You don't understand Gibby training if you think it entails hard easy days. There is nothing hard about 6 minute pace for a guy who has run under 13. My understanding is Gibby will only take runners for who the 6 minute pace run would be a moderate run at the hardest. Some people can get used to a moderate effort every day and it starts to become easy. You can't get used to training hard every day.
It’s just interesting to me that outside the American collegiate system, almost no successful runner ever runs hard every day. The Kenyans and Ethiopians almost always alternate hard and easy days. You can check the training logs of Geb, Tergat, Bekele and countless others. Geb’s Sunday run was at a snail pace for three hours. Same with Bekele. Jakob uses a periodization approach, and even after his high build up and adding double thresholds, he still takes some days easy. Viren and almost every Lydiard disciple never ran hard two days in a row. Almost all the most accomplished Olympic medalists alternated easy days.
The six minute pace or faster approach used by Arkansas coach John McDonell and countless McDonnell clones is a meat grinder approach where a handful of runners get really good for a time while the rest get injured. And even the studs like Allistar Cragg get hurt and sidelined eventually. Nobody can sustain hard running every day for more than a couple years. Look what happened to Chris Solinsky and Chris Derrick. They can barely jog, they’ve been practically crippled.
There’s just a few exceptions. Jonesy was out the door at sub 5 pace. His 2:07 could have been minutes faster in today’s super shoe era. He had a fairly long career, pretty durable despite running hard daily. Then there’s Seb Coe, but it’s important to note that Coe missed all of the 1983 season from a blood disorder undoubtedly caused by Peter Coe’s insane quality approach. You can’t argue with the rest of Coes career though. Sydney Marree ran hard every day too and it looks like from his training logs that El G did.
Great post. Mark "The White Kenyon" Nenow was another old school guy who supposedly ran hard every day and was pretty bulletproof
Do you have access to good orthopedic care? Gibby has ruined more athletes than he’s made good, a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in awhile in the genetically gifted and those able to sustain hard training 7 days per week and he got that with Graham.
You don't understand Gibby training if you think it entails hard easy days. There is nothing hard about 6 minute pace for a guy who has run under 13. My understanding is Gibby will only take runners for who the 6 minute pace run would be a moderate run at the hardest. Some people can get used to a moderate effort every day and it starts to become easy. You can't get used to training hard every day.
No, he suggests everyone run 5:50-6:10 on easy days if they are on the mens team regardless of if they are 12:59 or guys who struggle to break 15:00.
Even the slowest guys on the team will end up doing 17mi long runs at 5:50 and then proceed to run 15:10 on the track.
You can adapt to running 6:00s without actually getting faster at the races you’re trying to race.
This is the only person on this thread with insight to Gibby training. Everything else here is conjecture/wishful thinking
No, he suggests everyone run 5:50-6:10 on easy days if they are on the mens team regardless of if they are 12:59 or guys who struggle to break 15:00.
Even the slowest guys on the team will end up doing 17mi long runs at 5:50 and then proceed to run 15:10 on the track.
You can adapt to running 6:00s without actually getting faster at the races you’re trying to race.
This is the only person on this thread with insight to Gibby training. Everything else here is conjecture/wishful thinking
I think this was part of the point in all the replies, at least mine and a few others. If an actual coach or young runner is doing this, they are going on pure conjecture and the limited sources available. We are mostly using Graham's interviews and Strava to fill in the Blanks (pun intended), but he is an evident outlier in the system.
I was curious how others trained within this system and it's interesting to me that the pacing is more of a blanket for all abilities. I did notice how far back their last guys were at NCAAs but I don't have a good reference if they were strong runners having an off day or just 31 minute xc 10k guys. I'm still curious how Gibby handles these runners who would be pushing their mileage runs at paces nearing workouts. Obviously Gibby's goal is not to have a team full of injured or underperforming runners but if the paces/volume are too much for some athletes, how does he manage them?
Even still, I want to reemphasize that the system is designed for college xc runners. Even the slowest guy on the team is still a 15:10 5k runner who can handle high volume training and a high relative training pace. The others may not thrive in it like Graham but still, they are much more experienced and talented runners than your average high school or recreation runner. This is kind of my general issue with the method of copying training because everyone defaults to the runners who are the most prominent on the world, US, or NCAA stage. But if you have a high school kid or even an older recreational runner in the 17-20 minute 5k range trying this training that is meant for college kids, it can easily be overwhelming even when pace adjusted.
