Simplifying It

Greg McMillan: "My belief is that for our runners to be successful in the marathon, they need to be able to run between 120 and 150 miles a week. That’s what almost all of the great runners have done. We need to get them to that point and we need to be smart in how we get them there. Once they can do that, then we can step back and we can look at how can we push the pace faster, how can we get marathon-specific training going. And that’s what we’ve done with Brett (Gotcher, who ran 2:10:36 in his debut marathon at Houston earlier this month). We took two and a half years to build him where he can get into that zone and he’s just in it. We only had five weeks before the marathon above 120 with one week above 140 so he’s certainly getting in good volume, but I’d love to see us get in six or eight weeks above 130 and average 135 or so."

Sure, there's incalculable difference between elites and 47-year-old weekend warriors. Understood. But adjusting for that, the principle stands: The way to become faster is to run more miles. (And, of course, the key to running more miles is figuring out a way to do so without incurring injury.)