The Why and How to Increase Your Mileage Safely

Finn Melanson [00:00:13]: Hello, fellow runners. I'm your host, Finn Melanson, and this is the Run to the Top Podcast. The podcast dedicated to making you a better runner with each and every episode. We are created and produced by the expert team of coaches at runnersconnect.net where you can find the best running information on the Internet as well as training plans to fit every runner in every budget. For many runners, Increasing their mileage is a goal that's difficult to do when gearing up for a race due to the need to focus on workouts and all that goes into proper race specific training. Thus, the time between races is an awesome opportunity to work on increasing your mileage. Today, we're joined by Ryan Warrenberg, one of the coaches at On Zap Endurance, an elite marathon group based in North Carolina. Ryan is an expert in aerobic development for all runners of all ages in all ability levels.

Finn Melanson [00:01:11]: So Today, he's gonna talk with you about benefits of increasing your mileage and why it's the biggest limiter for most adult runners, how to increase your mileage safely and effectively and reap the benefits, Plus, tips and tricks to make running more miles easier. It's that time of year when Black Friday deals are rolling in. One of my favorites is from Bioptimizers who are having a mega sale all through November. Head over to buy optimizers.comforward/run to thetop to learn more. TimeLine Nutrition has developed a groundbreaking product called MitoPure that revitalizes your mitochondria, which create energy in nearly every cell in your body. Head to timeline nutrition.com to learn more. Alright, Ryan. So give me your general philosophy on mileage.

Finn Melanson [00:02:06]: I because I think most runners in general know that running more is generally gonna help them improve, but give me your General philosophy on, yeah, running more mileage and and why you think it's important for development.

Guest [00:02:18]: Yeah. Sure. You know, a lot of The importance I guess, the degree of the importance of how much you run is somewhat dependent on the event. You know, if you're somebody who's really focusing on the marathon distance, for instance, How much you run is gonna be more important than if you're focusing on the five k. That being said, it's still a really important part of anybody's training plan, You know, whether you're running the mile or whether you're running a marathon. And and so, I think it's important to kind of outline a couple of reasons why Mileage in general is important. And when we talk about mileage, I'm I'm referring more to, you know, just general easy running. Obviously, as you're increasing your training volume, you can also stack on more volume in your workouts, and you can handle more volume in your workouts.

Guest [00:03:07]: But, you know, in terms of some of the benefits and why it's so important in our program, you know, you're Talking about building strength in your muscles and connective tissues just by running easy and putting that that, mileage in, and you're talking about improving your, aerobic capacity through improved density in, in your capillary beds and your ability to deliver oxygen to your muscles. And, You know, that sounds really simple, you know, just getting out the door and running, but it's actually, you know, I would I would argue for most people, Maybe beyond, you know, the elite athletes that we coach here. But for most people, it's gonna be perhaps the number one most important part of what you're doing is, you know, the amount of running that you're putting in on a consistent basis and, you know, as you increase your ability to, you know, you improve that your muscles and your connective tissues. Like I said, it allows you to better handle more intense training as you, progress in your training development, regardless of the event that you're running. So it's an important part of what we do, and and that's sort of the basis behind Why it is so important? And like I said, if you're, for example, running the marathon, you know, strengthening those muscle fibers, those slow twitch muscle fibers Is a critical component to having your legs really ready to run, you know, the marathon distance or even half marathon distance. So it varies, but it's important regardless of the distance that you're, you know, training for. You know, the more, You know, kind of base easy miles, you know, the more your mileage, the higher it is, the better equipped you're going to be to handle More intense training and the development of training as you progress. Absolutely.

Finn Melanson [00:04:52]: Perfect. Makes sense. So Let's put this into practice. How can you use the downtime between races to boost your mileage and reap those benefits that you talked about before?

Guest [00:05:02]: Yeah. Great question, and obviously something everybody is dealing with right now. And I would say for most people, you know, that I work with, you know, outside again of the elite athletes, probably the number one area that's most neglected is that idea of kind of putting in a base period of training. So, you know, if you follow-up periodized, approach to training like like we do, and I know, you guys advocate that as well. You know, you're talking about kind of developing your overall training volume, you know, first, and most people, Neglect that. You know, running fast is fun. And if you wanna run fast and race fast, you have to you have to do those things, but, that underlying base of just putting in the miles, essentially, is the cornerstone of success at every race Distance. And so this is a great opportunity, I think, for a lot of people to reconnect to that and perhaps put in that work that they, You know, maybe you have neglected in the past or or do something at least different and say, hey, I have an opportunity here to, you know, focus a little bit more on perhaps Running more with less intensity, and developing that base in a more meaningful way and knowing that, hey.

