the fun part. We can settle back in our trackside seats and rocking chairs and watch the years race by - 10 years, 25, 50. The milers will keep running faster, no-one doubts that. How fast? The maths predicts 3:27. The milers predict 3:39. I don't know

? On a national level, the numbers are mind-boggling. There is no national database of road race results because over the years anyone trying to compile them would have to deal with millions of times from thousands of races. They would include times from

-adaptation principle is deeply rooted in human physiology, and has worked for about a billion runners since Palaeolithic Man started stalking wild animals in East Africa 150,000 years ago. It still works today. Craig Beesley is proof of that.When Beesley began running

muscles, decreasing muscle efficiency, and causing that awful burning sensation. Here’s the key: to improve your racing, you need to do sessions that increase your lactate-transport potential. Over the years, these sessions have been described by almost

miles. Or, to put it another way, I get high on one out of every 21,600 sessions. Not very impressive. Fact Or Fantasy?Researchers don’t have a better average than mine either. They’ve been chasing runner’s high for the last 25 years, and, until very

worked for about a billion runners since Palaeolithic Man started stalking wild animals in East Africa 150,000 years ago. It still works today. Craig Beesley is proof of that.When Beesley began running two years ago, he could only manage 30 seconds at a

ran 2:42:24 in 1975, and Joan Benoit Samuelson ran 2:22:43 in 1983. ("World best" was the euphemism instead of "world record" for road-race performances before January 1, 2004.) This year saw a course record set in the men's race, but, at 2

University in New York.Since his book Daniels’ Running Formula was published in 1998, many high school and college coaches have adopted the Daniels approach. I believe the general upswing in American distance running success over the last decade is partly a

when runners from New Zealand, including Peter Snell (three-time Olympic gold medalist), suddenly began winning a disproportionate number of big races. Their successes were based on the training philosophy of Arthur Lydiard, a marathon runner turned

distance race he ever entered as a teenager. He obviously had legs, guts, and stamina from the go.He also won a more recent running race. This time it was a run-bike-run affair called the Dirty Duathlon in Rocky Hill, Texas, back in December 2002