Brenda Martinez Training

DMX wrote:

First things first, I'm a big fan of Martinez. This post is not meant to criticize her. However I've noticed she seems to train at a much higher level than she races at. For example, yesterday she posted her scheduled workout on instagram, 6x1k @ 2:50 and then a 400 @ 56. This seems a lot harder than something a 15:25 5k runner could do. Does anyone know what the deal is here?

Wow!

That would a tough workout even for someone like Huddle and I'm sure that tag must have hurt like heck. If she can do that kind of workout and with her speed, I would not be surprised to see her go a couple of ticks under 4 in the 1500.

She is coached by Joe Vigil who is notorious for giving rediculously hard workouts.

Interstestly, Flotrack filmed her doing a very similar workout a year or two ago. You can look it up, but I don't remember if she hit the splits or not.

She's also a 1:57 800m runner. We can't know what the rest was. It is possible that she's in fantastic shape too.

Cgfdsddf wrote:

She is coached by Joe Vigil who is notorious for giving rediculously hard workouts.

Interstestly, Flotrack filmed her doing a very similar workout a year or two ago. You can look it up, but I don't remember if she hit the splits or not.

Here is the workout

Vigil writes his workouts for her based on what it will take to win Gold WC/Olympics.

Basically, if she wants to win Gold, Vigil thinks she'll have to be able to run 6x1000 @ 2:50 (at some point during the season), so that's what he tells her to do.

Weird philosophy, not for the weak minded.

One of the big mistakes in reasoning here is that oxygen delivery is the only possible limit to endurance performance -- it isn't. Martinez is limited by speed in the 800 and her fiber qualities above 1500.

Vigil has routinely over-trained athletes in both volume and intensity for years and Martinez can pump away on this intermittent workouts which seem stellar and still run a disappointing 5000 -- that's because the workload is too high and she is not really designed for distance much beyond 4' duration.

dsrunner wrote:

One of the big mistakes in reasoning here is that oxygen delivery is the only possible limit to endurance performance -- it isn't. Martinez is limited by speed in the 800 and her fiber qualities above 1500.

Vigil has routinely over-trained athletes in both volume and intensity for years and Martinez can pump away on this intermittent workouts which seem stellar and still run a disappointing 5000 -- that's because the workload is too high and she is not really designed for distance much beyond 4' duration.

Nice observation, but Vigil has been studying exercise physiology for the past 30+ years. He has more specifically been studying exercise physiology in relation to elite running. I am more than positive Vigil has thought of this. I think his training philosophy leaves his athletes susceptible to over-training, but results in the athlete reaching their full potential.

We've been over this before.

Vigil writes workouts based on the "if you are going to run your goal time, this is what you should get to" principle. That means he might "call for" 6x1000 at 2:50 any team in the season, regardless of where the athlete is at and whether he expects them to hit those times. Aspirational.

Remember Martinez's Instagram post of her program for the week, with Vigil's note to "have the courage to attempt all workouts at pace"? It's clearly not an expectation that she will actually run all six on that time.

same old old wrote:

We've been over this before.

Vigil writes workouts based on the "if you are going to run your goal time, this is what you should get to" principle. That means he might "call for" 6x1000 at 2:50 any team in the season, regardless of where the athlete is at and whether he expects them to hit those times. Aspirational.

Remember Martinez's Instagram post of her program for the week, with Vigil's note to "have the courage to attempt all workouts at pace"? It's clearly not an expectation that she will actually run all six on that time.

But was she able to finish this one? That's what we all wanna know

Vigil wrote the workouts for Estrada's 1:00:51 half.

1500 Metres 4:00.94 Monaco (Stade Louis II) 19 JUL 2013

No PBs in 2014.

So what's going to happen if she dials back the intensity

They are probably not going to dial back the intensity. We will have to wait and see what happens this season.

dsrunner wrote:

One of the big mistakes in reasoning here is that oxygen delivery is the only possible limit to endurance performance -- it isn't. Martinez is limited by speed in the 800 and her fiber qualities above 1500.

