Thanks everybody. I just took a month off of running and I'm signed up to run a 50 Miler in about 8 weeks, following this schedule looks like the best option for me now to get in the best shape possible in that little time.
Thanks everybody. I just took a month off of running and I'm signed up to run a 50 Miler in about 8 weeks, following this schedule looks like the best option for me now to get in the best shape possible in that little time.
Thanks for putting up the original stuff in German and thanks to German guy for finishing the translation better than I could. Good luck in your 50.
I am interested to get other experienced runners and coaches interpretations of what is happening here. I have not met any other runners who have the confidence to stick to this approach when they capable of going so much faster and are extremely fit.[/quote]
Thanks for that, its interesting. I think your final few sentences are of particular note. I have myself found that I can go pretty well of a short period of predominantly slow running, but at some point always find myself ploughing back into the hard intervals because I just cant quite convince myself that I'd do better without it. I guess that intuitively I cant quite believe that its possible to race at a certain speed without doing prolonged training sessions at that intensity. Having said that, recently I have found that I'm doing my best racing for years despite a small amount of high intensity training. Ideally I'd like to find the minimum amount I could get away with as it just gives me the feeling of being continually teetering on the brink of getting knackered. I've been thinking about trying to get away with nothing more than a few strides a couple of times a week with no traditional interval training at all.
When I saw your comment about loss of muscle elasticity or 'bounce' I immeditaly thought about the Verheul (Sp?) method that was outlined here some time in the past. The whole rationale for this method was to enhance the elastic qualities of muscles which may be a risk with LSD training, and I seem to recall HRE saying it reminded him of Van Aakens early schedules. Having seen these latest examples of schedules I can see why.
I try to input some more information that I think that answers one of your post questions. Van Aaken periodisation.
It’s about Van Aaken training periodization and relate it to several types of periodization from different training methods.
Some folks interpret VA training for the competition as slow all the way, kind of LSD or jogging. It’s not true either. He simply gets the conclusion that the aerobic condition is determinate to distance training as well as when he starts to coach it´s the interval training era and that excessive interval training done in a daily basis was the rule. Wrong rule I will say.
His training is conceived by stimulus on certain training levels of effort. With Van Aaken it’s all based in knowledge, physiology and experimentation. Don’t forget that he was a Ph. Doc and that he did a lab in one room of his home where he did tests with the runners.
The interesting aspect about peridization it´s that he did disagree with season periodization as some of that period did it and some continues to defend that different blocks/phases of periodization that changes or omit some training stimulus when the block/phase changes.
For competition intentions VA trusted in straight periodization. No blocks of periodization, no meso or micro-cycles, no sensible change of volume or training intensity but use most of the training zones of stimulus in every training moment .
Van Aaken taught the shape condition improves “in crescendo” (grow up) and that improve comes in by put some fast training on the top of the basic aerobic training volume.
The VA periodization is seen as a multitude of stimulus all done in the time and all the way out and the only change it’s about the actual shape of the runner and the events he elects to compete at his best shape condition.
All is done all the time all the way during every part of the periodization aspect, what changes is the frequency, the volume and the intensity. This is the reason when we read some VA training schedules we see that some fast training is done almost daily.
Tempo runs is one kind of fast runs. Tempo runs are fast pace from anaerobic threshold runs up to race pace done by continuous or intermittent runs and repetitions. Repetitions is another kind of fast runs he did. Repetitions are intervals with quite complete recovery.
Short speed strides is another type of training he did. Short speed strides are 50-60mts speed bouts with long recovery what it means anaerobic but alactic not lactic.
Interesting also to refer it’s the fact that despite he doesn’t trust in classic intervals he did agree with the use of intermittence as one rich training format. His 350-50mts of slow pace-walk shows that he trusts in intermittent training all the way long and not just continuous training.
To sum up. He uses the mix-up of slow and fast paces that he thinks it’s adequate to the runner distance event, but it’s mostly done all the way out, not in blocks of periodization. In this particular aspect of the Van Aaken periodization he shows signs of training modernity. In my opinion he is ahead of many about training periodization.
Only ignorance misunderstand or miss of biological knowledge of the specific character of adaptive changes in the organism is responsible for build up training periodization divided in blocks or phases where each block/phase the training change of stimulus is very accentuated.
The explanation in claiming the so-called transfer of performance capacities it’s not as some they say. This phenomenon exists, but not in top performance sport. The physiological mechanisms of specific training influences is yet another fault in the concept of periodization. Van Aaken understood all this very well.
Wrong again would be to design one training periodization based in the biologic annual season process, since the shape condition improves differentiate from the biologic cycles.