This is the only person on this thread with insight to Gibby training. Everything else here is conjecture/wishful thinking
I think this was part of the point in all the replies, at least mine and a few others. If an actual coach or young runner is doing this, they are going on pure conjecture and the limited sources available. We are mostly using Graham's interviews and Strava to fill in the Blanks (pun intended), but he is an evident outlier in the system.
I was curious how others trained within this system and it's interesting to me that the pacing is more of a blanket for all abilities. I did notice how far back their last guys were at NCAAs but I don't have a good reference if they were strong runners having an off day or just 31 minute xc 10k guys. I'm still curious how Gibby handles these runners who would be pushing their mileage runs at paces nearing workouts. Obviously Gibby's goal is not to have a team full of injured or underperforming runners but if the paces/volume are too much for some athletes, how does he manage them?
Even still, I want to reemphasize that the system is designed for college xc runners. Even the slowest guy on the team is still a 15:10 5k runner who can handle high volume training and a high relative training pace. The others may not thrive in it like Graham but still, they are much more experienced and talented runners than your average high school or recreation runner. This is kind of my general issue with the method of copying training because everyone defaults to the runners who are the most prominent on the world, US, or NCAA stage. But if you have a high school kid or even an older recreational runner in the 17-20 minute 5k range trying this training that is meant for college kids, it can easily be overwhelming even when pace adjusted.
Yeah, highschoolers should not just randomly start running easy days hard.
Gibby carefully controls the workout composition and mileage progression for the slower guys to keep them healthy + progressing. There is a whole system of moving parts and hyperfocusing on maintenance pace is probably counterproductive for most runners who don’t know all of the other elements that make it work.
You don't understand Gibby training if you think it entails hard easy days. There is nothing hard about 6 minute pace for a guy who has run under 13. My understanding is Gibby will only take runners for who the 6 minute pace run would be a moderate run at the hardest. Some people can get used to a moderate effort every day and it starts to become easy. You can't get used to training hard every day.
No, he suggests everyone run 5:50-6:10 on easy days if they are on the mens team regardless of if they are 12:59 or guys who struggle to break 15:00.
Even the slowest guys on the team will end up doing 17mi long runs at 5:50 and then proceed to run 15:10 on the track.
You can adapt to running 6:00s without actually getting faster at the races you’re trying to race.
There’s no way he has his 15:00 guys run 5:50-6:10 on easy days and a 17 mile run long run at 5:50 pace. If that made sense to him, he would have Graham run everything at sub-5:00 pace.
No, he suggests everyone run 5:50-6:10 on easy days if they are on the mens team regardless of if they are 12:59 or guys who struggle to break 15:00.
Even the slowest guys on the team will end up doing 17mi long runs at 5:50 and then proceed to run 15:10 on the track.
You can adapt to running 6:00s without actually getting faster at the races you’re trying to race.
There’s no way he has his 15:00 guys run 5:50-6:10 on easy days and a 17 mile run long run at 5:50 pace. If that made sense to him, he would have Graham run everything at sub-5:00 pace.
I can assure you that he does. You can probably find some public examples on Strava if you dig hard enough.
Yeah he does do this. He took a 4:11 high school miler and had him doing long runs at 5:45 pace as a true freshman. Ruined him. He went to NAU and eventually ran 13:58 his last year there but was never the runner he could’ve been and I attribute that to Gibby and Kevin Sullivan
Yeah he does do this. He took a 4:11 high school miler and had him doing long runs at 5:45 pace as a true freshman. Ruined him. He went to NAU and eventually ran 13:58 his last year there but was never the runner he could’ve been and I attribute that to Gibby and Kevin Sullivan
This thread got me to re-listen to the podcast with Gibby from last year and I had forgotten how many jobs Gibby had had prior to Harvard. He was at William & Mary getting them to 5th at NCAAs, then Michigan, and Charlotte before Harvard. I don't know how much this system developed since his time with these other schools but I was impressed that he's had success at very different schools than Harvard, though it sounded like Michigan was unsuccessful overall.
It was also interesting hearing him talk about kids who didn't workout. He mentioned there was a 3:39 guy who was on the team but left and was training on his own. It is definitely not a system for everyone but he evidently feels it's a good way to build an aerobic athlete in his four year window with them. He has also had a pretty good track record of turning 9:00-9:15 high school guys into decent runners. I had forgotten he coached Kieran Tuntivate and has consistently made nationals with Harvard in XC.
The podcast is in the link below for those curious, as I think it gives a great description of the training and a really good conversation with Rojo and Gault. Interview starts at 63:59 and the training talk is most of the first 30 minutes of it.