Flanagan's 28 mile run

Aren't the big 4 time trials for 2011 ?

Mt Sac

Payton Jordan

High Performance

Brutus Hamilton

Here's one possible explanation - Boston will most likely announce their elite field in about 2 weeks and Kara will be a DNS - too soon for her and she won't be ready. With Kara out this means appearance money available for another elite female.

Salazar knows this and so does Schumacher.

Flanagan is getting ready to run Boston.

PhysMech wrote:

Doesnt sound right to me wrote:

In 2007 she ran 4:05/8:33i/14:44. In 2008 she ran an incredible race 30:22.22 for an Olympic bronze which will be easily the highlight of her career.

I agree, '07 and the Olympics were incredible. John Cook was my college coach and I think he did an outstanding job coaching Shalane.

But as impressive as it was, the Olympic bronze will not be the highlight of her career. Her best races are still potentially ahead of her. And a 28 mile day so close after a race is admittedly aggressive, but sometimes you have to take some calculated risks to get to the next level.

I see the risk, but the calculation escapes me. What's to be lost by giving her a couple more days of recovery time?

Here's what's wrong with the "she hasn't improved" argument... 2009 was a transition year: a combination of a new coach, the fact that she questioned her commitment (don't you remember she part time coached at UNC before moving to Portland because she needed to rediscover the fire?), and probably a post-Olympic let-down. Hard to hold that against her, or, especially, Jerry.

2010... I don't know why people consider 2010 a failure. She ran 14:49 while training for a marathon! That's just 5 seconds shy of her American Record when she was focusing on the 5k. As someone who can't come within a minute of their 5k PR while training for a martahon, I find this a massive performance. Think about it... you only consider 2010 a success if she runs faster then she ever has before... in an event she wasn't training for? Then, she finishes 2nd in NYC. I don't care about the time... she debuted in 2nd place in the marathon.

Now, coming back down to focus more on the 5k/10k, she destroys every woman at cross Nationals... including the woman who got her 5k record last year.

I fail to see how the last 12 months have been anything but good for Shalane.

long sox wrote:

Here's one possible explanation - Boston will most likely announce their elite field in about 2 weeks and Kara will be a DNS - too soon for her and she won't be ready. With Kara out this means appearance money available for another elite female.

Salazar knows this and so does Schumacher.

Flanagan is getting ready to run Boston.

+1

she lacked training partners after the switch and now has a great one in Lisa Koll, so with smart training she would stand to be significantly better this year than last.

How did her training partner handle the 28 miler? OH, I get it, they are not really daily training partners.

Three hours is certainly long, as long runs go, but I'm pretty sure that Lydiard was a fan of long easy runs after hard races: rebuilding the aerobic foundation. The question is, is 6:25 pace (or whatever 28 miles in three hours comes out to) easy for her?

[quote]feet to the fire wrote:

She just ran a terrific cross race (although it was 20 seconds slower than 2008). quote]

Was the race in 2008 run on the same course under teh same conditions? If not there is no credibility here.

28 in 3:04 is 6:34 pace. So, yes that's well within her easy aerobic pace. So pace is not the issue, but rather what kind of toll does that distance take on the body. I would imagine she would follow this with several days of very easy and short runs and maybe even an off day or two.

I really doubt she's taking a day or two off to rest up after a long run.

PhysMech wrote:

Flanagan's 10k AR is quite a bit better than the current 5k AR. If she can beat her own 10k record, I think she ends the year with the 5k AR as well. If she doesn't get into shape to beat her 10k record, I think someone else ends the year with the 5k AR. I'm almost certain it will be lowered this year. Other than Shalane doing it, a few come to mind. Molly Huddle has the best odds, IMO. We've only begun to realize how talented she is.

Not so sure the difference is that big. The rule-of-thumb for world-class (not world best) males is double 5K time and add 1 minute. With women being ~10% slower, that would mean 66 seconds. Taking 66 from 30:22 gives 29:16, divide by two and you get 14:38. That is better than mid-40s but not on a whole different level. Furthermore, with marathon training/racing in the mix, doing as well at 5000 as at 10,000 seems like an uncertain proposition.

Odds are slightly that she will get such a record, but it might be receding from her as well, as there are a few other 'studs' out there that are younger and figure to have a more rapid rate of improvement. What, for instance will Koll be capable of, although I think she will go long rather than the 5000. Do not forget Jenny (former B, now S).

Honestly, I think based on past success, we can say that Schumacher knows what he is doing. I'm not saying accept with blind faith. I like the skeptics.

On the other hand, let's ask, "What is Schumacher's general plan for training?"

First, Schumacher believes that athletes can handle more than what people calculate. Check out his Ontario videos on runnerspace.com.

Second, Schumacher believes heavily in the development of the aerobic side. Obviously, Solinsky was marathon training with Bairu and Nelson during the follow preceding his 10K AR. Part of his belief in developing the aerobic side is not doing too fast stuff too early. An athlete can only handle so many intervals at race pace. How many times have you heard members of his training group say they haven't hit under 60 for a quarter in a workout yet they run sub-4 for a mile in a race? That is pure aerobic development with the knowledge that you can race at a certain pace without training at that pace. They may do reps with more rest at race pace, but they don't run longer intervals at race pace. Schumacher believes that a runner shouldn't have to make a race effort in practice.

