de Castella "complex" training

Doyley certainly ran some long reps on Tuesdays in the winter for strength. He also ran only 6 days a week taking Friday's off running to spin on an indoor bike in the garage. I dont recall Simon doing the classic quarters session - he would do more typical middle distance sessions - a lot of 600s, 800s etc and a lot of very short fast hills. In fact "Doyle's Hill" (a 30sec hill known to have reduced grown men to tears and vomit) was named after.... well, you guessed it :-).

Why is that? In his book he states that he ran this type of training year round. It is 130 mpw, so that sounds about right.

In any case Deek was amazing and his 2:07 run at Boston in 1986 is one of my all time favorites.

This was before all of the cheaters came on the scene and started running 2:04s.

I am not sure why that particular book has that construct (other books and articles have different constructs), but I do know first hand of at least the typical training weeks when based in Australia. Certainly big volume 120-130 miles per week and usually Tuesday workouts of a 3 mile surge + hill surge, Thursdays the classic "quarters" (8 x 400/200 float) and Saturdays a hard hilly 10 miler. One of the sports true gentleman.

Influenced by Lydiard training, and better than Lydiard training but for the wrong reason.

It´s not because double or triple season periodisation and frequent competition that we shall try intervals weekly, and some kind of anaerobic training in every phase of the season. It´s because it´s more effective than the stupid aerobic-first that misses intervals for a long period.

However, it´s just necessary to take one glance to Pat-Castella training to conclude that this kind of training is similar to what other coaches were doing all over the world do, and long ago before Pat did it. Since the late 60s that this kind of training is done.

This method that´s not bad, but doesn´t contain nothing new, nothing of revolutionary, nothing special, nothing at all that takes it out of ordinary training, well known training, deja-vue training.

yes it might be nothing new etc but look at his times this is 30years ago.The main point what people look at is the few months or maybe 1 year before he ran his sub 2:10.His training that he did 5/10 years before this time it is consistency of his training that is the key to the castella training.At the end of the day you cant knock it 2:07 for a marathon its not bad infact its fxxxxx great well done deek!!!!!!!

I trained with Deek for a few months prior to his Boston win. The training outlined in the post above (from the book) was almost exactly what we did. A few points of clarification:

Wednesday - the medium long run was done at 6:00 pace......always. Took us about 1 mile to get to that pace. It was closely monitored to be 6:00 pace.

The 8X400 workout is brutal. The 'float' 200s are done in 39/40 seconds. We alternated leading the hard laps. The final 400 is basically as hard as you can run. I won't throw out any of the 'total' times we ran for 12 laps but they were always fast.

Sunday long run - was done at 6:00 pace....the final two miles was done at 5:00 pace. This isn't mentioned anywhere above but BEFORE he won Boston, we did this weekly. Every week. I forgot the year but it was in the mid 80s I think.

I know he basically did this year around so the posts above are a good indication of what he did. I also visited with him while he lived in Boulder a few times and he was still doing it. You never had to ask Deek what his workout was.....you always knew based on the day of the week.

My weekly totals were always in the 128-130 range when running with him.

pre-Boston, worth mentioning that the Sunday long run was very hilly. Wasn't the last 2 miles more or less downhill? Impossible to run that exact course these days as there's a new suburb in the middle of it.

Importantly, Deek raced quite often. In addition to a handful of cross country races every year in Aust, he ran World Cross every year. Plus, he would race several 5km track races, the odd 10km track race, and even a few 1500m races. He was very professional in his approach, eating the right food, getting enough sleep, etc.

His long run on Sunday was brutal. It was a 20 miler, super hilly, and he would "surge" the hills and even "surge" long flat sections.

boyfromOz wrote:

Importantly, Deek raced quite often. In addition to a handful of cross country races every year in Aust, he ran World Cross every year. Plus, he would race several 5km track races, the odd 10km track race, and even a few 1500m races. He was very professional in his approach, eating the right food, getting enough sleep, etc.

His long run on Sunday was brutal. It was a 20 miler, super hilly, and he would "surge" the hills and even "surge" long flat sections.

1500s? I know he did a 3000 here and there, but 1500s? Are you sure?

Definitely on occasion as "speed work" when preparing for an event he would do a low key " inter club" 1500m.

I am 100% sure on the 1500m races. He would usually run around 3:48.

Only ever ran with the group on sundays at Ferny Creek back in the early 80s.

If I ran my favourite course it was about 4k shorter than the "big guns" would run. I could normally hang in with them until around 14-16km and yet Deek and some others would often charge by me in the closing kms. So yeah their long runs had a strong finish to them.

So do people consider Deek at 2:07 Marathoner or 2:08:18, since his 2:07 was in Boston?

I would be interested in knowing the conditions that day at Boston. Does anyone remember temperature/wind? I've always considered him a sub-2:08 guy.

His long run in Boulder was different than the long runs I ran with him before Boston. You are right, in Boulder, he hammers the uphills and it generally a hard run. He still closed fast but it wasn't as structured as what we did prior to Boston. We ran 6:00 pace for 20 and then ran a 2 mile loop (flat) at 5:00 per mile. I'd have to go back and check my logs but I think we did this for 12-14 weeks prior to Boston. Obviously, Deek did not live in Boulder leading up to Boston that year.

Sagarin wrote:

I would be interested in knowing the conditions that day at Boston. Does anyone remember temperature/wind? I've always considered him a sub-2:08 guy.

It was pretty humid. Not hot and humid but maybe a tad warm and humid. Not much in the line of wind as I recall.

Seems like there are a few on here that actually trained with Deek. I read in "Running with the Legends" that Deek ran his hills on tuesday's and his track sessions on thursday's. But, in the book "Running Tough" both books written by Michael Sandrock. He wrote that Deek ran his track sessions on Tuesday and his hills on thursday. Any first hand accounts on which one is correct. I want to grow up and be an Olympic marathoner just like Deek..and I want to train just like he trained.

During his earlier years he would normally run hill sessions on tuesday night. Track sessions were on thursday.

I think it would be cheeky for me to say I trained "with' him.

I usually turned up at Ferny Creek on sunday mornings and tagged along with Wardlaw's 9 o'clock group. I was a hack and generally just tagged along at the back with those having an easy day. It was a good way to catch all the local running gossip.

Wombat Runner wrote:

I want to grow up and be an Olympic marathoner just like Deek..and I want to train just like he trained.

You could certainly pick worse runners to imitate, but remember, even if you run his EXACT person bests, you're not Deek. What worked for him exactly won't necessarily work with you exactly. Deek did more or less the same workouts for YEARS, and it was the cumulative effect that made him good, not whether or not he was doing a session on Tuesday rather than Thursday.