LBSS, quick recap:
1. i told him to play more full court basketball
2. he says he can't etc
3. he came up with some running stuff, which was basically 2x/day, but lots of hard running
4. i told him to do most of his runs slow/relaxed, not looking at pace, for ~30 minutes or so, then try to get 1-2 hard sessions in per week
5. he said running was making his squat feel amazing, best thing ever, feels so strong/good etc
6. treadmill vs road vs grass stuff
7. diminishing returns after 2 weeks, slow running isn't for him
8. slow running is dogma
9. he needs to feel like he can progress each workout etc, so running might not be for him
10. he'll stop short of calling it nonsensical
11. he says part of the fun is figuring it out for yourself, which i can identify with
i wrote the brief recap because i saw a devil's advocate comment. i forget exactly what, but it was related to pace etc.
i told him not to worry about the watch, pace, etc.. don't worry about how slow he looks compared to others.
tbh, i think he has problems going that slow because of "ego". maxent has made some comments which elude to that.
i run very slow, most often. even slower than old ladies, who can sometimes pass me. doesn't bother me one bit. so i'm definitely someone who has seen the benefits of running very slow/relaxed. thing is, for me it works best at ~45 minutes or so (and adds more benefit the longer i go). for maxent, it would probably work great at 30 minutes.
so, if he was enjoying his 2x/day running, or even every day running, he should be going hard 2x/week, with the rest of the sessions slow & relaxed .. occasionally throwing in some short strides or ending with them, if he wanted. that'd be my advice.
he wanted to go faster like every workout/week etc, but it just doesn't work that way with running.
i'll stop just short of calling it nonsensical tho.
nice. because calling something nonsensical, while not knowing much about the subject, would be well - nonsensical.
also you asked if it's mileage or duration .. i told you several times, it's duration! don't worry about miles.
every single one of my runs, i simply write "1 hour" , "2 hours", "3 hours", "30 min", "45 min" etc.. i don't even write the mileage.
if you write the mileage, it makes you run too fast.
running to improve general fitness is very simple. you've already overcomplicated it like crazy. i mean that's not good to do in itself, but to do it with this confidence of calling the time tested basics "nonsensical" and "dogma" is just ridiculous. when it comes to conditioning you're self admittedly clueless, so chill with those "attack words" lmao. you know alot more about lifting/diet etc .. but conditioning is a completely different paradigm, takes a long time to learn/master. it's not easy. and the hardest aspect to learn about it, is how simple it is, yet how hard it is to perform the simple basics. the basics are hard to perform because they are so simple. they aren't shiny or amazing.
bottom line.. to build a strong foundation, one needs to improve their work capacity specific to the total duration of efforts, and total duration per week, per month, per year. etc.
peace!