Matt Fitzgerald's new book 80/20 Running - Rojo what can u tell us about this book since you wrote the foreward

Yikes, another day at LetsRun.

No US records 800-5000m on high mileage nor on anything close to 80/20 training.

The only AR 10000m times in recent years are set by runners who have speed-side capability to world class levels (low 3:30s 1500m capability as a minimum requirement). I think Solinsky would laugh at suggestions he was doing anything close to 80/20 as his light days were often at just over 1'/mi slower than his 10000m goal pace.

All of this progress in distance training and the continued obsession with mega-miles has moved us further away from the Kenyans in the half marathon and marathon.

They have fleets of guys who can run 60:00 /2:06. We have waning fleets of guys who can run 1:05 / 2:16. We are chasing runners who are completely fine with 10mi runs at 5'/mi and 1000m reps in 2:45 at 6000-8000ft elevation.

We are currently being out-performed by a Japanese runner who puts in 85 miles/week.

Most anyone who has trained seriously knows that a light day can often be tougher in some ways than a hard day because muscle power is low and the glycogen is replenishing slowly (this recovery can sometimes take 48 hours). I always laugh about people saying Ethiopians and Kenyans jog slow at the start of a workout. Of course they do! And it is because the have been training their butts off.

great point. I hadnt' really considered that.

I'd say weldon got better for a number of reasons.

1) He's an altitude responder.

2) He was better recoverd post-collegiate the in college. This could take on many forms. Some of that may have been pacing but also factor in he's not studying or partying. he lived largely like a hermit in lifestyle. Also in college, he was pretty lightly trained in HS so maybe he wasn't strong enough yet to handle 'college mileage.'.

This book's focus isn't to answer the debate whether running now is better than it was in the early 80s or explain why guys run 3:27 now and 3:29 then. It's a book designed to explain to the masses that "you might not want to kill yourself ever day" - you'll actually run better. What I think is interesting is he's got studies to back up the point that easy running makes you faster.

What is RunWild? I saw a guy wearing one of those jerseys in a race this weekend. He went out too fast - perhaps the wild in him?

Thanks :).

I'll check out the book sometime. Keep up the great work.

Cheers

Rm

About 8 months ago I started doing my long runs at the same pace as my recovery runs while increasing weekly mileage (now up to 80 -90, sometimes higher). This has worked out really well for me - injury free and I actually PR'd a 10k. I'm thinking it's the increased mileage that's done this - but wonder if I'd have more improvement by running my long runs faster (like I used to).

My question - what should be the difference in pace between a recovery run and a long run?

(I was mostly wanting to increase mileage injury free, and keeping the long runs slow felt the safest way to do this based on a conversation with my old coach etc.).

The man who deserves most of the credit for legitimizing polarized training is Dr. Seiler, yet somehow how name will be lost as Fitzgerald reaps the benefits of another one of his attempts at cashing in and dumbing down for the masses. Dr. Seiler himself cannot fully pinpoint why polarized training works only that it does based on the training logs of cyclists, runners, cross country skiers, etc.

What's this "ward" you're talking about? I hope it's not related to skin.

Great points. I was reading about Ron Clarke and Derek Clayton a few months ago and if the accounts of their training are to be believed, they were also doing a lot of running at strong but aerobic paces ie close to or even slightly faster than 5 mins per mile at times. Accounts of Bernard Lagat's training also report that he is doing a lot of aerobic running at strong aerobic paces close to 5 mins per mile. Coe and Ovett are also reported to have trained similarly, the list could go on.

Obviously every distance runner will have their own individual responses to different training approaches but I am concerned that some scientists or journalists have cherry picked the information and studies that are out there in order to come up with a simplified yet "attractive" method of training which they feel can be applied to every endurance athlete.

Wait. What gives me most pause were the lines about 'the mind' from the Letsrun review:

When discussing Fitzgerald on Radcliffe and aerobic capacity, Gault notes, "Fitzgerald posits that Radcliffe’s improvements were achieved largely through mental gains and better running economy." He goes on to again stress, "Fitzgerald argues that form is overrated and that it is more important to run with minimal mental effort."

So besides running economy (which I've also found to be a bit nebulous in terms of meaning), volume makes me 'think' with less effort as I run? The mental aspect of running at race pace is less taxing?

