no interval work success?

non interval running can work great. except that when you cut back on mileage your performances evaporate. this is why interval or a mix of training is often better b/c you can perform off of less and you can really run well on reduce volume near a peak. but each person is different.

tinman wrote:

HRE,

Thanks for your informative post. Any more examples?

tinman

Jim Peters. And John Davies once told a story about spending a New Zealand winter doing his build-up and no speed or pacework, then running a mile against Ron Clarke at the end of the build-up and winning in 4:05 on a wet grass track with a final lap of 55.

Hodgie-san and another coach,

Speaking of Amby Burfoot, you might recall that he sort of disappeared from the national scene in the early 70s, then re-emerged in 1975-76 and had sort of a second career. I ended up sitting next to him on the bus to the starting line of the old Bankathon/30km nationals and asked why he was running well again after so many years away.

He told me it was because he had begun doing a weekly interval session, usually something very mild like 8x440 in 72. I asked how he reconciled that with his earlier stated beliefs about the value of slow training and he said that when he was doing all slow training he overlooked the fact that he was in college and racing one to three times a week at distances of 1 to 6 miles. He said he hadn't thought of it at the time, but the races were speedwork and when he graduated and raced less he slowed down.

Actually, Lydiard told me once that you could "race yourself fit" without doing any speed or pacework.

Unlike some of topics on this board, most of the people that have replied are very well imformed and do not over look any aspects of training,(important or not)I would be willing to bet that all those who have replied are more than imformed about a two basic principals of athletics you have mentioned. (Individual differenes and Specificity)

I just listened to Tim Hacker speak last Saturday and he mentioned how he did not agree with the trend of college cross country teams running so few races. He agreed that the best way to run fast durring the cross country season was to run cross country races.

There are many was to train athletes, the trick is to find the ones that work for each athlete and then motivate that athlete to acually do it.

dpcc,

Yes, I remember the profile of him in Runner's World magazine. He ran 6 days per week, always an hour. He raced every weekend and the only interval work he did was about 2 miles worth of 440s or 880s on Thursday to get his legs used to turnover. The guy medaled in the Olympic 10k. Amazingingly simple...one hour runs at easy or hard pace, depending upon how good he felt.

good points!!

Good info from HRE and Hodgie San! Thank you.

tinman wrote:

Johny O,

I don't think I received the emails you are referring to. I welcome your thoughts anytime, since you are reasonable, humble, and passionate about what you do. tinman at

runfastcoach@hotmail.com

tinman I sent you two e mails last week, i dont know why they were not received I need someone to explain the technicalities to me.

great thread by the way

cheers

JonnyO

It seems to me that there are a lot of frustrated and confused runners. Often training is paradoxical in that the harder you do it the worse you get, in some cases. I have noticed that many runners are in search of answers to the question of why traditional approaches don't seem to work for them. With this venue, I think we can become more aware of possible solutions, and just importantly, feel less like and odd-ball. A friend of mine one day proclaimed that if he couldn't run faster by doing intervals than why in the h--- should he do them at all. I shrugged my shoulders and said: "Cuz everyone says you should." And then I laughed at the notion.

Some great points have been made on this thread. It seems to me that constant interval and tempo training have replaced racing which I believe to be a great mistake. Interval training is great as a sharpening tool to peak for the big races but the majority of your fitness comes from the consistency of your daily running.

The problem runners have today with the proliferation of the hard/easy mantra is they confuse fast with hard. You can run a fast paced workout without it being any harder than a normal training day. Instead, the workout is run so hard, it takes too long to recover costing the runner those days of training. If they don't recover properly, then they overtrain. Either way, they do not improve. Just as a more evenly paced race leads to the best times, a more evenly paced daily effort will lead to better fitness.

True, very true. Both De Castella and Shorter have mentioned often that consistency of training is key, not any one workout, and that is what I think you are saying. Pace your efforts, keep the ball rolling. If you work too hard on one day, then it is probable that you will be too tired the next few days to get in proper training, which is most cases is distance running. Hodgie San has eluded to getting in the day after day running, not hammering and just building, building, building. Thanks for your insight, "use sparingly."

>getting in the day after day running, not hammering and just building, building, building.<

Gradual adaptation. The "fool-proof" method.

With my High School team and those at the next level, I try to explain training like a banker. You want to continually make deposites (miles and miles of consistant moderate training) NOT withdrawls or the "point of diminishing returns".Every now and then you should make an investment where you take something out of your account but only for a "sure thing". The investment is a workout that you are ready for and can really nail. Could be speed work or any number of workout that have been posted here. It takes a long time to become wealthy but the rewards are great.

Another example came to mind. Dick Taylor, the British version who spells his name with an "or" at the end, not the Kiwi who spells his name with an "er", ran 13:29/28:06 for 5/10km and according to his profile in Fred Wilt's "how They Train," did no intervals at all. His training consisted of steady runs of 5 to 22 miles.

I have a success story to report using a non-traditional approach that is being talked about on this thread. Thanks to tinman?s help, I rebounded from a vicious slump (during which I could barely break 39 for 10k) to set a seven minute PR in the marathon (259-252).

Before consulting tinman, I was heavily reliant on the heart rate monitor in training for my recent marathon. I had previously run workouts too hard in prior years. This summer I began using the HRM was a way to keep me honest and not race workouts. However, we discovered my slump was largely a product of misleading numbers from the HRM. Instead of running the appropriate paces for my race fitness, I was following some arbitrary reading from the HRM. Things got to the point where I was running easy at

almost ten minutes per mile. Next thing I knew, seven flat felt like I was gunning it all out. I was staring a 3:05 marathon squarely in the face.

