Don't go too hard on workouts? El Guerrouj says he ran until he was sick.

Some would claim that he was able to do that only because he was "doped to the gills".

Take it easy

From a well-known letsrun proponent of comparably easy tempos:

"Training can be very hard - so hard, in fact, tht you might sometimes find yourself recovering in bed in fetal position for a few hours afterwards."

"Fetal position frequency? After every race, and perhaps once every 10-15 days or so after a hard training session."

El Guerrouj also suffered from overtraining.

Training to the very limit isn't necessarily a bad thing but should only be done a few times a year just before you peak. Otherwise it is just going to tire you out unnecessarily

fullgore wrote:

http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-i-train-very-hard-until-i-am-sick-sometimes-i-train-like-a-foolish-man-who-has-no-mind-hicham-el-guerrouj-141-48-56.jpg

Goes against the whole training smart idea of not going too hard on workouts.

CERA is a hell of a drug.

El G and other elite athletes are a different breed. Hobby joggers will either get injured or burn out taking this approach. For them, winning races and beat others is not the objective - they are more interested in setting PRs and racing against themselves.

For serious runners, Canova himself said it's better to go too hard and not be able to finish a workout than take the coward's approach of taking it easy for fear of not being able to adequately recover. He mentioned it was the Western countries that took this coward's approach.

Figure out whether you're a hobby jogger or whether you want to be the best. Then either train like El G or Canova's athletes, or go read a RUnner's World marathon training guide.

Not a good idea wrote:

El Guerrouj also suffered from overtraining.

Training to the very limit isn't necessarily a bad thing but should only be done a few times a year just before you peak. Otherwise it is just going to tire you out unnecessarily

So El G managed to win pretty much every race for a period of nearly 10 years, breaking every record in every event he competed in, by consistently overtraining?

Sign me up!

El G didn't win the olympics when he was already 1500 WR holder.

He would've lost to lagat. Fortunately Lagat threw the race in the last few meters.

formerD1 wrote:

El G and other elite athletes are a different breed. Hobby joggers will either get injured or burn out taking this approach. For them, winning races and beat others is not the objective - they are more interested in setting PRs and racing against themselves.

For serious runners, Canova himself said it's better to go too hard and not be able to finish a workout than take the coward's approach of taking it easy for fear of not being able to adequately recover. He mentioned it was the Western countries that took this coward's approach.

Figure out whether you're a hobby jogger or whether you want to be the best. Then either train like El G or Canova's athletes, or go read a RUnner's World marathon training guide.

Canova expects you to have 5-10 years of big mileage under your belt before training like his athletes.

Also, Canova says that in most of the build up to a race you should adapt the workouts to the rest, while at the end of the build-up you should adapt the rest to the workouts.

You obviously interpret Canova's training just so that it corresponds with how you want to train.

Completely irrelevant and non-responsive to what I wrote. Nobody is saying "train like his athletes" or doing the same workouts. Canova stated blankly in an interview about western training methods that western doctrine is too focused on doing workouts at a set pace instead of trying to challenge themselves by running faster workouts.

Again, non-responsive. The above interview with Canova had absolutely nothing to do with "build-up to a race." It was a general commentary on western training methods compared to his.

I never ran "Canova" style and I am certainly not trying to now. I just happen to be interested in reading about different training methods.

El G is the same age as Lagat and he quit running three Olympics ago.

I could work out hard like that one time, the next day I would be uncoiling from the fetal position and going to the hospital to get half a dozen tendons re-attached.

Star wrote:

El G is the same age as Lagat and he quit running three Olympics ago.

And formerD1 quit after HS. (I guess he's happy for that comparison.)

ever heard of modulation? wrote:

From a well-known letsrun proponent of comparably easy tempos:

"Training can be very hard - so hard, in fact, tht you might sometimes find yourself recovering in bed in fetal position for a few hours afterwards."

"Fetal position frequency? After every race, and perhaps once every 10-15 days or so after a hard training session."

Seems people on this thread pretend this post doesn´t exist...

I don't even believe his quote, I think he just said that to make his rivals train wrong.

I have never seen El Guerrouj athlete puke at the end of a race. Not even the end of an Olympic race. So why would he run so hard during training and puke but he wouldn't try that hard to actually win the medal?

It was said on dyestat that Maverick Darling ran even when sick, never taking a day off.

I guess it all depends on genes. And perhAps how many instagram followers one has. Given how many of our youngsters best and brightest compete to win, these two variables should be measured and tested.

Keyboard Salazar wrote:

El G didn't win the olympics when he was already 1500 WR holder.

He would've lost to lagat. Fortunately Lagat threw the race in the last few meters.

You're being very dishonest. The guy that beat him in the Olympics (and Lagat) had near identical were also practically the 1500m record holders also. Your point would only make sense if El G had lost to some 3:30+ guy.

glacius wrote:

I don't even believe his quote, I think he just said that to make his rivals train wrong.

I have never seen El Guerrouj athlete puke at the end of a race. Not even the end of an Olympic race. So why would he run so hard during training and puke but he wouldn't try that hard to actually win the medal?

A training session can be a lot harder than a race.

Yep!! wrote:

A training session can be a lot harder than a race.

How?