Jerry Schumacher Training

Grant's first pro race was in February 2020, so after the super shoes came out. He ran 13:02 with them a year ago, after 1 year as a pro, and then a couple days ago he dropped his time 10 seconds in his second year as a pro. 

Maybe (just like Grant himself said), he was able to drop so much time because he's strung two years of high quality training with some of the best runners in the world, free of injury.

The training is by all accounts grueling and unadaptable. Keep up or get out.

And the coach appears to have maintained a passive/unaware stance on at least one athlete doping in order to thrive in the program.

Question: Have any athletes in the program spoken strongly against doping?

Recently moved to Portland and curious what this 3.5 mile undulating loop is?

I don't think there is anything different they are doing now (not that I would know). They have always had good results. If they are running faster times today it's because they either 1) have better athletes, or 2) shoes. Possibly both.

Full disclosure not from Portland, but from what I have seen online I believe it's Fairmont. I would imagine you can search on Strava

Why celebrate a dirty coach.

The majority of changes the year from last come are from the base phase. Last year, they stepped away from the hills + track session on Tuesdays and were primarily just doing short track repeats with short recovery i.e. 2 sets of 10x300 with 100 jog instead of 10x200 hills plus 10x300 with 100 jog. This year they returned to the hills weekly, primarily focusing on shorter hills (in previous years they were doing reps up to 600m). They’ve also returned to the long tempos which Jerry was fond of in his earlier coaching years (up to 10 miles) alternating with shorter broken repeats (generally 1-2 miles) totalling 10 miles. In previous years they would do the broken repeats each week, alternating between a longer and shorter interval week, but with no intervals longer longer than about 4 miles. Also, last year I think they stopped the structured long runs, but I might be wrong. For the past one or two months they have been at altitude, where they operate on a 9 day cycle - 3 workouts (one speed-e.g 300 reps at 800-1500 pace, one specific - one I heard about recently was 2k, 4x800, 8x400 at 5-10k pace and one endurance - about 8 miles worth of 800-2 mile repeats) and one long run. Will be exciting to see if they can improve on this form.

Thanks for sharing. Where did you hear this information?

On the sweat elite podcast with Marc Scott, posted on page one, he says they do a two week cycle as you describe and another rooster describes but he doesn’t go into much detail beyond that.

How would they know what to say? 

Maybe the real problem is people like you?

Idk where the doc lives but someone outlined their base training a while back. It was a lot of high-volume threshold work with some sprint work mixed in. 

Also I don't have a problem with running fans asking current BTC athletes to condone doping or talk about what happened. Fisher will go on Citius Mag & get a lot of soft ball questions instead of having to answer anything remotely difficult. I think it's right to ask him why we should think that he's clean given Shelby's suspension & the way the Nike/BTC talking points were sent right out to us. We're smarter than the PR spin machine credits us for but it isn't helpful when our media doesn't ask tough questions when it comes to doping.

& I think Fisher is great. Loved the performance. If I listen to an hour podcast with him I don't want it to be all accusatory questions about doping but the issue is there's little accountability in that arena to begin with & the group does have a problem with public trust.

Accountabilty? For what? How would Fisher know how to answer that question? 

What could he say about himself and his teammates that would satisfy your curiosity?

I think there are a few top line points that we can learn from not only BTC, but also what other top level groups/athletes are doing that might help us average to good competitive runners get a bit faster-

1) Accumulate a High Volume of "Threshold" Running on a Regular Basis- This is relative of course, but it seems like 30-60min @ 85-90% of vVO2 Max every 7-14 days is an effective prescription (yes, that's around HM Pace for many)

2) Incorporate a Faster Long Run into Your Training- Deriving this more from Canova, Kipchoge, and other top marathon programs, 90-135min @ 65-80% of vVO2 seems like a universal golden ticket to positive adaptations once you are already accustomed to easier runs of this duration

3) Stop Insisting on Ridiculous Levels of Volume, Stop Jogging 120mpw When You Can't Break 16:00 for a 5K, Stop Adding Unnecessary Stress to the Body's Structures and Various Systems, Forget the Seven Day Training Cycle, Listen to Your Body More than Your Kudos on Stravagram... End rant.

4) Incorporate Plenty of Fast Neuromuscular Training in the Form of Hills, Short Reps, Fartleks, Plyos, Etc Without Producing Much Residual Lactate/Fatigue

5) Save Intensive Specifity and Race Pace Economization to the Last 4-10 Weeks Before A Goal Race

6) Take a Break From Training At Least Once Per Year, For At Least 1-2 Weeks Each Time

I think that sums up where we are in 2022 with how to approach competitive run training.

This is a great summary.

GDS was just on David Melly’s podcast, run your mouth, and talked about the third point above. She runs around 80 now but some weeks are higher and some are lower depending on workouts and how she feels. If she’s tired, she skips a double or cuts a run to 60 minutes instead of 70. Listening to your body is the key to surviving Jerry’s system.

good thread, let's keep it going

I believe Evan Jager sent Ashton Eaton's wife a two week block of training he had. It was a base phase so I'm sure it diluted a bit to maintain BTC secrecy, but the main thing i took from it was while no one week is especially hard, it wears you down to keep getting up for it.

the format was: 1. Long strength workout (8-10x mile), 2. a hard speed workout (16x200), 3. a hard 2-2.5 hour long run.

PeytonH,

This is a very interesting breakdown. Just for clarity's sake, I wasn't sure exactly what you meant by % of vVO2 Max so I found a post here that breaks it down for the layman (like me and probably many of us).

There is a table at this location on % vV02 Max.

I think if I read this properly, if an athlete runs about a 36 minute 10K (for example), then their vV02 Max is 5:20ish / mile in good conditions on a flat surface. So that person's tempo would be 30-60 min @ 85-90% of 5:20 which would be a range 5:52 to 6:08. Their long run would be 90-135 min @ 65-80% of 5:20 which is a range of 7:12 to 6:24 pace.

Is this close to the range you are referencing or am I way off? Great topic here.

In the podcast with Marc Scott he says that they do their threshold stuff around 4:45 pace give or take a few seconds.