, felt awesome, only to hit the wall and finish in 3:15. The temperature rose to 70 degrees that November day in Philly, and I assumed it was the heat.

My next 3 marathons went the same, with each time being progressively worse. I took five years off from marathon racing and attempted my 5th race this past Sunday in Scranton, Pa. I did no speed training for this one, only easy runs with four 17-20 mile runs at 8:20 pace. My goal was 3:20, which would have been well below the 3:30 Boston qualifying time. I went out easy the first 16 miles (8:00/mile) and it felt like a walk in the park. However, around 18 miles my legs started to get heavy and by mile 19 felt like cement. I finished in 3:42 and it was pure hell for the 5th time. The funny thing is though, I was not even breathing hard during the 6 mile struggle.

When I do speed training I can still run 18:00 5ks and 30:00 5-milers; however, I can’t seem to get past 18 miles. I have not had these problems in my long training runs.

Could it be my diet? Should I be eating during the marathon? I took water and Gatorade at most stations. I don’t want to throw in the towel, however, the pain of the last 6 miles in five straight marathons is about as much as I can take.

I appreciate any feedback or advice you may have.

Thanks,
Paul

Good question Paul.
Thanks for the detail in your question. I'm going to work backwards through your email. Yes, it could be a dietary issue and you need to consider some gels or other ways to get carbs into your body during the race (and obviously experimenting in the weeks leading up to the marathon with this new "eating issue"). But, I'll be honest, I think the real reason you've not run fast is training. Why? Because the human body does not have enough glycogen, the preferred/first-used fuel source, to finish a marathon. This goes for all humans, even the best marathon runners in the world. However, we all have more fat than we need to finish a marathon and the cellular, metabolic reality of the race is this: you must teach your body to burn fat if you're going to finish a marathon. Now, the great thing about you question is that you're trying to run the paces that where the pace is fast enough that if you don't train correctly you'll never teach your body to do this.

In the coming weeks I hope to share some specific marathon training advice, yet let me give some short tips.

1. Give yourself 6 months to train for the next marathon...don't choose one 4 months from now as that's not enough time to do it right.

2. Go back to the Galloway method or similar for 3 months and run a marathon as a training effort, trying to run 3:45-3:50 via that method. I like these walk-run methods because they safely get you ready for "real" training.

3. Take three weeks to recover with 30 minute runs and cross training for two weeks, then 30-45 minute easy runs.

4. Then do marathon training that has two key points. Build up to a run that is as long as you will race—so a 3 hour and 30 minute run in your case (Boston qualifier)—and try to get this in 2-3 times before your race. Then, do a 20 miler with roughly the last 10-12 miles at marathon pace, which will be about 8 minute pace for you. Again, build up to this so that you get 2-3 of these in before the race.

Bottom line is that marathon training becomes more complicated the faster you want to run and if you really want to run fast, you'll have to put in more miles and you'll need to give yourself plenty of time to be able to put in those miles.

Best of luck Phil and enjoy the adventure.

Coach Jay coaches athletes at RunnersCoach.com and blogs at CoachJayJohnson.com. And don't forget, if you have training question for Coach Jay, email him here: coachjay@nike.com.

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