After a personal worst 10k on a fast course, we ditched the HRM and went to a velocity approach. I am glad to say it worked. Even better, I was able to tame that final 10k that pummeled me in my previous two efforts at 26.2.

As for the race, it was somewhat of a windy day, especially from mile 16 onward. My strategy was to just go by feel for the first 13.1 and then reevaluate from there. In other words, no obsessing with splits. The half went in 1:27:41 (6:42 pace). I could have pushed a little harder if I set

my own pace but I decided to play the drafting game and settle in behind a couple of guys who looked like seasoned veterans whom I could trust to keep a steady pace. I have learned that when you are fit and tapered, marathon pace feels so easy and it is tempting to get greedy in the early miles. At the half, I was feeling reasonably comfortable and resolved to pick up the tempo, even though it meant fighting the wind by myself. Through the later miles, I passed tons of people as the wind increased. Whereas the opening half was flat and among urban buildings, the second half was more undulating and more exposed to the wind. Nevertheless, I ran a nearly three minute negative splitand

finished in 1:24:39 for the last 13.1 (6:28 pace). This time is only 2 minutes off my half marathon PR. My final 10k was 44 seconds faster than the opening 10k (40 flat vs. 40:44). It was a big victory for me having never broken 47 in the last 10k of a marathon and having finished my

previous marathon with a 10k on the wrong side of 50minutes. Shows what smart pacing will do! I realized that the halfway point of a marathon does not come at 13.1, it comes somewhere between 16-20 miles.

As for the training, I look back and see a lot of things that worked, despite the slump a couple of months ago. I am relatively new to this stuff, but as someone who has been largely self coached, I have tried it all. What worked for me might not work for others and what works for others would not work for me.

1) Long, fast, continuous runs. Early in the training, ?fast? for me was around 6:40 pace, but in early December I was able to run a 12 miler at a controlled 6:30 pace. The lesson for me was to run at the appropriate effort, rather than exact pace, for the given workout. I ended up running my last 13.1 on Sunday faster than any of my marathon paced runs. Other than strides, the fastest I ran in the buildup was a 559 mile and some 200s

in 40-41.

2) Variety of surfaces. I ran all speeds on all surfaces for the past few months. Strides, 10k pace, easy, tempo, etc. on grass, road, dirt, wood chips, and track. I think this variety gave me a ?feel for the road? that allowed me to tweak my stride occasionally in the late miles to recruit different muscles and rest others. In addition, including some light hills in the tempo workouts gave me functional strength to tackle the hills late in the race. I have always done hills in regular runs and used to use fast hill reps religiously, but in my previous two marathons I melted on the late hills. This time I was strong, and I believe it was because running hills

at threshold pace during a long tempo trains the muscles much more specifically than hills at aerobic conditioning pace or 1500-5k paced reps. I guess the best scenario is to train all speeds, but I think I overlooked running hills at the pace I would run them in the race and under similar

conditions (ie, late in a long tempo).

3) Making the fast days long. Instead of one long day (ie. Sunday 16-20 miler), there were two or three per week, thanks to 30-60 minute cool downs.

4) Run workouts at prescribed paces, no faster. Seems obvious, but I had always fallen prey to the attitude that workouts were a place to prove to yourself you could run at ?X? pace. ABefore my previous marathon (2:59), I

ran several ?threshold? workouts where I ran mile repeats as fast as 540 despite having a 10k PR above 37. I have now become wiser and run these workouts where they belong, in the 15k to marathon pace range.

5) I went with a 7-10 day taper, rather than the traditional 21 day approach that many recommend for the marathon. 10 days before the race I ran 6xmile

in 613-11-4-2-3-559. The final week I did a 90 min run 7 days out, a few 45 minute runs (with 8 strides afterward), and 10 x 200 in 40-41 on Wednesday. I feel like 10 days was a good number for me to rest yet maintain aerobic

fitness and general equilibrium.

postie:

Thanks for sharing your success story. Your insight may help others on their personal quest. Keep us posted on your future events. You are on a roll, keep it going...and keep it fun. tinman

Is the only way to find out what is best for you experimentation or is there a way to get tested to see what type of traning would work best for you?

HS Girls National 2 mile record set training in this fashion:

http://www.coacheseducation.com/xc/jack_farrell_july_00.htm

Joe

I set all my PR's (mile to 1/2 marathon) in the 3 months following my college career. All I did was run 8-15 miles a day. Obviously, I was poorly trained aerobically and simply needed to run more miles...

When used PROPERLY intervals have been proven to work for many people. I think intervals don't always have their desired effect for two reasons:

1. People run TOO FAST for their current fitness level. Instead of doing a workout at their ACTUAL 5k/10k pace (or whatever the proper pace is for the given workout...could be marathon or could be 3k) people normally run intervals at their DREAM 5k/10k pace.

2. Insufficient base and threshold training. If run enough miles and if you do your tempo runs at the right pace and effort (i.e. CONTROLLED, not time trialed) moving up to your actual 5k/10k range should not be extremely taxing, especially in interval form.

A good 3k/5k paced session at the right time can put some zip in the legs and make the tempo run pace easier and thus make the tempo workouts more effective.