How many train by the way the body feels daily vs using a specific training plan?

I justs started going by feel and I feel I have been improving a lot. My concept is why do a workout when your body is still fatigued.

I basically do that. I have a general plan (how many miles I plan to run on that day) and then decide whether or not I feel like running that much and how fast I want to go.

For workouts it is the same thing. I have a plan at the beginning of the week and either tweak the workout, change it, or just don't do it (or postpone) depending on how I feel.

I've been improving a fair amount since doing this (split a little bit slower than my college 10K PR during a half marathon)

Have a plan but how the body feels trumps all.

What I have noticed in the past is that there are times when I feel great in workouts, run hard, run fast and after time find myself getting flat. Seems the notion of planned de load weeks makes more sense to follow then planning and following load weeks.

If I feel great and I plan to load then so be it and if I feel tired, I run easy or take a day off; however even if I feel great, I now realize a de load week will more than likely do more good then harm in light of preserving my endocrine system.

It's tricky to do as feeling great makes me want to continue to press, but after years of following this, I sense this strategy might be limiting my potential in view of continued growth.

I do a little from column A and a little from column B.

I'm doing this at the moment (situation is a little different but even so).

I think it makes more sense when returning from injury.

I can't predict I'll do X minutes on a certain day, just go by feel.

Like other posters I have a plan in "pencil" as Brad Hudson likes to point out in his book. If there is a reason to change I will do so. In the long run adjusting to how your body is currently leads to less injuries and thus more success. Hudson calls it "Adaptive Running"

The past two seasons of track I have tried both. The first one I was exiting high school where basically we just pounded intervals and ran at most 20mpw. Not very good training. So for cross country my freshman year of college through cross country my sophomore I went strictly by feel and taking it day to day with a general feel for constructing a full season and keeping the periodization somewhat. (I'm on my college's club team)

The result was that I dropped 32 seconds off of my 5k PR in XC (I've only ran 4 5ks in the past 2 years and PR'd in 3 of them) and lowered my 1500m time by 6 seconds while only lowering it 3 seconds my senior year of high school.

Then this past season, I tried going by a strict set out plan. I sort of went day to day (like if I was feeling bad or if it was terrible weather on a workout day I would move the workout back a day) but stuck with a lot more specific plan. Early season races I dropped 12 seconds from my old 3200m high school time and ~3 seconds off of my 800m.

I was having phenomenal workouts for 4 weeks and knew I was in really good shape for the 1500m (my primary event). However, I kept on pushing hard for 2 more weeks when I should have started my 6 week taper. I had terrible workouts during that time and started to overtrain. If I were listening to my body I would have backed off immediately, but I realized it too late and had to scramble a taper. I felt very flat but still tied my 1500m PR in my last race and it felt easy.

So in short, I think I like having a plan laid out (after heavy research of how to construct a training plan) but your body tells you everything. I think I could have dropped ~10 seconds off my 1500m PR if I had listened to my body during that time

Combination.

Take a detailed multi week schedule and study it and understand why workouts are in the order on the schedule. The more detailed the schedule and workouts the more you can adapt it to your improvisation.

Most weeks will have 2-3 workouts and you can eliminate one and still be able to progress each week.

In between each workout are usually basic mileage days or recovery. These are the days you can skip IF you have a base of mileage going into the training.

By skipping... you can do a variety of aerobic or recovery activities.

Also long runs can be done ever other week instead of once a week if you do quality running in the middle or at the end.

If you have to skip multiple workouts in a row then wait a couple days of rest and try to do them when you are feeling better.

The same goes with if you are feeling great... do a workout or two that is upcoming on the schedule if you feel like a running GOD.

When a race or time trial comes nearer hop back on schedule as tightly as you can... the longer the race distance the more tightly you need to follow the schedule for a longer duration before the race: example...

Marathon - don't stray from the schedule at all during taper, what is done is done and taper's are important to follow.

some combination. Its too easy to not workout enough if you go by feel or to workout too much. What if I'm feeling amazing 2 days before a race or crappy the day of a race. I'm not going to run by feel.

I do all of my running by feel these days. No pun intended. Running by feel really requires a lot of experience though. Like the feeling of an injury coming on, for example. I think if you've done enough running by feel then you have a good idea when to chill, but if you're only now becoming aware then you'll have to experience going too far a few times and that means injury. The older you are the longer it takes to recover so the learning process is slower and that's why having a nice tried and true plan works best for some people.

Lately I have been going through several months of slogging out 60mpw, at like 9/mi. I would like to get to some faster running again but I really don't like getting injured.

Model Based Training:

Another thing to consider is training by a mathematical model. The most popular one out there is one based on TRIMP/TSS scores, developed by Andrew Coggan. The idea is that each run is assigned a stress score, and that you take an average of these scores over a couple of weeks, and a couple of months. Over a week or two, we can call this score the Acute Training Load (ATL). This is a measure of your fatigue, how much you've been training lately. A longer-term average of your training load is taken over 60 days or so, and is called your Chronic Training Load (CTL). With these two scores CTL and ATL, you have a quantitative sense of how much training your body is handling over a matter of months vs how much you've been doing lately. Then you can plan your runs day to day basically, based on how fatigued you are (ATL) vs how in shape you are (CTL). A lot of people employ these models via software and find it helpful. Training Peaks does it, as does the SportTracks 3 with the Training Load plugin. I'm not sure if pros use this stuff but I would not be surprised if they do.

Also, pay attention to how you feel before a scheduled workout...

You should feel poppy before all quality days. If not, then you needed more time to recover and understand that you won't be able to comfortably hit your pace and/or your number of reps. Don't let this discourage you too much. Go out there and still do a valiant effort within your capability of that day.

Only completely scrap a day if you are borderline injured or feeling totally zapped even before you start.

From what I've noticed even the bad workouts have significant positive impact on your progression as long as everything is strung together in the proper order.

KingD wrote:

Also, pay attention to how you feel before a scheduled workout...

You should feel poppy before all quality days. If not, then you needed more time to recover and understand that you won't be able to comfortably hit your pace and/or your number of reps. Don't let this discourage you too much. Go out there and still do a valiant effort within your capability of that day.

Only completely scrap a day if you are borderline injured or feeling totally zapped even before you start.

From what I've noticed even the bad workouts have significant positive impact on your progression as long as everything is strung together in the proper order.

Even a few days to a week easy won't erode fitness, but can restore energy in a profound way, so long as one isn't chronically over trained, especially when that seems more related to endocrine failure. This seems to require a lot more time than a week to resolve.

The easy period is hard to self administer when one is rolling. It's really very hard emotionally to let up on the gas, but seems the more sensible training decision.

Sir Roger Bannister wrote:

I do a little from column A and a little from column B.

Me too. If I feel crappy before or during a workout I'll do it anyway. If I feel crappy before or during 4 or 5 workouts in a row, I know it's time take a break.