than 80 miles a week, even though that's a modest total for an elite 10K runner. But when he capped his mileage just below 80 miles, he was able to complete the season healthy and win a national championship. High mileage totals do you no good

:17, and the women averaged 4:51. So, despite taking two extra days off per week, the low-mileage runners performed just as well as the high-mileage runners during the marathon.Out Of The Lab, Onto The DayWith results like these, will we soon see elite runners

, but was able to run at a high percentage of VO2max before reaching his lactate threshold. Untrained individuals may reach their lactate threshold at 50-60 per cent of VO2max, elite endurance runners at 70-90 per cent. By training at or slightly above

If your training peaked for a summer race but you hope to perform well in an autumn event too, you're not that different from an elite athlete who has multiple goals (save, perhaps, for a minute or two per mile). Runners looking to qualify

Many elite runners plan their racing calendars a year or more in advance. There are some right now who know that in order to be on the starting line of an Olympic final in Beijing in August 2008, they need to hit an A-standard qualifying time in a