Anyone have success with Jack Daniels half marathon plan?

You won't find a bigger advocate of Daniels on these boards than me. I think he's great and I think that because Daniels is about principles, not plans.

Plans are merely guidelines regarding how to implement the key principles he espouses. They can, and should, be modified based on the individual athlete's strengths, weaknesses and history.

No one is saying that running economy isn't important and yes Daniels thinks improving running economy is a key principle in a well integrated training plan, and that that improvement should come early in the training cycle so that the benefit of improved running economy can be enjoyed throughout the cycle.

But just like other physiological factors, it is a physiological factor to which different people will have different responses when they attempt to effectuate an adaptation. If the OP is a low responder to reps the way some are lower responders to vo2max training, a full phase of rep training may not be worth the stress on his body that comes with the intensity of reps.

If the OP has done a significant block of rep work recently, much of the available adaptation may have already taken place.

If the OP is feeling beat up, the high intensity of rep work may be too costly to justify the benefit of improvements in running economy.

If the OP can work in some less intense ways of working running economy (like hill work, or like short sets of reps as part of a bigger workout), the increased benefit of traditional rep sessions would be marginal.

Lots of ifs there, but that is the point: sticking doggedly to a plan inserted into the back of a book about core principles is actually the exact opposite of the point of Daniels' Running Formula. Athletes should understand the principles and arm themselves with the knowledge of why they are doing what they are doing and then use that knowledge to adjust their training as needed based on all of those ifs.

I agree the point is not to stick to the plan dogmatically. It's simply a guideline. That said your suggestions that "rep work is nice but not absolutely necessary" is fundamentally at odds with Daniels training principles and your suggested modification is at odds with the purpose of R work.

Starting with the principles, Daniel's advocates working on weakness, in particular early in the season when far removed from a goal race.

"I think that runners should spend a good deal of their training time trying to improve any known weaknesses, but when approaching important races, the main emphasis should be taking advantage of known strengths. For example, a runner who feels weak in the area of speed but great in endurance should spend early and even midseason time working on improving speed, but in the latter weeks of training, put more emphasis on endurance to take advantage of what works best for this individual."

The OP sounds very much like the runner in the above example, coincidentally, although maybe not since this is a common type of distance runner. He's been short on details however so this is just a best guess. The OP also has said he is in phase 2, which is early in the plan. The suggestion that he should reduce the R work relative to the suggested plan and spend less time on his weaknesses is severely misguided. It's natural for the OP to want to avoid that working on his weaknesses. We all do, but as outside observers, the best advice we can give is to encourage to the OP to target his weakness and believe in the process. Now, far out from goal race, is the best time do this.

Another Daniel's principle is to add new stresses incrementally . This means 1) continually adding new stresses over time to achieve new levels of fitness and 2) only adding one new stress at a time to avoid setback and over training. Specifically, Daniels states with respect to phase II, "going from E running to R workouts is adding only a speed stress....If I were to go from E running to I training, I would be adding in two new stresses - faster running and more stress on the aerobic system." Therefore, the OPs observation that he doesn't run well off hard intervals which I take to mean hard intervals make him feel run down is actually a great reason why he should not skimp on the R work because he needs to build up to the I training which does actually involve hard intervals. Again the advice to modify the plan and reduce the amount of R work is the severely misguided, counter to Daniels' principles, and the exact opposite of what the OP should do. Phase III of the plan which incorporates I training is the most challenging phase. The OP needs to prepare for this adequately, no shortcuts, or he'll pay later.

Moving on to the purpose of R work, R training is fast running with adequate recovery, and "you don't want to be struggling while running fast, or good mechanics will be sacrificed." Again the purpose of R work is not to run hard, despite the OP describing it this way. Adding R training onto the T training is only going to make the R work harder and detract from the mechanics. The HM plan has 2 days of recovery between the R and T session in Phase II. You're suggesting compressing those into 1 workout.

