I haven't read it in a while, but Nick Symmonds published his training and I remember it being interesting. If you read here often, you'll see so many pros ran these insane workouts that you could never fathom attempting. And inevitably some go and attempt those workouts, even with adjusted paces, and it's just overkill. I sometimes think that we assume that these insane workouts are great to build fitness, but the elites and their coaches can still fall into the same trap of training too hard just like the average hobby jogger can.
Then, if you read Nick's log, it's certainly impressive, but it's much more, how do I say, within reason? He rarely did anything that made my jaw drop, but he was one of the best to ever do it. Just lots of consistent, medium efforts, showing up ready to roll, and executing.
I know coaches who have written books, won many championships, and also were successful runners. The problem is PRIDE takes over sometimes and we get greedy.
I would say probably trying to mimick the pros is probably the biggest mistake a lot of guys make.
Take the Norwegian on lower mileage thread on this forum. Arguably the best thread in LRC history , yet half the people in the thread casually posting think it's about Jakob or Bakken when it's a absolutely not. I hit lifetime PRs in that thread and there's a Strava group with PRs galore spawned from it. Yet the success is by following absolutely non elites, who we can relate to, in case being a random Brit sirpoc84 and Jakobs hobby jogger brother. This was an eye opener for me, trying to replicate those who are absolutely getting every ounch of their limited/ OK talent out, rather than replicating pros who would be elite no matter what. Just by 2 cents. A lesson I had wished I had learned in my prime.
It's funny, I had initially avoided that thread thinking it was another thread like you said on Jakob and just trying to skirt around the volume that Jakob has built and adapted to. Wow was I wrong! What a great thread! I also love that the "copying" comes from the oldest Ingebrigtsen brother who is the least known and yet the fundamentals of the training are that easy to translate.
I would love to see a similar type of thread about training for 800 or 1500, as the Norwegian thread seems fairly 5k/10k focused from the pages I've read. I also love how the guys on that thread both copy and simplify the approach and take in factors like their own personal training availability. One aspect people have picked up on this thread as a "don't" when copying elites is how much time they are able to dedicate to training and recovery. That thread is a great example of using a system of training because it answers your key training questions within your schedule.
Well, if you thought a lot of them were garbage you'd ignore those and incorporate things from the ones that weren't.
HRE, WeJo, Lydiard, and Dixon seem to agree on twice a day running for as long as possible. The most difficult questions are with how much interval and speed training to do, and how to back off for the big races. I do not like to ever get too far away from speed during any part of the year, but I've found that is where many coaches argue.
Jed Clampett
I pretty much avoided those most difficult questions about interval and speed training. I modelled much of what I did after Ron Clarke and just did steady runs. If I wanted to sharpen I usually used races to do it.
How slow they run their easy days. If guys who are running close to 13 minutes are running 7:00 or even slower on their easy days, then non-elites should also be running their easy days very slow, probably slower in comparison. 7:15 pace is three minutes per mile slower than a 13:30 guy’s 5k pace. Non-elites probably need to run even slower than 5k pace + three minutes for the same effect.
Look at most pro's stravas. They run 7's for MAYBE 2 miles before dropping 5-6 min miles for the rest of the run
What does the model look like in the base phase, while building up to the threshold? I was reading this thread about K. Ingebrigtsen's training, https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=11836681, 3Q + a long run see...
That's the thread. I've been around the coaching game at HS level for years, this is for real the best thread a runner/coach can learn from, especially if you are coaching kids and non elites. It's totally made me rethink things and I've had my next coaching season ever taking on these principles. I wouldn't let the length of the thread put you off, it's an investment but worth digging in from start to finish. There is a few trolls from time to time but it always gets back on track and the thread is quite linear .