Guest [00:06:17]: Even if I have even if I spend a little bit more time in this stage of development than I normally would, it's only going to allow me to reach new levels as we move forward. And like we just talked about, better handle, more intense training, better handle, you know, some of the layers that we can Stack on top of that easy mileage. And so, you know, that's kind of one of the things that I would encourage people now, and I'm sure you're familiar with this, but it's I was thinking about, as I was talking there, Lasse Viren, who was, you know, one of the best distance runners in history, he was a Finnish guy who won The Olympic 5000 and 10000 meters in the 'seventy two and the 'seventy six Olympic Games. And one of the things that he was known for in his training was He would he would look at his his preparation 4 year cycles. And so after, you know, for instance, the games in 72, he basically disappeared for 2 years and put in base training for for a 2 year chunk of time. So, you know, for those of us that are looking at maybe months Before having race opportunities, that's a good perspective to have of, you know, hey. And and, you know, we're not trying to win Olympic gold medals here, but That that underlying premise is really valid. You look at him and he would go train for 2 years, and then it would be like, okay, now let's Do some racing and incorporate, you know, some other elements to training.

Guest [00:07:38]: So, you know, it's something that you can really take advantage of right now in this moment where Base training is something that you can do for an extended period of time and really set yourself up well for the time when those races come back.

Finn Melanson [00:07:52]: So yeah. Like you said, not necessarily looking at, like, 4 years down the line, but sort of breaking the cycle of racing a marathon every 4 to 6 months or having a Big race every 4 to 6 months. Now you're kinda looking at it as a little bit more open opportunity to think of things a little bit more long term.

Guest [00:08:09]: Absolutely. Yeah. And I think a lot of people tend to do that where it's like, alright. This race is done. What's up next on the calendar? And they tend to rush that, sort of that reset and aerobic development phase. And like I said, in my experience, most people neglect that. You know? That's probably the period of time where You can get the most value out of your training, but it oftentimes gets neglected the most because it's a little less glamorous than, you know, running Intervals for time and seeing that improvement in that that way.

Finn Melanson [00:08:39]: Perfect. So we know why it's important. We know that it's gonna allow us to get better by running more mileage, but we also know that it comes with risks. You know, there's definitely risks of overtraining, fatigue, whatever. How do you safely increase mileage?

Guest [00:08:54]: Yeah. That's a really important question, and, you know, I've I'm sure that you've seen this too in your career where Somebody I'm making these numbers up, but let's just say somebody doubles their mileage. They go from running 30 miles a week to 60 miles a week. And maybe they have a huge breakthrough, and they're like, man, this is great. I and and I wouldn't call that an an intelligent approach to increasing your mileage. And generally, what you'll see there is sometimes sometimes you can get by with that on a on a short term basis and your body will get overloaded, but it'll find ways to compensate by, you know, maybe moving improperly or or using different muscles than it should to do, you know, certain movements and down, and that's because your body, you know, just like a progression of training, your body requires, a slow adaptation. And so when you're building mileage, It's no different, you know, your body needs time to adapt to that increased stress, but at the same time, if we're looking at, You know, our overall workload, which is gonna be comprised of volume and intensity. You know, if we've made the decision to say, hey.

Guest [00:10:04]: I'm not gonna really focus too much on intensity right now, then you do have the ability to say increase that volume a little bit more safely, and I'll give you a few kind of rules of thumb that I use when Working with people and increasing their mileage, and, the the first thing I wanna say is it does depend a little on What your circumstances, obviously. You know, if we're dealing with somebody, you know, in this situation, really what we're talking about is somebody who's healthy, Who is running and is saying, maybe I'll run a little bit more. You know, those rules are different than somebody who's coming back from a long time off and they haven't been running or coming back from a break. You know, but if we're talking about somebody who is increasing mileage to a place where they've never been before, You know, we all know that old adage of the 10% rule, and sometimes it works really well. And and this is one of the instances where I would say it actually is a pretty decent rule of thumb. Obviously, everybody's going to be different. But, if you're increasing your mileage to a place where it hasn't been before, 10% a week, I would say, is a fairly decent target. And I like to, sort of build that in in increments of either 2 weeks where we're increasing with a weak pullback Or, you know, perhaps 3 weeks where you're increasing with a week pullback, just to build a little bit of recovery into that cycle.