Also note the OP has a misunderstanding of what R work is. Therefore it's very odd to suggest a change to the plan based on his misconception. If the OP said something like "fast runner aggravates my Achilles tendinitis", then easing up on the R work would make sense and would be a good modification and good advice.

If the OP is to make any changes to the plan, it would be to adjust the maximum amount of R work which is 5% of current weekly miles downward. For example, instead of doing 200,200,400 six times, which is the suggested amount for 60 MPW, he could do it five times. This would be a day of/ mid workout decision that the OP would need to make with the purpose of R training in mind. In other words if his form and mechanics are getting sloppy, cut the workout at 3 or 4 sets. In the next R workout he could try to add another set. From what the OP is shared, it's not clear if this is actually necessary since we don't know how he responds to R training.

Dang dude. You know things. I love this discussion.

First, I will note that this is turning into a decent discussion, and it would have been better to have this discussion from the beginning instead of being aggressive and insulting.

Second, I will acknowledge that I glossed over the fact that the OP was in Phase II and that does make a difference.

As to your substantive points, again, as noted in my original response to the OP, I mostly agree with you that including the rep work is usually a good idea. But I do disagree with you on a couple of points.

First, there is the issue of going straight from easy running to I work. While I agree that is a bad idea, no one was advocating that. T work should be included during the second phase of the training cycle, so you would not be going straight from E to I.

Second, a limited volume of R work tied into a cruise interval session should not be so taxing on the OP (a 1:07-1:08 guy) that it would result in poor form or undue stress. Note the suggestion of significant rest between the R and cruise interval sets. Also, I think assuming that the OP would keep the reps under control as is clearly advocated by Daniels in the book on which the OP is basing his training is a fair one, and, in any event, I don't think anyone here is expected to write out every nuance of a workout. So those things combined with the reduced volume of R work should make the R work manageable as part of the T work, and would still allow for the OP to transition into I work in Phase III (a point which I discuss a bit more below).

Finally, there is the seeming implication that R work is mission critical to a half marathon. Daniels, in the second edition, acknowledges that the half is an "in between" distance, and you can approach it in one of two ways - train with a 5k to 15k approach and scale up a little, or train with a marathon approach and scale down a little. If you were to take the latter approach, you would never touch on rep pace at all (assuming you were not following an elite plan), yet you would be working in a manner consistent with Daniels' ideas. You would focus on T work during Phase III and IV, and you would use the I work in Phase II to make the subsequent T work in those phases feel more manageable. Look at Marathon Training Plan A. There is no R work anywhere in there at any point. He goes from easy distance to I paced work (without even using T work as a transition in earlier phases).

So I am pretty comfortable with what I stated in my first response, and I quote "rep work is nice, but not absolutely necessary, the vo2max work is necessary, and the threshold work is absolutely critical."

Here is an idea.

What if you just replace the R work with plenty of somewhat long strides or hill sprints? You could do these in the middle of a mid week "medium long run". Or like you say Smoove, and tack them on to either end (or both) of a T workout.

You are pretty much hitting on the point that Daniels is trying to emphasize, but maybe they won't be as demanding as full on R workouts?

Like work on your weakness, but don't let it destroy you.

I was always naturally an 800/1500 guy so I love R workouts, but I can see how some people wouldn't.

I can see both sides.

I think that would work just fine, especially for distances of half marathon up. Not so much for 5k/10k.

I personally start every non-marathon training cycle with some R work, and usually include R work in my marathon training cycles in a less structured way (including a 200/400/200 workout last month to kick off my Chicago Marathon training cycle). Honestly, I think it is the most manageable way to work yourself back into workouts after a base period that is normally limited to easy running, some moderate paced efforts, some hills (for some - there are none where I live) and progression efforts. You don't need a particularly high level of fitness to do them, and, aside from the running economy adaptation, they make I pace later on feel easier than it otherwise would.

