How much is too much?

When I put up the post about increasing miles, a query came in quite quickly asking how much is too much, then? This one is only about distance runners - I might have a bit for younger athletes later. We were told when we got into big miles (ie 100 a week or thereabouts) that there were two main signs: blood in the urine (which was kinda scary!) and restlessness in bed at night and being unable to get enough sleep. So that's two indicators. I never had the former although I knew two harriers who did. The latter comes to every distance runner, possibly because the hard running training is allied to doing a day's work, digging gardens and having a family life as well. Brendan Foster said that being fit is being tired all the time. You can argue about that one.

Roger Matthews the English 10000 metres runner who finished out of the medals at the 1970 Commonwealth Games, tried 200 miles a week but ended up with blood in the urine in quantities and serious kidney trouble, Arthur Lydiard the famous New Zealand coach met Jeff Julian (a superb distance runner)coming back from a run and asked how he was standing up to 100 mpw. Jeff said it was OK so in jest Arthur said to him to try 200 mpw. That didn't work at all - after 4 weeks Jeff was shattered - it just shows that coaches shouldn't joke with serious runners. 200 mpw is far too much.

I used to train with Alistair McFarlane, Scottish marathon champion with 2:18:03 to his credit and I thnk the furthest he did regularly was 140 mpw. I did 100 mpw for big chunks of the time when I was running. I took a training diary at random from the bookcase just now and it was for 1973. I ran the marathon on 23rd June that year in 2:45:17 and in the week up to Sunday 17th June I did the following:
Monday: 8.5 miles on grass (am) and 4 miles jog (pm)
Tuesday: 10.5 miles on grass (am) and 4 miles jog (pm)
Wednesday: An hour on the road, grass and track including 10 x 200(am) and 4 miles jog (pm)
Thursday: 10.5 miles (am) jog 4 miles (afternoon); 40 minutes easy (evening)
Friday: 10 miles (am); 4 miles jog (pm)
Saturday: 13.5 miles on the road
Sunday: 6 miles (am); 7 miles (pm)
The Sunday was shorter than usual because I was on an in-service course at Stirling Uni and couldn't spare 2 hours plus for the run.

Why my Diary bit? As an indication of what most club runners in most clubs of the time were doing. So how much is too much? If you can't sleep, or if there is blood in the urine. 200 mpw seems to be far too much. A well trained athlete with a couple of years training in the bank - well Alistair did 140 for periods of the year. And I've indicated how I did 100 mpw at one time.