Jack Daniels = charlatan?

Daniels has been clear in talks that it's very hard to run too slowly on an easy day . . . tables and calculators aside.

How fast Salazar's athletes could recover from too fast easy days is a question that could certainly be related to the "Testosterone Medication," Mo's hour-long shower,, and the allegations from Steve Magness and others.

I always thought easy was an effort, not a pace. Better a HRM on an unmeasured trail, than a stopwatch on a measured course. Or neither, and just shoes, shorts, and friends.

I always thought Daniels was better than nothing, for those who don't have a coach.

I think his pace tables were derived from oxygen measurements with college runners. But like any table, it is best to use them as a starting point, and personalize it to your strengths and weaknesses based on feedback.

Calling Daniels a charlatan is unfair and stupid.

Daniels was for sure ahead of his time, back in the days. He deserves credit for that.

However, science has catched up heavily, especially in the last 10-15 years, and Daniels did not managed to get that into his book. Still no word on running form and other stuff, almost narrow-minded and ignorant.

The dude is 92 years old. I highly doubt we'll be seeing any dramatic changes. I'm also curious what word you're expecting on running form. What I've learned is that personal running form develops out of structural strengths/weaknesses, and because of that, trying to change running form through conscious effort isn't worthwhile.

What has science done in the past 10-15 years?

Dr. Daniels gave a rather simple, rational method for training. Train at your current fitness, benchmark your fitness to see if there are improvements, track training load by Daniel's Points, etc. What's not to like?

If you code up the Oxygen Power equations, you'll easily see WHY his paces will or won't work for you. I bet that if he didn't make such a rigid VO2 vs pace relationship, his training framework would work better for most people.

Daniels is a lot more effective than what most people would do on their own too, for the post college crowd. This includes a lot of readers of this site who seem to be hopping from canova special block to norwegian double threshold to cross training like Valby to Gibby training. If you are going it on your own, you need to understand why these programs work and the way they are executed based on individual goals and needs, not just what they consist of.

The short answer to the question is a decisive no.

There is a bunch of nitpicking you could do but there's aot he gets right. As for pace the predictions work pretty well from 5k to half marathon. Outside that different factors kick in.

The prescribed E/L paces are reasonable for an intermediate runner.

There are two minor nitpick i have. One is the 180 strides a minute thing is kind of bogus. It was taken from observing races. At recovery paces stride rate will slow (eg go from 5mpm to 8mpm and stride might go from 180 down to 170)

Another is that the notion that "vo2 max", and " running economy " are orthogonal factors to be trained independently is a bit quaint. Or that "lactate threshold" is something that is trained primarily by running at "lactate threshold pace".

But thats largly nitpicking. The treatment of periodization, when to use what type of workout and why, is very good. To this day I don't think you'll find a better training manual.

A few things for OP:

1) If you are flipping to certain chapters in the Daniels book to just find training plans you are doing it wrong. His plans are based on your mileage. It does not mean for you to say “I’m running 30 miles a week but I’m going to do the 100 mpw workouts for the Marathon.” Daniels is meant to be taken and understood as a whole…the same as anyone else. Just cherry picking workouts is a problem all runners who self coach struggle with.

2) It’s meant to be based on current fitness. Do a 1 mile time trial one a month if you aren’t racing. It’s really not hard. If doing a single 1 mile time trial once every month is too stressful for your body then you don’t need to be on one of his race specific training plans but on his most basic fitness plans.

What is the main criticism raised about Jack Daniel's EZ paces?

a. They are too easy

b. They are too fast

c. They are too hard

d. They are too slow

this x 10

Daniels Running Formula is basically the "how to guide" for how to train distance runners. It's not the end all be all, but every wanna-be coach should read it and review back to it frequently to understand the technicalities of coaching. Then each individual coach can expand/modify/adapt their own unique training philosophy over time to fit their needs and athletes.

Any coach who hasn't run DRF is probably just winging it when writing workouts or copying others, but they don't understand "WHY" the workouts are written as they are.

I think JD is fine, but just throw out the easy pace stuff. Especially for a relatively new runner. Just go out and run when it's time to do an easy run. Don't look at a watch.

Even the prescribed "easy" paces aren't a terrible idea, they are slow enough to discourage beginners and intermediate runners from hammering the pace on their base mileage which is by far the most common training error with these (ie relative beginners or intermediates overdoing pace on the.). An elite runner doing 120 miles a week doesn't need jack daniels.to tell them their base mileage is too fast. If they can run 120 miles at a given pace it probably isn't too fast.

The problem is, the paces aren't slowing anyone down, but rather, encouraging them to run too fast.

Hence, his book is contributing to the issue that you mention.

I've got 5k times atv8.p. 7mpm and 6mpm with E/L paces of respectively 1006, 855 743. In my opinion left to their own devices a lot if these runners would go more like 9, 8 and 7mpm -- around a projected marathon pace, well within their ability to complete a 40 minute run but still a good deal faster than necessary.

If all someone does is flip to the pace charts and run their E runs on what their goal time is then yes.

Daniels says the E runs themselves should be judged by you when running them so if you need to go even slower fine. At the same time let’s not act like running 2-3 mins slower than mile pace is some unattainable thing causing people to become injured. BUT if for some reason it is Daniel’s also gives guidelines on L runs and all workouts for what percentage of total weekly mileage you should be running.

Granted one might split hairs about whether they're truly elite (no they're not running 27:24) but a fun anecdote: I follow two local studs on Strava. Both run similar total volumes. One does the majority of his miles around 7 min/mile or slightly slower, but also does a considerable volume of workouts at paces in the 4:40-5:20 range. The other does almost all of his running at about 5:45-6:00 pace and hardly ever does anything slower. When they race they're always right together. Their marathon PRs are both 2:14:xx, both set in the same race where they finished one spot and about 10-20 seconds apart.

The 27:24 10k runner is a pretty contrived example. First if they did it on the track in spikes you'd need to adjust for terrain. Like compare with a road performance instead. Second taking lifetime best is also going to skew things fast.

There aren't that many runners who can run mod 27s on a typical road route, and pretty much none who can do it on a typical day. Gebrselassies road pr is a little over 27. I'm pretty sure the elite nyrr 10k road races are won in over 27 for example.

Adjust that to what they might run on a typical day and you've got an unfathomably fast runner doing high 5s which seems less outrageous.

Is age an argument? Either he is the author and therefore responsible, or not.

Running form (one example): Anyone saying 180 is the universal step rate has exactly zero idea of running at all. There is really enough science available now. That reveals and shows up no understanding of running mechanics and also no interest to change anything or to learn anything about it.

It is like i said :)