CV pace is and was always a Dumb Concept

Just a bit faster than threshold so gives a good return without being too tiring.

Seems like Norwegian singles method is much better, no? Three sessions a week, much more conservative in the pacing, build the engine bigger.

With CV, you’re limited by the amount of volume that you can do, due to the intensity. Not to mention, many of the Tinman elite athletes were injured doing CV + hill reps + fast strides in one workout week after week.

Training just isn’t that complicated. Half the year is spent building base, strides, hills reps, natural progressions and tempos. Lift a little, do core, plyos, etc.

12 weeks of the year do a healthy mix of 1000s, 1200s, miles and 2ks off 60-90 sec rest. Do them at threshold effort… whatever that means to you. Slower than 5k, faster than 8k pace. Add in more traditional speed. Keep up with the tempos and strides and lifting.

Spend 12 weeks working more at 3k and 5k pace and pure speed and race pace efforts with more rest. Can drop tempos but hit the short rest long threshold every once in a while.

In reality it’s really 2 blocks of 26 weeks (13, 6, 6 1 week rest). Have fun, race, and listen to your body.

Had a high school kid who decided to run with a private club coach instead of our high school team. His junior year the club coach started touting the miracle of “CV pace”. I asked the coach what my kids CV pace was and he said “around 4:50 pace”. The kid was a 4:30 miler at the time and struggled to run 9:50 for 3200m.

This definitely works. The only thing I'd add is that for the 3K-5K pace stuff, you don't need the full 12 weeks to race well (but certainly keep it up during the season). After 5-6 weeks, you'll be ready to race well.

Just do Lydiard bro

The CV model can definitely be a useful model for predicting race performances and determining workout paces, but the science doesn't support using CV pace as a training pace the way Tinman does. That doesn't mean it can't be effective, but it definitely isn't some magic pace the way Tinman disciples act like it is. I know of some high school programs that have had success with Tinman-style training, but I think it's mostly because it gets kids out of the habit of racing their workouts.

Might work OK if you only have one season and one major race as a goal at the end. However, for most people, high school, college, etc, there are multiple seasons and multiple key races at different times.

I wouldn't say they are mutually exclusive - If you do the 400s with short rest prescribed by the Norwegian singles method (JI does something like 64 with 30 second rest - our kids do do more like 80 second on, 40 seconds off) it is basically CV pace and I think 50% rest is pretty standard for 10k paced work.

You don't understand the Norwegian method. There is no such thing as specific paces. It's all about intensities guided by lactate levels. That's why they can run their shorter reps at a faster pace. They are still keeping the lactate levels in check.

I disagree. You can take those lactate levels and correlate them to relative intensity/pace. A major part of the mega-thread was doing just that. If you run the correlated pace based on your fitness level, your lactate levels will be in check. Even if you don't have unlimited lactate testing supplies - this can work well.

I'd even go as far as saying relying on just lactate levels is errant - an elite with lactate levels 1.9 is different than another elite, who is possibly even more different than a recreational runner.

How is this different from what Igloi was doing (Except now there is the agility to measure lactate)?

I think his CV pace is great especially for a high school runner. It is formulaic and consistent.

You’d be surprised at how many coaches are just guessing what paces should be run for workouts. At least his training has a method.

If you can get young runners to stay healthy and progress in their training that is a huge win and the Tinman formula really does a nice job of this.

Faster than 8k paced miles off 60"? that seems overkill

All you need to know is here

Ultimately, it is a valuable training intensity, as it allows you to get more volume at close to VO2 max than a typical 5k or 3k paced workout.

There was a recent study mentioned by Dan Nash on his podcast that found a workout of 4 x 8 mins (at the fastest sustainable pace, which worked out to be roughly 90% VO2 max) improved VO2 max by more than a 4 x 4 minute workout (at the fastest sustainable pace, which worked out to be 94% VO2 max).

In conclusion, volume of running at an intensity above threshold provides more of a stimulus (to VO2 max) than a higher intensity but with less volume.

As a masters runner with some decent results (consistent >90% age grade) I found CV-type workouts to be helpful and these are a part of my training tool box for half marathon and under. V02 workouts were too hard on my body and I did not recover well, so I was doing fewer reps. I can do a full CV workout, or 3/4 of one and the finish with some faster reps a the end of the workout, and this has worked well. It's not the be-all workout that was touted 8-10 years ago, but incorporating CV pace can help you get into good race fitness without digging a hole.

What rest is advised between the 8' reps? I guess it is at least 1:3 ratio