This concept of Matveyev’s or every other one that uses training periodization with accentuate changes of stimulus in each one block/phase is unacceptable because the specific nature of adaptational reactions of the organism depend on the type of training involved more than everything else. We know this fact for some time and is accepted as a very important criterion in the choice and organization of training loads.
If the training period is done by phases the transition from one phase to another shall not done by major change of stimulus or major change of training zone of stimulus. For example. To change from daily runs as the digest of one phase and suddenly change to another phase for daily hill digest it’s poor training.
Van Aaken does no training phases really and by that reasons he uses daily fast training in small percent of the total training volume, more or less fast percent, and how fast it is relate to the actual shape condition of the runner and relate to the target event is trains for.
Here's an excerpt from an article EvA wrote for Track Technique in 1962. Neither of the runners mentioned were marathoners, at least at the time of writing. Watschke was possibly van Aaken's most successful athlete prior to Norpoth. His name does turn up in Track&Field News on occasion so he was at least a low level internationalist.
There was not much more written about him in this article though the copy I have here is missing the last sentence or so but ends by saying that they hoped to get Waschke under 14:00 and 8:00:
Edgar Forche, for example, ran daily in the forest last winter after school. His workout consisted of 5x3000 meters in a time of between 11 and 13 minutes. Very seldom did he do any sprinting. Later though, he was so fast that he was able to do 400 meters in about 0:49.5. When our best long distance runner, Roland Watschke, (who also had no ability) started with me he did the 5,000 meters in about 18 minutes and the 10,000 in around 40 minutes. At the outset, he stuck to speedwork, much to my regret. He frequently did 10x200 meters in 29-30 seconds and did not better himself at all. It was only when he took my advice and finally changed his training that any improvement was made. He now ran in his workouts 20x1000meters at the slow pace of 3:10 to 3:20 with walking intervals of 200 meters, or he would do 30x600meters in 1:45-1:50. At no time did he do any sprinting. As a result, he quickly improved his 5,000 meter time in one year from 16:23 to 15:18 and his 10,000 meter time from 33:48 to 31:57. His training distances now became longer, for the most part, so that at a workout he would do 5x3,000 meters, plus 40x400 meters, the latter at 70-75.
As a consequence, Watschke improved in the next year from15:18 to 14:46 in the 5,000--and then in the last year to 14:14.6! At the 3,000 meter distance he attained 8:12, although he has not actually done any sprint training in the last year. Frequently, though, he has runs sets of 30x100 meters in 14 seconds each with his clubmates, Muller-Wesel. His basic training however, consisted of daily long distance runs totalling about 20 kilometers.
The present training of Watschke who has again joined my club will have somewhat the following look: In the mornings, starting at 5:45, he does 15 minutes of exercise (calisthenics), followed immediately by an easy warmup of 10-12 kilometers. His occupation busies him from 8:00am until 5 in the evening. from 5:30 until 8:30 p.m. he usually does the following: 5x3000 meters in the forest at a pace between 10 and 12 minutes with a three minute walking interval between each. Then he does 20x500 meters with a pickup in the pace from around the 300 meters mark. Each of these is done in about 1:30. Next he does 2x200 meters in around 29 seconds, and finishes with 3 kilometers of warming down running. With this training schedule, which amounts to 35-40 kilometers per day, we hope to bring Watschke under 14 minutes for the 5,000 and to get him down to
I don't know if any of the van Aaken schedules are helping give you that confidence you're looking for or not. What you're looking for is something that I've paid attention to for decades now largely because I never ran nearly as well when doing hard stuff as when I just stayed comfortable. Lime you, I have a hard time believing that staying comfortable pretty much all the time can get good results so I sort of keep track of people who manage something along those lines.
There is no shortage of anecdotes about guys who keep the training easy and still race well. Some of them have gotten mentioned here at LR over the years others I've just stumbled across at other places. It would take a long time to write all of them up.
Joe Henderson's LSD book is essentially a compilation of people who have run well on all slow or nearly all slow training. Ed Whitlock has sort of become a legend here for it. Of course there is always the question of how fast those people would be if they trained more "normally." But that question doesn't detract from what they've done on easy training.
Its kind of reassuring though. At a certain point with work and kids etc you dont want to spend all your time feeling like death warmed up (come to think of it didnt really want to before either) and running cant be quite as important as it once was. Yet at the same time I still want to get out there, enjoy it and race well. This looks like it is a method that fits in well with the practicalities of life for people who have other things going on in their life - and as you say actually produces pretty good results
Antonio Cabral wrote:
I try to input some more information that I think that answers one of your post questions. Van Aaken periodisation.
It’s about Van Aaken training periodization and relate it to several types of periodization from different training methods.
Some folks interpret VA training for the competition as slow all the way, kind of LSD or jogging. It’s not true either. He simply gets the conclusion that the aerobic condition is determinate to distance training as well as when he starts to coach it´s the interval training era and that excessive interval training done in a daily basis was the rule. Wrong rule I will say.