The last thing--and probably the most import--is that Schumacher looks long-term. This may be the best quality that Schumacher has. He has a way of keeping in mind the long-term goal without getting too wrapped up in a single race or training period. In terms of Flanagan doing a 28 miler two days after her race, I believe this is ultimately for London. You may say that it won't have much effect on London.

Consider Lasse Viren. His coach was so devoted to developing the aerobic side that the years between the Olympics Viren would do heavy aerobic work without training for races. Yet when it came to the race that mattered most, Viren had developed his aerobic side for four years, whereas other athletes training was interrupted with lots of peaks for races.

Bringing it back to Flanagan, fortunately she had a tactical race in New York. Compare her race to the men's in which they were blasting away crazy, up-and-down splits. Bairu and Nelson didn't have as good as day as Flanagan. Had Flanagan's race been more of a go-from-the-gun race, she may have not faired as well. Doing a 28 mile run at this time of year is something that not many in the US do, and that is train for the marathon. If you look at the results, the only athletes to have done well in a fast marathon in the last few years are Ryan Hall in London and New York Trials, Meb in New York, and Kastor in Chicago and London. A good way to prepare for the marathon that most people ignore is a little over distance. It probably came to a point in Flanagan's development under Schumacher that he believed she could handle a run like that. Doing so, they are putting a deposit in the aerobic bank.

This is only my thoughts on it. As they say though, "The proof's in the pudding," so we'll have to see if it works from her races.

It's amazing that a 3 hour run for an elite is not normal. In any other aerobic sport (cycling, swimming, nordic skiing, rowing), 3 hours is almost a normal training day. In these sports, world caliber professionals do long days of 5 to 8 hours. I understand that with running there is greater impact but that should not be too much of a problem if monitored. In fact, World Cup Nordic skiers typically do 4-5 hour trail runs in the summer.

By the way, Haile tweeted a few weeks ago that he did a 3 hour run.

Nordie wrote:

It's amazing that a 3 hour run for an elite is not normal. In any other aerobic sport (cycling, swimming, nordic skiing, rowing), 3 hours is almost a normal training day. In these sports, world caliber professionals do long days of 5 to 8 hours. I understand that with running there is greater impact but that should not be too much of a problem if monitored. In fact, World Cup Nordic skiers typically do 4-5 hour trail runs in the summer.

By the way, Haile tweeted a few weeks ago that he did a 3 hour run.

The thing you are missing is that, are you familiar with people asking "what is the conversion between biking and running?" Now the correct answer is that there is no conversion because running is running, but "generally" people say there is a 3:1 aerobic ratio between biking and running, as in 3 miles of biking equals one mile of running, or 3 hours of biking equals one hour of running etc.

So there you go.

The Waterboy wrote:

The thing you are missing is that, are you familiar with people asking "what is the conversion between biking and running?" Now the correct answer is that there is no conversion because running is running, but "generally" people say there is a 3:1 aerobic ratio between biking and running, as in 3 miles of biking equals one mile of running, or 3 hours of biking equals one hour of running etc.

So there you go.

Even if one accepts that three miles of biking equals one mile of running, it doesn't necessarily imply that three hours of biking equals one hour of running.

After Further Review wrote:

Her website says she ran 28 in 3:04.

Damn. I was thinking how funny it would be after all this talk if Shalane's next tweet was "Whoops, sorry, typo - meant to say 18 miles!"

"Now the correct answer is that there is no conversion because running is running, but generally" people say there is a 3:1 aerobic ratio between biking and running, as in 3 miles of biking equals one mile of running, or 3 hours of biking equals one hour of running etc.

So there you go.

biking on roads is somewhere around twice as fast as running, so if you buy into the 3:1 mileage conversion, the time conversion would be more like 1.5:1.

as you said though, there is no conversion. this is especially true for long efforts, where running is limited mostly by injury risk

Ken Kesey's Reindeer Milk wrote:

Consider Lasse Viren. His coach was so devoted to developing the aerobic side that the years between the Olympics Viren would do heavy aerobic work without training for races.

Interesting that you should bring Lasse Viren up. Correct me if this is not accurate, but almost all his runs were 8 miles or less with lots of farleks. In fact, the same day Shalane did her 28 miler, I did 3 x 8.25 miles (almost 25) with a 2-3 hour break between. Did the carb/protein thing after each one, and felt like I had done half the distance the next day. Nothing like the debilitation I feel after a continuous long run. And was able to get a decent run in the next day (yesterday) with several quality surges. In some surges, I was able to get the pace down to a real sprint briefly, without difficulty. Felt like a normal training day.

Of course, I didn't get the glycogen deprivation work in that so many marathoners seem so fond of. I know the idea is to increase the percentage of fat burning and train the body to store more glycogen, but I have yet to see the real research that definitively proves that this actually works. *TROLLMODE ON* It probably exists, but I haven't seen it yet. *TROLLMODE OFF*