Nic Bideau says Stewart McSweyn didn't run a single lap under 60 seconds before he ran 3:50 in the mile

steve_perry wrote:

To be fair, Wottle has said he was out for a week/weeks before the games with a busted up knee. Maybe he just wasn't aerobically in 1500 shape.

That'll do it.

holterskolter2 wrote:

CoachB wrote:

A number of years ago, I was talking to Dave Smith about one of my athletes and the topic of German Fernandez's 3:55i WJR came up. He said the fastest German had gone in training was 10x400 @ 62-63

Well, he could probably have done that workout with no rest between intervals, sooooo... yeah, gonna call BS on that story.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

relax everyone. RELAX wrote:

I had a string of good races and was highlighted in the campus paper - my coach said I switched my diet to Mountain Dew and was eating chili cheese dogs after the bars closed at 2am. Completely made up.

It was reindeer milk for Lasse Viren.

Plenty of vegetarian disciples back in the day liked to preach DeCastella was a veggie, it was total bullshìt of course.

Just like you say, plenty of made up stuff gets pushed around for the idiots to consume.

Just like Coe only ran 30mpw even though he even ran doubles on Christmas day.

holterskolter2 wrote:

dogg wrote:

Bideau is an excellent coach.

The thing I’m concerned about is how he says speed work (faster than 1500 pace) is overrated, but then goes on to say that McSweyn has trouble keeping up in the final laps in races.

Interesting

It seemed more like he was saying that McSweyn doesn't respond well to lots of fast reps in training. I didnt read it as saying everybody should remove speed work from their training.

He also talked about one of his athletes running 50 flat in workouts, and McSweyn running some 56s in a workout, so obviously he does have his runners do some speed.

3:50 mile is a few seconds slower than 3:30 1500m, anyway, so it doesn't seem shocking that if he ran 3:30 a few months ago, continued to train but just not as intensely, he might come back out and run a 3:50.

Yes, this. 3:30.5 is equivalent to 3:47.19 using IAAF official scoring tables. If he ran 3:47 or faster off this training I'd be insanely impressed, but that's not what happened. Losing 2 seconds is quite a bit at an elite level like this. So not doing any speed work faster than say 2k race pace could lead to this performance.

I don't understand why a 3:30/7:28/13:05/27:23 6ft2in tall 25-year old Western guy and his coach gets criticized so much here by LRC users just because the training they use does not match what some LRC users think is ideal training.

The Australian model for 1500-10000m has always been largely based on:

1x 8x1k weekly session

1x weekly threshold run, 5-6 miles based on HR

1x weekly long run

sometimes hill sessions

Bideau himself says he uses more speed work with Ryan Gregson, who is their speed-based miler (but weak 5000/10000 compared to Stewy) whereas Stewy is really just long, aerobic work.

I've watched most of Stewy's interviews in the last few years and his training was always the same - he never mentioned doing hard 400s or hard speed work, he only talked negative about anything involving speed like that his legs would get super "acid" and sore every time he tried to run 20-30s hill reps with Gregson and one 800 guy.

Just because he doesn't train like Centro or Makloufhi does not mean the training is bad/ineffective or that he would be a 3:27 guy if he just adds a little more speed work. Truth is, Bideau is an EXCELLENT coach and knows what's best for him, and if they would prescribe more speed work to Stewy it could actually be the case that he gets SLOWER, not FASTER.

This thread was supposed to share an interesting training philosophy, a case were a runner does very well across many events (1500-10000) with mostly threshold/CV based training and controlled tempo efforts, and instead of accepting it people just say "it's wrong, he did hard 300s and 500s" or "this training is bad for 1500/mile, he would be more competitive with more speed work". Sigh.

PEDs likely are a big reason he is so good. Even if he trains smart, has prodigious talent, and does not like to sprint in practice, which appears to excite you for some reason.

MatthewXCountry wrote:

Yes, this. 3:30.5 is equivalent to 3:47.19 using IAAF official scoring tables. If he ran 3:47 or faster off this training I'd be insanely impressed, but that's not what happened. Losing 2 seconds is quite a bit at an elite level like this. So not doing any speed work faster than say 2k race pace could lead to this performance.

You can't really compare the two performances with the 1500m run in a Diamond League race, and the mile run in a small meet by himself for the last 800m.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

people just say "it's wrong, he did hard 300s and 500s" or "this training is bad for 1500/mile, he would be more competitive with more speed work". Sigh.

While you just say shìt you've made up. Sigh:

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

The Australian model for 1500-10000m has always been largely based on:

1x 8x1k weekly session

1x weekly threshold run, 5-6 miles based on HR

1x weekly long run

sometimes hill sessions

You obviously live in Melbourne and spend a lot of time with the training group, but you need to give more attention to what they are actually doing, not make shìt up.

Oh, 'ang on a sec, you don't actually " live in Melbourne and spend a lot of time with the training group", who'da thought it lol.

As someone who lives in Australia and who first saw Stewy at U18 XC nationals. You forgot one Aussie standard session 8x400 w/200 float. Bideau has put together a great group. He has had uninterrupted training for a long time. Consistency is the key to performance. And yes 7-8x1k is a standard session. But that is only because coaches all believe that is the magic workout. How about 6x1200 Hahaha!

coahc wrote:

You forgot one Aussie standard session 8x400 w/200 float.

Yep, if he'd at least put that one he'd have come across as slightly credible.

Anyway, opinions on training are like arseholes, everyone's got one.

Stewy McSweyn ran 3:50. You ran 4:10.

McSweyn/Bideau's training has been well documented for years. No one knows who you or your coach are.

McSweyn isn't a loser troll on a message board that thinks telling childish lies are funny. You are.

Believe it or not, his training might be different to your piddly training for a 4:10, and maybe, JUST MAYBE, they know what they're doing better than you

Trayning wrote:

holterskolter2 wrote:

Well, he could probably have done that workout with no rest between intervals, sooooo... yeah, gonna call BS on that story.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Workouts like that go back to high school for German Fernandez, whose injury history led his coach in California to limit him to 30/60 second pace, so that when he ran 4 flat for 1600m and 8:36 (later 8:34), he ran as fast in the 1600m race as he ever had for 200s and 400s in workouts that year.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

Working on the top-end speed and ability to finish the last 100m of the race as fast as possible is important in tactical races. But almost every runner could benefit from improving the mile PR due to getting aerobically fitter.

UM YOU CAN DO BOTH.

Also it is BS that these guys never run faster than race pace until race day.

BlackCat13 wrote:

It says he didn't run under 60 sec in training for the gap in between when he raced in Doha (3:30.5 Sep 25th) and the 3:50 mile (Dec 29th). He never said they never do it.

Misleading headline

from September to December is a pretty significant amount of time to not run any 400s faster than 3k pace for an athlete who intends to race middle distance events at all.

I see myself as a similar situation, but at a much lower level. I've done many buildups without doing 400s faster than 5k pace, and still ended up in 5k PB shape.

My coach’s name was mick byrne. I only ran 4:06 and 1:51.

I never once pretended to compare myself as an athlete to a 3:50 miler. (That would be absurd) He and his coaches CERTAINLY know what they’re doing better than I did/do.

I simply wrote that I ran well without doing 400m repeats and gave my mile time as context.