Guest [00:11:28]: But, you know, that 10% rule is fairly decent, and then I'm I generally tend to follow, a rule that That kind of says, like, over a 6 month period, you really shouldn't be increasing your mileage more than about 10 miles a week overall. So, you know, if you're saying, Hey. I run 30 miles a week now. You know, as you build up and add those 10% per week, I would say Roughly 40 is probably a decent target. Maybe if you're saying, I'm gonna pull back. If I'm running 30 miles a week with intensity, I'm gonna remove the intensity. Maybe you could do a little bit higher with that, but that's generally, kind of the rough rule that I'll I'll implement with people and, you know, if you're building up from scratch and and you're getting back to a level that you've been before, You can afford to move a lot more quickly than 10% a week. But if you're building up to new mileage, I do like that rule of thumb.

Guest [00:12:24]: You know, just as as kind of a general guideline.

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Guest [00:16:12]: Yeah. Exactly. And it is a tricky question in the sense that everybody's circumstances are are a little different, but but, yeah, that's a really good way to look at it is say, hey, you know, what have I What have I averaged for my high weeks over a training plan and and kind of go from there? Or where you're at now, You know, over the last, you know, couple of months, what have those bigger weeks looked like, and then you can kind of move from there.

Finn Melanson [00:16:36]: Makes sense. Something you mentioned earlier was was pullback weeks. But what are some of the other tips and tricks that People can utilize to make sure that they're safely increasing their mileage and that they're gonna improve and it's actually gonna have that desired result in the long term.

Guest [00:16:53]: Yeah. It's a great question. And you mentioned kind of those pullback weeks where, you know, every, every 3rd or 4th week, you're looking at maybe pulling back 10 to 20% on your volume just to allow for a little bit of recovery and allow for the body to, You know, really adapt and absorb the work that you're putting in, that to get that kind of super compensation effect of Recovery and then fitness improvements. But yeah. You know, in terms of other things that are important to make sure you're paying attention to, I always remind people it's like Simplest thing in the world, but get good sleep. You know, there's so many, like, recovery tricks and tips and things that Gadgets and all kinds of stuff that can be helpful for recovery. And I'm not discounting those, but you, I think you could add all that stuff together And it would pale in comparison to the value that you'll get out of a good night's sleep on a consistent basis. So, you know, as you're demanding more out of your body, you've got to make sure that you're, demanding more out of your recovery, too.

Guest [00:17:53]: And sleep is always the number one component to that. The other thing you wanna I I think is worth mentioning, you know, from a nutritional standpoint is, you know, as you increase your workload, you probably are gonna have to increase the input a little bit as well. You know? Follow your Follow your body in terms of, like, when you're hungry, be sure that you're eating. Try to eat frequently through the day. And, you know, one thing that I think it's worth paying attention to that maybe isn't always on people's radar is try to make sure that you're getting, some protein in, You know, regularly throughout the day, you know, 5 or 6 times a day, make sure you're kind of getting a protein dose so that your body is able to repair those muscles from the added workload. I think most people know they should be getting in some carbohydrates, some protein after they finish exercise to help, speed up that recovery process, but make sure you're doing that as well. And listen to your body, you know, pay attention to Imbalances, you know, if if you have things that are bothering you, you know, in addition to putting in good volume, it's also a great time to Shore up some weaknesses, and I'm sure that you guys have talked about that, with with clients is, you know, you can kind of double down on some strength training and some things that Can help form a good foundation of moving properly and moving well, but pay attention to those little niggles and make sure that you're taking care of those little things as well So that, you're able to have that strong platform and stay healthy as you add in the mileage. And like I said, make sure that you're not going crazy and not and not overloading it.

Guest [00:19:26]: I've seen people do it with success in the short term, but Loading it. I've seen people do it with success in the short term, but oftentimes, if you get too far ahead of of those parameters we talked about, You tend to see some breakdown. If not if not in the immediate future, then certainly in the future, the longer term future rather. But those are some of my, like, little things that I like to tell people to pay attention to, you know, in terms of body maintenance and taking care of themselves through that process.