Vigil has routinely over-trained athletes in both volume and intensity for years and Martinez can pump away on this intermittent workouts which seem stellar and still run a disappointing 5000 -- that's because the workload is too high and she is not really designed for distance much beyond 4' duration.

One of the big mistakes in reasoning here is anonymous morons on a message board thinking they know enough to "correct" Dr. Vigil's logic. You are the one(s) that doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, not Joe Vigil (situation normal for this website).

To any real coach, what he is trying to accomplish would be pretty obvious. Assuming recovery of 2:00-2:30 (maybe 3:00 for females), 6X1000 is a very standard 3000 pace workout. El Guerrouj did this almost every week in the winter. And running the workout at 2:50 is 8:30 pace, and that is a pace that Simpson and Rowbury actually ran for 3K last summer, with Hassan and Dibaba right in front of them. The 400 is 56 is about kicking off a fast pace. If you can gain the endurance to run that pace with Brenda's 400 speed, you have a good shot at a medal. What would be surprising is if Wetmore doesn't pick up on this, assuming he's not doing something like that already.

With Ajee and everyone else (eespecially if Alysia Montano is 100%), making the US women's team in the 800 will be one of the most difficult tasks in track and field for ANY athlete in ANY nation. As I have suspected since last year, it looks like Joe is going to attempt to move her up to the 1500 now.

"One of the big mistakes in reasoning here is anonymous morons on a message board thinking they know enough to "correct" Dr. Vigil's logic."

-very well stated. I'm constantly astounded at the armchair quarterbacks here.

When I spoke to Martinez at NB Indoor GP, she said the 800 is still her focus in 2015. Wilson and Montano are good, but remember, Martinez is the reigning bronze medalist from Worlds.

HAHAHAHAHA! jokes " to any real coach" so quick to judge. By the way, it's stamina not endurance you imbecile, she has been more of a 1500m runner all along. Let's see if any of your athletes will line up with me in the future. Highly unlikely...

She does train excessively hard. I wouldn't recommend it to an athlete. But her results speak for themselves. She has a world championships bronze medal. It is strange and unorthodox, but it works for her so she might as well keep doing it.

Zero percent chance she can actually hit that 6x1k workout if the recovery was four minutes or less. If you can hit that pace for 6x1k with 2-3 min rest you can definitely run under 8:30 for 3k. How many clean non-African women have hit that time? Like three? No way, no how, can Martinez hit those times. Unless it was on a "Vigil measured" loop.

Dave Moorecroft used to run his km repeats ( 7 minute recoveries, so a 1:~3 work:rest ratio) at an even greater intensity - ~94%, with a similar volume. He was a 5000m guy. Assuming she could run about a 2.33 1km, her specific intensity is at 90% (2.50). It has nothing to do with what she can run a 3000m in.

Sometimes we get too caught up in a session done at a specific pace, and assume everyone has to match that specific intensity - something I feel is wrong with the whole Daniels' shtick (not his fault really), that everyone follow his schedules without really understanding the purpose of them and that they are guidelines for the "average" person.

This is a world-class athlete who is attempting to train "outside the box". Similarly, Radcliffe did sessions that many would think nuts, but it was that intensity that led her beyond others at her level. Too many people do what is "safe" or conventional, and so do not rise above their mediocrity. It may be prudent but that is not how champions are made - just like AlSal and his after-race workouts. A number of world-class athletes did things others simply didn't think of - Zatopek and his 20x200+40x400, etc. Canova has his marathon guys do sessions which people even 20 years ago would have thought was nuts - 4 x 5k in 15 minutes, with 1km recoveries in 3.30/km. Kristiansen did 2 x 5km in 15 minutes each on a treadmill almost 30 years ago - she ran 30.13 for 10000m almost by herself. It is the "everybody must be the same and train the same way" mentality that really I find disturbing - and just reinforces mediocrity and speculation that consequently anyone who doesn't follow this "way" must be on drugs. This is HS/College thinking that is so destructive to developing truly world-class athletes - the predominance of the hobbyjogger/yasso 800's mentality - I can't do this, so nobody can.