But when training for the marathon, they are the first thing that I cut if I have to cut something.

Kinghobbyjogger wrote:

Here is an idea.

What if you just replace the R work with plenty of somewhat long strides or hill sprints? You could do these in the middle of a mid week "medium long run". Or like you say Smoove, and tack them on to either end (or both) of a T workout.

You are pretty much hitting on the point that Daniels is trying to emphasize, but maybe they won't be as demanding as full on R workouts?

Like work on your weakness, but don't let it destroy you.

I was always naturally an 800/1500 guy so I love R workouts, but I can see how some people wouldn't.

I can see both sides.

This is actually what I said I would do a few posts above, though I still will do some R work in phase 2 but I will just go light on it and treat it more like I would a light fartlek.

If you've ever read Science of Running, I am the ST type runner. It's not that intervals wear me down, it's that if I push them to hard I don't see performance gains like I would from something slower and longer. I can still do intervals I just am careful about never overdoing it. I relate to a lot of people in this old thread:

I'm glad this thread has turned into a good discussion.

First off, a couple caveats:

- I'm not a running scholar or coach.

- I've never purchased a Daniels plan.

However, I find that no calculator predicts my performances better than the Daniels calculator. My mile, 5k, and half-marathon PR's are in line with his calculator -- down to the second -- and rather unintentionally when I ran those races. So you could say that I'm something like his model type of athlete (albeit slower than the people on these boards with real talent).

Notice in the calculator that whatever you put in for distance, the mile-performance-equivalent is very close to the pace that the calculator spits out for "Repetition." This to me implies that Repetition work is directly working on improving VO2max.

Smoove, it appears that you don't believe that VO2max is terribly applicable in 5k, 10k, half-marathon. Granted, it is true that the pace being run at for a those distances is quite different. However, I believe it's indirectly applicable. I've seen Daniels talk in videos on YouTube about how your marathon pace is some function of your 10k ability, which is some function of 5k ability, which is some function of mile ability, which is some function of 400m ability, and so on, even though the function curves are different for different athletes. The point is that the lower you can push your VO2max, the lower you can push your threshold pace, and therefore the lower you can push your half-marathon time, no matter what your efficiency curve looks like.

So, to the OP, I would suggest doing the repetition work. If you need to increase the rest, fine. If you need to back off the pace on any particular day because you got less sleep the night before...or it's 90 degrees...or it's very humid, then fine, but you should develop a feel for what the equivalent of those paces is in those different conditions, and complete the volume of the repetition work accordingly.

As a Lydiard guy, I notice the same thing. Someone claims to follow Lydiard but after all their modifying it ceases to be Lydiard.

This guy had success with it

This guy too

too hot wrote:

As a Lydiard guy, I notice the same thing. Someone claims to follow Lydiard but after all their modifying it ceases to be Lydiard.

Its seems very common. People treat training plans like a buffet. They take a little of this and a little of that and end up with some nondescript schmorgisboard training system. To answer the OPs question posed in the thread title: you can have success with any legitimate training plan so long as you believe in the plan and execute the purpose of each day, run, workout. The latter is easier said then done however. That's where coaches, unbiased advice, experience and a bit of art come into play.

With all of these periodized plans, e.g. Daniels, Lydiard, Canova, Pfitzinger, Magness, each phase compliments and adds to the other phase. Once you alter even an early phase you are no longer following the plan, instead you're just copy workouts out of the back of the Daneils book or out of a Canova Letsrun thread.

Smoove:

Fair. I can see an argument that T pace builds into I pace if you simply assume T pace has aerobic stress only and then the move from T to I only adds 1 new stimulus: speed. That said the plan the OP is following has R placed in the plan for a very specific reason to prepare for I training. The plan already calls T training in phase II. I've yet to see any good justification of why only doing T work through 1 or 2 sessions per week would be better than a T and R session each week. If it were better wouldn't have Daniels' suggested that initially? Obviously, so trusting in Daniels I'll assume that skipping R work makes a worse plan. The hardest phase (III) of the plan he is following involves substantial I work. The OP will get better results from that phase and have a lower risk of injury and over training if he prepares with both R and T work first.

