How I'll get to 100 miles per week

Recently I wrote an update, and noted that my coach is crazy. Maybe the more accurate thing to say is:

I am crazy for listening to my coach.

He has devised this new training program based on concepts invented by the legendary coach Arthur Lydiard. Suffice it to say that Arthur is credited with inventing ‘jogging’, and “In the base training phase of his system Lydiard insisted, dogmatically, that his athletes must train 100 miles (160 km) a week.”

So, the new training calls for a base training program for several months where all I do is run miles. I do not run any quality/track/speed workouts, instead solely focus my running on putting miles into my legs, and progressively increasing up to X miles per week (MPW). Sisson’s has given me the Base training macro which has many different options: 45, 50, 60, 70, 80 or 90 total miles per week. If I’m going to run 90, why not just run 100, right? So that’s my goal. I will increase my mileage all the way up to 100 miles per week. Personally, I also want to then run 3 consecutive 100 Mile weeks, just to say I’ve done it. Why 3? I dunno, sounds better than 1 or 2, and 4 seems a little far fetched.

This obviously is all assuming I remain injury free, that my job allows me to get the miles in etc. So forget all that, and just assume that it will all work out!

Challenges:
The biggest challenge is: “Can I do it?” I think 70-80 MPW is very much doable. During my Chicago training over last summer I was running 55-60 mile weeks and those included quite a few track workouts. So, assuming those track workouts become longer runs, and, for my Wednesday morning trail romps with Kerry, I’ll just add 4 or 5 miles on the front end at 5am, then meet her at 5:45 to run on the trail. So I think I can get to 80. The challenge is adding another 20-30 miles. But who knows, maybe my body will adapt and it won’t be a big deal.
The second challenge will be to find people to run the mileage. I have a hard time running more than 5 miles on my own, so I will have to find people to run with. Anyone want to put in some miles with me?!

The Macro (plan):
Below is my training macro, and I’ll try and explain how it will work at a high-level. The actual program is supposed to start in May, which is good as it gives me a month to ramp back up to 45-50 miles per week returning from my 1-month injury hiatus. As you see, there are only 10 weeks on the macro. However, the ramp up should take about 15-20 weeks. There are 17 weeks from the beginning of May until the end of August. Sisson wrote:

If a week seems especially tough repeat it. This is our base building to peak mileage. We can take longer than 10 weeks to get to 90 mpw. I just had to have a basic plan that we’ll tweak for each individual as we see how they handle the load. Give yourself time to adapt to the load.

So, I figure I can build over 14 to 17 weeks, repeating several of them, to slowly increase the workload.
(There’s also a 7 day a week plan, that decreases the load on every day, but I think I’ll want one day a week to rest. Maybe I’ll alternate.)

Will there be sacrifices? Absolutely… I reckon:
- I’ll be asleep on the couch by 9pm for the next 5 months.
- I’ll meet with Meredith, my dietician to get my diet right.
- I probably have to decrease my my queso, beer and margarita intake by, oh, I don't know, 5%? ;)

All this to then add speedwork from September till December 7, when I run the California International Marathon.