Can someone run 40 miles/week and still not be be able to break 6 min mile ?

Many people running 40 miles a week at 10 minute pace would probably not be able to crack 6. I would say probably most.

Some first hand experience:

My girlfriend challenged herself in 2020 to run 2020 miles. (Aged 26 at the time). This comes out to (~38.85 miles a week). This was her first real bout of running. She succeeded in this goal! Most of her runs were between 9:45-10 with occasional quicker runs, and some slower runs. That year she ran a PB in the HM and averaged 8:20 pace. The last week of the year she wanted to see what she could run in the mile and ended up running 7:12. She negative split, and closed well, but I think with better pacing possibly 6:50s. I do not think she could have run under 6 without doing actual workouts and even then it might be a few years away.

My two cents.

Sorry I should have specified, but I only meant the easy runs being 9:45-10min or faster.

But the rest of the training may also include tempo runs, "long" intervals etc. just nothing faster than say 5k-10k pace.

Ok, thank you for the info.

I guess there's no shortcut for me to break 6 min.

I love running, and I don't think I will have an issue to go up to 40 miles/week but I hate the faster stuff. So I thought maybe just running more would do the job, but I guess that might not be enough.

Are you serious? I know a running group right now with over 1200 active participants that actually do this or more. there might be 1 or two that could get close to six minutes. Read the hundreds of other threads on this board. There is always someone complaining that they can't break 8 minutes for the mile on just the sort of training your talking about, forget six minutes.

Ok, thank you for the info.
I guess there's no shortcut for me to break 6 min.
I love running, and I don't think I will have an issue to go up to 40 miles/week but I hate the faster stuff. So I thought maybe just running more would do the job, but I guess that might not be enough.

It could be enough. Depending on your natural ability, your speed, the workouts you do, and your running history.

I am currently getting back into shape now, and I am just running 50 miles a week with two light workouts like tempos/hills/fartleks and I recently ran a fast mile off of that. (sub 4:30). That being said I had years of serious training before this point and good natural speed.

Plenty of people can break 6 with minimal training. Many people can break it with 40mpw. Not everyone can though.

43F, I run around 40 mi per week, the occasional fartlek or workout and I definitely can't crack 6. Maybe around 6:30 or 7 if I give it ago.

My natural ability is not much and yeah, I am not running workouts generally. I do a weekly strength session in the gym that only helps me not fall apart lol!

Does "at least," mean slower than 9:45 or faster than 10:00?

Either way, why would anyone run that slow?

It really depends. How old are you? What kind of physical shape are you in? What's your athletic background? What's your current mile time?

As an aside, a good training plan should really incorporate a little bit of everything, from foundational easy runs to faster stuff.

Simply throwing some strides in after easy days may help a lot.

Most middle-aged hobby joggers who are primarily training for marathon (or even half) cannot break 6 min mile.

I am currently running 45-50mpw for half (the last race was 1:38 in December), and I probably cannot break 6 if I tried. (I ran 5:53 in road mile and 5:55 in track 1600 when I was training for mostly 5k.)

One mile performance is more strongly correlated with workouts than mileage. Guys were racing one mile sub-4:25 in 1880s on zero mileage runs, 100% workouts. We know ideally today, about 4 workouts per week and plus about (50 to 75) miles per week of mileage runs. If only have time for one, workouts or mileage, we know the workouts are more important for one mile.

Man you guys are making me feel good about my 5:35 PB. I'm a 40+ guy that just runs trail ultras averaging around 40mpw over the course of the year and the one time I did a 1 mile time trial ran the 5:35. I'd like to think I could get close to 5 or break it if I really put in the effort but I've always considered myself slow.

I think what I did a while ago might work well for what you want to do. The only time I ever went faster than 5k pace was doing 4x200s with full recovery 2-3x a week, and I think I was ready for at least a 5:40 mile after a couple months.

This was in 2020 just as school got cancelled, and I ran a 6:12 mile right as I started training this way instead of what my coach did. It looked something like this:

1 long run 7-10 miles every 10-14 days. I'd normally take a day off before a long run because I was weaker at long distances. I also did them kinda infrequently because I didn't feel like going 10 miles, but I should've done them more lol.

5 mile runs 3-4x per week. 3-4 miles easy, then over the last mile or two I'd pick up the pace depending on how I felt. The first miles were 9:15-30 pace, then a 7:20-8:00 mile at the end. Twice a week, after the run, I'd do 4-6x200m at 6:00 pace with full recovery. The 200s are really just to get the legs moving and to make that pace feel more fluid. In March, 4 reps at 45s was pretty difficult, but by June, 6 reps at 40s didn't feel that hard.

3 mile recovery 1x per week, normally after the long run. Also did 4x200 in 45s with full recovery.

The 200s were the only fast stuff I did, so if you hate the faster stuff, 40 mpw with those 200s a few times a week will undoubtedly get you there.

There isn’t a good relationship between mileage and 1-mile speed. If you run 40+ mpw, it would be extremely unlikely to not be able to run an 8’ mile, likely that you run sub-7, but could go either way on sub-6. There isn’t a minimum mileage need to break 6’ and there isn’t a rigid mileage above which you are guaranteed to be able to crack 6’.

When I first started running ~30-40 mpw, I don’t have my 1-mile time trial from back then, but I recorded my 800 PB at ~2’50”, so my mile would almost certainly have not been sub-6, more like 6’30” or so.

1) 40 miles, all easy, slow runs : I would argue most people wouldn't break 6 min.

2) 40 miles, with a few tempos, threshold workouts, progressive runs : Already it's way better, and if you have pretty good natural speed and strength this might actually be fairly doable.

Jack Daniels’ calculator:

6:00 mile, goes with 20:29 5k, 42:30 10k, 1:34:10 HM. So if you can hit those times and you are doing 40 mpw, you would have a shot at sub 6 mile.

I have a woman who is 80 in my training group that I coach and she sometimes runs up to 50 miles per week when Marathon training. She can't break 10 minutes for a mile but she's still out there doing it at 80!

There's plenty, but most of them are either over 40, relatively new to running or are the types that catch the running bug for while then find an other hobby after they complete there race or just get tired of running.

That's for men. For women, even pretty competitive local ladies may have trouble breaking 6 but still run be able to manage like a 1:29 half.