I also understand that R work is not in some marathon plans. That's not the OPs proposed plan however. I wouldn't recommend mixing the two plans here. As too hot implied, taking pieces of one plan and mixing it with another only results in all around worse plan, even if they are both Daniels plans in this case. The OP could start from the marathon plan in ed. 2, and tweak from there, but that's not what he's doing.

I'm about to get pedantic and verbose but your interpretation of my comments as implying that R work is mission critical really makes me thing you are missing the point. There is zero implication that R work is mission critical in that sense that nothing is mission critical. Every component of a training system (easy running, specific running, interval training, sleep, weights/strength) add some incremental value to the system. You can remove any piece and you'll still run faster than had you done zero training and likely faster than if you ran the race at the start of the plan as opposed to the end.

Additionally, each piece each adds a unique stress with diminishing returns and in each component interacts with the other components, particularly in a periodized plan that has build up like a beautifully written play. If you remove any one component or act from the play you'll both lose the benefit of the component or the story from that section of the play. But you'll also lose the supporting benefits that training had and the later acts of the play suddenly are harder to follow. In this case we remove R training so we lose the direct R benefit, which is economy, speed, mechanics, etc, apologies for not being precise, but we also lose the indirect benefits of the R work supporting the I work, which is the center piece of this particular plan. Sure T supports I, but R does as well and in a different unique manner. They aren't substitutes.

With all this in mind, we can all probably agree that the benefit from R training is less than the benefit from T training or the I training in this plan. That's what I assume you mean when you say R isn't mission critical, which isn't very informative and is a bit obvious. If that's all we needed to know in order to construct a training plan we'd just load up on all the goodies with the most impact and disregard everything else. Sadly its not that easy as I love training hard. Ranking components in terms of most or least likely to be mission critical is only the beginning of designing a training plan.

With proper justification I could buy into arguments of why one would remove R workouts from this plan. Thus far nothing has been presented other than some misleading anecdotes. The OP suggested that he runs better with more mileage and less intervals. 1) I'm still not really sure what this means. And could read in at least two ways 1) the OP has had training cycles (12-16 weeks or so) that consisted primarily of mileage and less intervals and those cycles yielded better returns that training cycles with more intervals and less mileage or 2) during the same training cycle, the OP did not race well in weeks with or near hard interval sessions and either before or after said intervals raced better with on only mileage. The implications from either are very different. If it is scenario 1) than I'd suggest not using the Daniels 3rd ed. HM plan because at its core is I work. If it's 2), it is really hard to disentangle what lead to what. Likely the OP ran better because he was rested, but the intervals were still an important piece of the puzzle.

Lastly, in all of the above the OP has yet to state what he means by intervals. The same goes for the linked thread from what I can see. The benefits and implications of various interval sessions vary tremendously depending on the speed, rest, and volume. You can target everything from high end aerobic to sprinting through intervals and could make the session more or less hard depending on the ratio of rest to work and total volume.

only hobbyjogger fast wrote:

Notice in the calculator that whatever you put in for distance, the mile-performance-equivalent is very close to the pace that the calculator spits out for "Repetition." This to me implies that Repetition work is directly working on improving VO2max.

Smoove, it appears that you don't believe that VO2max is terribly applicable in 5k, 10k, half-marathon.

Ack, no, you've got this all wrong. Read Daniels. R pace is for improving economy and mechanics; I pace (closer to 3K/5K pace) is what's targeted specifically at v02max. It's all in the book. Since Smoove is an orthodox Daniels guy, he's very likely to agree that v02max is important for 5K-HM racing.

See, I think you and I are now up to 80% agreement already.