Finn Melanson [00:19:54]: And I think we we understand definitely the steps in terms of, you know, look at where your mileage is, make sure you don't increase too much, use down weeks, Use some of those tips and tricks. Pay attention to your body. I think that's something that we always try to tell people at Runners Connect is, Like you said, as good as the gadgets are, you gotta listen to your body. But let's let's talk real quick about another topic. You touched on this earlier, but, Intensity while you're increasing your mileage. I think this is an extremely important component. A lot of People kinda follow a typical week of training with a typical amount of intensity. What do you recommend people do while they're taking those first 1 or 2 steps in boosting their mileage? Like, how do you how do you recommend they approach intensity in that scenario?

Guest [00:20:44]: Yeah. Great question. And, in general, you know, I always like to operate from the premise of, like I mentioned before, we've kind of got 2 levers, You know, very basically anyway, which is training volume and training intensity. And you really don't wanna be pulling both of those at the same time. Okay. So if we're increasing our volume, the intensity should, at the very least, stay where it's at, which, you know, if you're just putting in base miles, know, you might be doing some things to touch on some some speed, some strides, some shorter uphill things, stuff like that. But in general, you wanna kind of hold that steady Or if you're sort of hitting the reset button and saying, okay. I'm gonna kind of start back with the base period.

Guest [00:21:27]: You know, you might be pulling that intensity down as we increase our Volume, but you really wanna make sure, that you're not kind of pulling both of those levers at the same time and increasing your volume and your intensity. I think that's where most of our injury problems occur, which is trying to do both of those things at the same time. And just to give you some context, You know, kind of going back to the importance of mileage, and sort of the way that I look at things as a coach when I'm working with a new athlete And, again, this is this is probably true across all ability levels, but particularly true with, You know, runners who are not on the team, but, you know, the first thing that I'm gonna look at as a coach is How much are you running? You know, and and what is an appropriate amount of running for the individual is is gonna vary greatly. But, you know, One of the things I wanna look at is where's our mileage at, and do we have room to manipulate that and perhaps bring it up a little bit? Because I'm telling you for most people out there, and again, this isn't true for everybody, but that is the biggest lever that you can pull, you know, especially if you are Somebody that's looking at half marathon distances or marathon distances, but but for anybody, it tends to be, the biggest lever that you can pull to See improvement, is just not going crazy, but just running a little bit more on a consistent basis. You know, and that Consistency is really important, you know. Anybody can go out and have a big week, but what can you deliver, week after week and month after month is going to be where you find the success. And so as you're increasing, you know, that mileage, which is, you know, a really big lever to pull. Probably you're gonna see more results from that than you are intensity, at least most people are.

Guest [00:23:18]: Again, it's not a it's not a total generalization for everybody, but it is going to be true for most for most folks. And, but But you wanna make sure that you're not pulling both of those levers at the same time. So as that volume is going up, we don't wanna be moving that intensity up. You know? You can keep it the same. You can move it down a little bit even. And especially if you're in a period right now where you're saying, Man, you know, I'm just looking for something that excites me, that gets me going. And it might be kind of cool to try to tackle more running than I have before. For those folks, I would say, Hey, let's, let's Ratchet back the intensity a little bit.

Guest [00:23:53]: You know, I've got some people that I coach right now who, are testing out ultra marathons for the first time in their running careers, just because, You know, those are smaller events that are having more success of happening and happening in a safe way. And So we've we've really pulled back on intensity with some of those people because, you know, those longer runs are a lot longer and and they're doing a little bit more running. And, and that's been something that's been really fun for people is taking on a new challenge in that way. And, you know, if you're doing that, you just want to be careful with intensity because that combination of increasing both of those can be really dangerous in terms of risking injury.

Finn Melanson [00:24:32]: That's perfect. So How to do it in an efficient way, a smart way. I think what you said about the intensity is smart. I think we always encourage people, and I know you would as well, To to air on the side of caution with that, you don't really want to, like you said, push the envelope and pull both those levers at the same time, so That's perfect. It makes total sense. That's all great. I think people understand now Much better how to increase their mileage, how to do it in a safe way, the little tips and tricks they can use. So thanks so much for coming on.

Finn Melanson [00:25:14]: We really appreciate it. Thanks for listening to the run to the top podcast. I'm your host, Finn Melanson. As always, our mission here is to help you become a better a runner with every episode. Please consider connecting with me on Instagram at Wasatch Finn and the rest of our team at Runners Connect. Also consider supporting our show for free with a rating on the Spotify and Apple Podcast players. And lastly, if you love the show and want bonus content, behind the scenes experiences with our guests, and premier access to contests and giveaways, you can subscribe to our newsletter by going to runnersconnect.net backslash podcast. Until next time, happy trading.