“Low-intensity, high-volume training teaches the mind to accept that it might as well make peace with its suffering because it won’t end soon.”

This almost sounds like a line from a late-medieval mystic, rather than a running 'science' training book. It's not that I'm doubting this, but it seems difficult to quantify and prove. Like so many training guides, it seems there is a certain 'je ne sais quoi' in how we define how good runners become great.

For those who are interested, here is some of the research for 80 / 20 running in a video lecture on polarized training:

http://www.canal-insep.fr/fr/training-periodization-deep-root-cultural-heritage-and-innovative-paradigms-2013/ei_13_10_va_pr_stephen_seiler-mov

I bought the book today. Looks good.

It's not uncommon for top runners to do the majority of their running (I didn't say "most" because i think they do more than 20% quality, but probably not more than 30%) at a relatively slow pace. Of course, "slow pace" for some of them will be unbearable pace for some of us regular people.

Sally Kipyego of Kenya, who finished second to Tirunesh Dibaba in the 2012 Olympic 10K, is said to run a LOT of her miles at well over 7:00 per mile. (I remember reading this, but I can't remember the article.)

I think the book might be especially valuable for those of us in our 40s, 50s (like me), and beyond. When I was younger, I used to feel that all my runs, even the recovery runs weren't much good if they were less than 6:00-6:30 per mile. After reading a lot from experts, I've come to the belief that a lot of our miles should be run relatively slow, at a conversational pace, while our quality running should be real quality. And I believe that if we run our easy days slowly, we can really kill those quality sessions. For older runners, especially, it makes sense for our easy days to be genuinely easy. An example I like to use is a weight lifter. Would a weight lifter hit chest and biceps really hard today and then feel like he had to still put in a good workout on chest and biceps tomorrow, even at lower intensity? Of course not. I think the same thing applies to running. Easy is easy, and hard is HARD.

Here's the article I couldn't remember on Sally Kipyego. She actually does her easy days at voer 8:30 per mile. Mo Farah typically does his easy day runs at about 7:00 per mile.

http://www.runnersworld.com/race-training/the-easy-day-pace

The Red Panda wrote:

For those who are interested, here is some of the research for 80 / 20 running in a video lecture on polarized training:

http://www.canal-insep.fr/fr/training-periodization-deep-root-cultural-heritage-and-innovative-paradigms-2013/ei_13_10_va_pr_stephen_seiler-mov

Great video, Red Panda. Thanks!

At the risk of overloading this thread with stuff from me, let me mention something that someone is going to bring up.

Prior to training for the marathon, Mo Farah's easy days were about 7:00 per mile. Once he started marathon training, Coach Alberto Salazar had him speed up his "easy" runs to 5:30 per mile. I don't think this improved Farah's running. In fact, after not doing as well as predicted in his first marathon, Farah is apparently going back to the track. I don't know this for a fact, but I think he actually did better and was the most dominant 5K/10K guy in the world when he was doing easier "easy" days.

dsrunner wrote:

We are currently being out-performed by a Japanese runner who puts in 85 miles/week.

Ryan Vail and his 150 mpw had no problem kicking his ass

you gotta be kidding wrote:

Mo Farah and Galen run low to mid 5 min miles for their "easy runs" which is only 30-45 seconds slower than marathon pace for both of them. I would assume that Matt is suggesting people run much slower than that on their easy days. I don't necessarily think using Mo Farah is a good example of running 80% slow mileage each week.

Perhaps you should reread the post above - slowly. The operative word is "relaxed", not "slow". Farah and Rupp are running relaxed on their non-workout days.

Shawn H wrote:

Mo Farah typically does his easy day runs at about 7:00 per mile.

This is documented to be false. I don't even want to provide a citation because it's such incredibly common knowledge and as been discussed to death. Seriously man. Even mentioned in this thread.

Maybe I'll provide one citation. IAAF recently published an article on Levins and it features a quote about dropping 5:20s at the end of an easy run with Farah and Rupp.

Saw Mo Farah running at Teddington the week before the Great North Run. No quicker than 7:00 pace. Maybe he doesn't run as fast when Salazar isn't watching.

Robuk wrote:

Saw Mo Farah running at Teddington the week before the Great North Run. No quicker than 7:00 pace. Maybe he doesn't run as fast when Salazar isn't watching.

Or maybe he was easing up on the week before a race??