We agree that:

1. R work is helpful to do in most training cycles, and it is most helpful to do it early.

2. R is probably the least relevant component of training for a half-marathon of the Big 3 limiting physiological factors that Daniels emphasizes.

3. There may be good reasons to reduce the frequency or volume of R work for some athletes, but we do not have enough information from the OR to be sure which, if any of these, apply.

4. That absent a good reason to modify a Daniels plan, doing so probably makes those plans worse for most people rather than better because Daniels has not only laid out the overall stimuli in a logical way, but in a well integrated way that builds extraordinarily well, with well thought through progressions of not just training stimuli, but training volumes, length and volume of work bouts within each training block during which each stimulus is emphasized, and in dovetailing the interplay between intensity and volume each week of the cycle.

Where we still either disagree or are misunderstanding one another:

1. Whether creating a half marathon plan that does not include R work is consistent with a Daniels approach. I have already made my point on this front - Daniels has suggested that you can train for the half by "coming down" from a marathon training plan, and those plans do not include R work, so he certainly seems to think training for a half marathon without R work is viable and thus it can be consistent with a Daniels approach. That, of course, raises the following, more fundamental (and perhaps only?) difference that we seem to have.

2. That modifying Daniels' approach makes it not a Daniels approach or at least significantly diminishes its "Danielsness" including:

a. the idea that Daniels would have prepared the half-marathon plan without R work if he thought that was better;

b. whether incorporating concepts from a marathon plan and a half marathon plan.

As to point A, I again point to the fact that Daniels has advocated using a non-R-inclusive marathon training plan as a means for racing the half marathon.

So maybe we are just down to the issue of 2b, and maybe we are just going to fundamentally disagree here. I don't think it is necessary, and I don't think Daniels ever intended, that the training plans included in the book be the definitive word on training for a given distance. I think they are intended as a marketing tool, as a representative sample, as a demonstration of principles, and as a starting point for those who were not experienced enough to fully apply his principles on their own, I don't think that they were ever meant to be representative of the entirety of the viable expressions of how Daniels would have all athletes train. As a practical matter, it would be impossible to lay out every acceptable Daniels approach, so why should we think that the approach that he laid out in his book represent the entire universe of permitted approaches? That is why your argument of "well, he would have done it that way in his plans if he thought that was a good approach" doesn't work for me. By that reasoning, I think you could argue that, based on his 2nd edition, there was no need at the time that he wrote that edition to have a half marathon specific training plan.

It’s true that a good coach will not apply principles in a strict or uniform way across the board but I think the principles themselves are uncompromisable and most of our disagreements amount to what those principles are in fact.

That was very well said. We are in 100% agreement I think. I simply disagree with your modifications for the OP. Walking through your 1 and 2:

1) You can have an HM plan without R specific days but not with R paced running altogether. The 2Q marathon plans in the 3rd edition do incorporate some R running, just not as the sole emphasis of a workout. Every plan should incorporate some R paced running regardless of race distance unless absolutely dire circumstances.

2) My point is that if he thought in the context of this specific HM plan, not having R work was better, he would have left it off. Just like above, if you are going to design a plan without R, start with that as the solution to the problem, rather than hacking together a solution out of the HM plan.

I agree all of the plans are modifiable but it depends on how you modify it if it's still a Daniels plan. The plans are supposed be examples only and described as such. You can make minor tweaks, move workouts a day or two, skip one here and there or reduce volume to account for residual fatigue, or the opposite. Alternatively its fine to make major tweaks but they should make sense within the a) context of the plan, b) align with the Daniels' principles, and c) fit the athletes needs.

I just don't see the reasoning behind your suggestion of adding on R onto T workouts. That likely because I don't understand how you'd structure the rest of the week. My interpretation of your suggestion is that rather than have a separate T and R workouts each week in Phase II you would essentially have a T+small r workout. Is that right? If so why not, instead have T and small r separately. That to me would better address the OPs need, assuming he needs this change. Simply easing up on the R workout seems less complex than combing the T and R.

