Dear Distance Gurus: What Do You Think Of Hobbs Kessler Doubling Every Day?

I have a great example that illustrates a lot of what you said about individuality. A few years back I was individually coaching 2 sub-elite women at the same time who both ran 2:45 (both PR's) for their goal marathon less than a month apart (in similar conditions).

One's weekly mileage peaked at 50-55 mile per week and the other was routinely in the 100-110 mile per week range. The one on the lower end was probably pushing her max mileage possible more then the one on the high end. They got to the same place but yet needed very different paths to get there. They were very different in background, age and physical body type.

But as different as they were they both were we still followed the same physiological principles and tenets of training, we just adapted them to their specific situation. Often their stress workouts looked very similar, especially in their specific phases yet the total weekly mileage volume was different.

My point in all this being that the individual training plans can vary a lot but they all have to follow some basic principles in order to be successful. It is our job as coaches to understand that and be flexible enough and experienced enough to know how to adapt to the individual while honoring those key universal principles/tenets.

Where I have seen a problem with individuality is when an athlete proclaims themselves to be different and that some key principle does not apply to them. It does, and their delusion it doesn't ultimately proves to be their downfall. Be an individual but stay grounded in reality.

Its all interesting. I ran my 10k PR off a period of doing my shortest long runs ie 14miles vs 18-20miles. I will say ive never been a long slow long run guy. Ive always run at my regular run 🏃🏻‍♂️ pace or quick especially the second half. In my old age ive run decent without a long run just doing a threshold type work those days.

The following is likely too blunt of an instrument to slice up personalized training methodology but here goes:

Setting composition of Kessler's muscle fibers aside, it's my understanding that stimulation of HGH peaks at around 45 minutes of training after that it starts to wane. So to maximize HGH it would be preferable to run two 45 minute runs rather than one 90 minute run.

After adding muscle fiber makeup into the equation it becomes a personalized decision for each athlete. Some would excel at two 45' runs and others would excel at one 90' run. For HS/sub elites I'm doubtful they know their physiology and the best way to figure out which type of runner they are is their 400 pr. I would put the cut off at around sub 52".

Hobbs is the first pro, albeit still quite young, that I've heard of to publicly address this dichotomy (Teare seems to be in a similar situation after moving from Thomas to Schumacher). By the time he reaches physical maturity I'm doubtful that he will still bonk at 7 to 8 miles.

The bigger question, that has been raised in this thread, if he evolves into a higher mileage runner does that mean he would eventually gravitate towards the 5k or still be able to marshal his white twitch muscles fibers to achieve his desired results in the mile?

I am defining "warmup" as the entire block of time from beginning stretching/movements until the workout or run begins. It sounds like my post was interpretted as elites jogging/running for 1-2 hours before a workout. Distance runners typically jog/run for 20 min or 3 miles before a workout, as part of a greater warmup including stretches, drills, plyos, strides.

My point is that a full warmup (stretches, drills, running, strides) takes 1-2 hours, with a small portion of that actual running. When doubling, this becomes time consuming and even elites do not fully warmup for easy runs. I would assume El G warmed up extensively before running 5:00/mile on easy days, where as not much warmup is required to jog 8:00/mile for 5 miles on a double.

Are you sure about that??

There are a couple of youtube videos of El G going on an easy training run surrounded by an entourage of pacers. It all seems very casual and laid back and doesn't give any hint that an elaborate warmup of jogs and drills and what not had occurred. It seems like he just stepped out of the house and go straight into the run. Maybe he started at 530 pace and eased into 5 pace after a few minutes.