Why do I run PR's off just mileage and tempo workouts

Because every athlete is different and reacts to training differently from every other athlete. I used to have the same exact thing happen to me. spend all summer training - mileage and tempos with some strides and occasional 400s thrown in for giggles. Show up to college and pop huge times (for me). Then all the repeat 1000s and miles began. Within a couple weeks I was running my strongest, but by the time conference and regionals rolled around I was FRIED and was running significantly slower than the beginning of the year. I also ran far better on the track at short distances with just tempo/threshold workouts and short fast stuff - avoiding the vo2max type stuff altogether. after leaving college, I finally had the wherewithall to put it all together and ran PRs for everything from 5k up by almost completely avoiding mile repeats and the like. I can't tell you how many people have told me how my training and racing were suffering from leaving it out. They just are not me in my body. Apparently I dont recover well from those workouts or just dont respond to them well. Do what works for you. If you are in college, then you need to have an honest sit-down with your coach about it. Wish I had.

ponytayne wrote:

Apparently I dont recover well from those workouts or just dont respond to them well.

Why do some many people think they are special and they have a different physiology than everyone else on the planet and that science doesn't work for them. Maybe, just maybe the problem was you were not doing them at the proper pace or with the proper rest or at the proper effort level or with the proper mix of other workouts and that is why they don't work for you.

Oh, no, no that can't possible be the case, I forgot, you're different from everyone lese and so have to invent your own training. Ok I get it.

Different things work for different people, that's just the way things work. Stop being an asshat.

Marathon fanastic wrote:

Why do some many people think they are special and they have a different physiology than everyone else on the planet and that science doesn't work for them. Maybe, just maybe the problem was you were not doing them at the proper pace or with the proper rest or at the proper effort level or with the proper mix of other workouts and that is why they don't work for you.

Oh, no, no that can't possible be the case, I forgot, you're different from everyone lese and so have to invent your own training. Ok I get it.

Umm. He tried the training. It didn't work. He changed his training. He got faster. That's science. The experimental method.

Save your rant for when the science of translating laboratory results to training practices gets worked out.

It is possible, in fact, probable, that in college I was running those workouts too fast. I was trying to keep up with more talented runners all the time. I was probably running them too fast. After I got my hands on Daniel's books - after college - I realized I was probably running them too hard. Yet, even in following his training paces, my running suffered. I had even tried giving as much as two recovery days before and after those days, and it just didn't work for me.

And yes, in spite of your smartassness, we all do react differently to training. The basic physiology is the same - mitochondrial enzyme activities increase, mitochondrial numbers increase, slower phenotype of myosin in the muscle, more myoglobin, greater hematocrit, greater capliarity, etc. However, the immune system is very complex and its reactions to stress differ from person to person - even in those with the same immune type (of which there are 16 known types last I studied). As well, the HPA axis in each person reacts differently to stresses - emotional and physical, including athletic training. I have a phd in physiology. I damn well know the adaptations to training, and I also know that NO form of biological science is as black and white as you imply it to be. Everyone does not react the same to all types of training.

Marathon fanastic wrote:

Why do some many people think they are special and they have a different physiology than everyone else on the planet and that science doesn't work for them. Maybe, just maybe the problem was you were not doing them at the proper pace or with the proper rest or at the proper effort level or with the proper mix of other workouts and that is why they don't work for you.

Oh, no, no that can't possible be the case, I forgot, you're different from everyone lese and so have to invent your own training. Ok I get it.

I'm inclined to agree with this (though obviously with a less dick-ish tone).

World class runners do mile repeats. Doesn't matter if they are more fast twitch or slow twitch. You're not going to find someone who reached a high level in this sport doing only mileage and tempos.

Running is largely about aerobic metabolism. While intervals will have some influence on this too, the plan is pretty simple. Run. Run a lot.

Not all of us are world class athletes, or have or will reach a high level in this sport. Not all of us are national class athletes. Not all of us were particularly good college athletes, even. Yet we all want to be the best we can personally be. The OP never intimated his level, only that he had run better off certain types of training and that other types did not do well by him.

I'm pretty much the same way. I can get in phenominal shape just off of mileage, threshold runs, and some strides. When I start doing any sort of interval work my endurance hits the crapper. My times do improve at distances of 3000m or less, but only if most of my training is still mileage and threshold type stuff. If I was training for 5000m or longer, I'd do very little interval work.

Interval training works for some people (check out Arkansas), but it does not for me. I tried telling that to my coaches, but none of them believed me. This almost always resulted in me running my PB/SB at the beginning of the season, only to steadily degress until I was far FAR away from my previous times. This is why training specific to the individual is so critical.