For reference, the basic daily structure of this plan is:

L, E, R, E, E, T, E

I interpret your suggestion as roughly either A below or B, which is more intense. A seems inferior to what I've suggested which is to modify the volume of R to what feels appropriate. B doesn't address the need of reducing the amount of hard intervals and frankly seems harder than the original Daniel's plan. The premise of the change is to reduce the relative amount of quality running, no? B wouldn't do that.

A) L E E E E T+r E or maybe L E E T+r E E E

B) L E T+r E E T E

too hot wrote:

the principles themselves are uncompromisable.

I am not quite sure what this means, so I am not quite sure if I agree or not.

Taking Daniels as an example, I think his principles can be distilled roughly as:

General Principles

- Every run should have a purpose and the athlete should know what that purpose is.

- Easy days produce important adaptations and are as important as workout days.

- The three primary physiological factors that limit running performance (aside from general aerobic fitness) are running economy, vo2max and lactate threshold.

- Each training session that is not an easy day should seek to either effectuate adaptations in one of these factors or, in the 4th phase in particular, prepare an athlete for the mental aspect of race day.

- Athletes should seek to maximize the possible adaptation within each workout while incurring the least amount of stress on their body as possible.

- Athletes should include down periods of some sort between cycles.

- Athletes should increase only of the following at any time: frequency, duration or intensity of training.

- Volume of workbouts on a quality day should be in proportion to the athlete's overall training volume.

I think the first 6 of those are basically Daniels' inviolable rules. The last 2 may allow for my wiggle room though.

But then we come to more specific tenets of a Daniels approach:

- Base periods should consist of easy distance running.

- The first phase (Phase II if you count the base period as a phase) of a training cycle should emphasize adaptations in running economy so that those benefits are in place prior to the more intense and higher volume subsequent phases.

- The next phase should emphasize the physiological factor that is most crucial to the athlete's goal race (vo2max for 5k-15k; lactate threshold for the marathon; one or the other for the half marathon depending on how you choose to train for it).

- The final phase should sharpen the athlete and prepare them for the rigors of race day,

- Phases should be 6 weeks in duration.

- Workouts in each microcycle during each phase should build upon the workouts from microcycles earlier in the phase or from a prior phase.

- Long runs should not exceed 20%-25% of your total weekly mileage.

- Threshold sessions should not exceed 10% of your weekly mileage.

- vo2max sessions should not exceed 8% of your weekly mileage.

- Rep sessions should not exceed 5% of your weekly mileage.

- Athletes should have scheduled reductions in their weekly mileage every few weeks,.

I would submit to you that if you deem these to be principles of a Daniels approach, while these principles represent an ideal, most of them are not inviolable and you can still be following a Daniels approach while violating one or more of these principles (but you should have a really good reason for doing so).

Honestly, I have never read the 3rd edition and thus I am not familiar with this half-marathon plan in particular. So between that and not really focusing on the fact that it was phase 2 when this would be the primary workout each week, I was really addressing the question the more philosophical question of whether you can do a half marathon plan in the Daniels style without doing rep work.

As an aside, Daniels does include many combined T and R workouts in his 5k to 15k plans, although they are included in phase 4, not phase2.

Smoove wrote:

Honestly, I have never read the 3rd edition and thus I am not familiar with this half-marathon plan in particular. So between that and not really focusing on the fact that it was phase 2 when this would be the primary workout each week, I was really addressing the question the more philosophical question of whether you can do a half marathon plan in the Daniels style without doing rep work.

As an aside, Daniels does include many combined T and R workouts in his 5k to 15k plans, although they are included in phase 4, not phase2.

In the 3rd version he has TR or RTR workouts as the third workout of the week for both phase 2 and 3. He seems to like that pace change. He even mentions doing it in his training runs and intensities chapter.