His training is conceived by stimulus on certain training levels of effort. With Van Aaken it’s all based in knowledge, physiology and experimentation. Don’t forget that he was a Ph. Doc and that he did a lab in one room of his home where he did tests with the runners.
The interesting aspect about peridization it´s that he did disagree with season periodization as some of that period did it and some continues to defend that different blocks/phases of periodization that changes or omit some training stimulus when the block/phase changes.
For competition intentions VA trusted in straight periodization. No blocks of periodization, no meso or micro-cycles, no sensible change of volume or training intensity but use most of the training zones of stimulus in every training moment .
Van Aaken taught the shape condition improves “in crescendo” (grow up) and that improve comes in by put some fast training on the top of the basic aerobic training volume.
The VA periodization is seen as a multitude of stimulus all done in the time and all the way out and the only change it’s about the actual shape of the runner and the events he elects to compete at his best shape condition.
All is done all the time all the way during every part of the periodization aspect, what changes is the frequency, the volume and the intensity. This is the reason when we read some VA training schedules we see that some fast training is done almost daily.
Tempo runs is one kind of fast runs. Tempo runs are fast pace from anaerobic threshold runs up to race pace done by continuous or intermittent runs and repetitions. Repetitions is another kind of fast runs he did. Repetitions are intervals with quite complete recovery.
Short speed strides is another type of training he did. Short speed strides are 50-60mts speed bouts with long recovery what it means anaerobic but alactic not lactic.
Interesting also to refer it’s the fact that despite he doesn’t trust in classic intervals he did agree with the use of intermittence as one rich training format. His 350-50mts of slow pace-walk shows that he trusts in intermittent training all the way long and not just continuous training.
To sum up. He uses the mix-up of slow and fast paces that he thinks it’s adequate to the runner distance event, but it’s mostly done all the way out, not in blocks of periodization. In this particular aspect of the Van Aaken periodization he shows signs of training modernity. In my opinion he is ahead of many about training periodization.
Only ignorance misunderstand or miss of biological knowledge of the specific character of adaptive changes in the organism is responsible for build up training periodization divided in blocks or phases where each block/phase the training change of stimulus is very accentuated.
The explanation in claiming the so-called transfer of performance capacities it’s not as some they say. This phenomenon exists, but not in top performance sport. The physiological mechanisms of specific training influences is yet another fault in the concept of periodization. Van Aaken understood all this very well.
Wrong again would be to design one training periodization based in the biologic annual season process, since the shape condition improves differentiate from the biologic cycles.
This concept of Matveyev’s or every other one that uses training periodization with accentuate changes of stimulus in each one block/phase is unacceptable because the specific nature of adaptational reactions of the organism depend on the type of training involved more than everything else. We know this fact for some time and is accepted as a very important criterion in the choice and organization of training loads.
If the training period is done by phases the transition from one phase to another shall not done by major change of stimulus or major change of training zone of stimulus. For example. To change from daily runs as the digest of one phase and suddenly change to another phase for daily hill digest it’s poor training.
What, you decided not to use your other name here, shockwave? Sounds just the same though.
If you're still looking for an example of someone current who does nothing but easy training and races well check out the story about Francis Burdett in this month's National Master's News. Nothing at all under 9:00 pace, ever and 4th at 5,000 meters in the last WAVA Games and many other comparable performances.
I've commented on other VanAaken threads, but, depending on what you mean by 'well', I think I"m an example. I went from being a 2:50 marathoner training 90/wk at 6:40 - 7:00/ mile to 2:27 having trained 150 wk at around 8 minutes. However, there's some caveats here. I worked down do 8 minutes using a hrm and keeping my hr in the VA approved range of 119-131. I did do some speed work and some of it was fast, at least for me. But here's the cool thing. When I was running 6:40 pace for my 'easy' runs, I'd do workouts like 5 x mile at 5:40 and they felt hard. After slowing down those workouts got easier and soon I was doing things like 5 x 2k in 6:40. My other times got faster too, at everything from 1500 (4:30 down to 4:10) to 10 k (35:00 to 32: 07).
What I've learned from these schedules which I didn't know before was just how strongly EVa's philosophy was influenced by Zatopek. The huge number of reptitions all at a moderate pace is right out of Zatopek's log, and certainly out of EVa's understanding (according to a couple articles about EV I've read) of Zatopek's training. I have Das Van AAken Lauflehrbuch on my shelf. Unfortunately it has only a few schedules. Most of my training before was guided by experience and the Van Aaken method the RW collection of short articles, translated, I think, by JOan Ullyot? Anyway, that's a very quickly typed testimonial.
and it shows that it is important to individualize the training to meet the needs of each runner.