Live and learn. That's what's so great about having a few years under your belt in running. You know through trial and error what works and what doesn't (for you).

ponytayne wrote:

Not all of us are world class athletes, or have or will reach a high level in this sport. Not all of us are national class athletes. Not all of us were particularly good college athletes, even. Yet we all want to be the best we can personally be. The OP never intimated his level, only that he had run better off certain types of training and that other types did not do well by him.

I hear you, and wasn't implying that everyone should strive to be world class. My point was more like what malmo says about doubling - it's been proven to work by thousands (millions?) of athletes throughout history, all different shapes and sizes.

defender of the bashed wrote:

I hear you, and wasn't implying that everyone should strive to be world class. My point was more like what malmo says about doubling - it's been proven to work by thousands (millions?) of athletes throughout history, all different shapes and sizes.

I don't think he was saying that you were implying that everyone should strive to be world class. Let me explain in a kind of circuitous way:

Let's accept your reasonable (although not certainly correct [which is not the same thing as certainly not correct]) premise that all elite runners do mile repeats (or some sort of long interval work near VO2 max pace that the OP is leaving out of his).

Since I've accepted your premise, can you accept my reasonable (although not certainly [but very probably] correct) premise that not everyone has the talent to be world class?

Might it be reasonable (although [one last time] not certainly correct), then, that an aspect of the talent that is prerequisite to being world class is that a runner respond well to those mile interval-type workouts?

I think that might be what he was implying; not that you were saying that everyone should try to be world class, but, rather, that different things might work for him than do work for those who are physiologically gifted with the potential to be world class.

(Also, I would like to add an addendum here: my bet is that someone comes on and posts the workouts of a world class runner who doesn't do those types of workouts. This is letsrun, after all, so someone with that knowledge is out there.)

(And a second addendum: even if those world class runners mentioned in the above addendum do exist, it doesn't mean that they wouldn't have been better if they had done those workouts; it also doesn't mean that they would, though.)

(A third and final addendum: even if those world class runners mentioned in the above two addendums [addendi?] do exist, that doesn't mean that it wouldn't be useful as a rule of thumb to say that world class runners, as a group, tend to be high-responders to mile interval-type workouts. )

I think I closed most of the holes in my logic there.

^^^ Yeah. What that guy said.

That was my point, actually. That not all of us have the talent to be world class (for a variety of reasons) and therefore may not respond well to that type of training because our talent level (or lack thereof).

Tinman has been writing on here for years that the majority of athletes can be CLOSE to p.r. shape off of Critcal Velocity(40 minute race pace) and tempo running. Also that doing too much faster running and dropping mileage significantly erodes aerobic fitness.

Isn't your situation pretty similar to the guy who tries twice in his career to jump from 40 miles per week to 80 miles per week, each time trying to do the jump in just a 1 or 2 week time frame and both time he gets injuried and then concludes that he is just not physically cut out for high mileage that he is just a low mileage type of guy and that is the only way that will work for him.

Improperly executed training doesn't work for anyone. Maybe you just know how to run mileage and tempo runs but haven't figured out how to do VO2 Max well. Its not that one thing works better for you than the other but just that you are executing one better.

Just a thought.

I will admit (actually I did) that I was doing those workouts wrong in college. But I continued to tinker with my training for years afterward. Altering the pace, the volume, the recovery between intervals, and the recovery days following those types of sessions. It was not a one-off shot that bore the conclusions. And I am not saying that there is no place for this type of workout, either. As I mentioned above, I would show up to college in great shape, and after 4 weeks or so of training including those types of workouts, I would be running my best ever. It seemed as though those types of workouts brought me to a peak quickly, and then I crashed. I basically confirmed this through several cycles of training after college. Again, this is just me, but I know I am not the only one out there and was just confirming the OP's thoughts to a degree.

In the end, the message is still the same to the OP. If it's working for him to do it his way, then continue to do it this way and enjoy yourself, rather than bang your head against the wall. if it ain't broke don't fix it.

4 weeks of HARD intervals is enough. I've had a lot of success with 2-3 months of easy intervals, still hitting VO2 pace, but doing slightly lower volume, stretching the recoveries. It doesn't leave you fried, but it makes it easier to transition to the really hard stuff. Depending on the athlete, we'll do 3-5 weeks of harder intervals and a 1 week taper. Weather cooperating, I've seen a lot of PRs from this kind of training.

That's just about the only training I did during my PR years. I also ran very few races, so I wasn't doing speedwork "through the back door." During the periods when I did a significant amount of interval training or racing, I never ran anywhere near as fast. And I never did fartlek workouts.

I do think that it was significant that my mileage was not just junk, however. I pushed myself hard.

Degress isn't a word. I meant worsen.

doing the mileage with just tempo/threshold stuff also help me keep my weight down which is more than likely the reason for the PR's