LateRunnerPhil - Peaking with Tinman Training for a 5k PR (6 weeks) / Training Log

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

[quote]What about for girls? wrote:

Tinman has this schedule almost EVERY single week of the year. He doesn't believe in training phases where you do nothing but easy mileage for 3 months in the summer and then start introducing faster stuff again. He says people get injured when they just jog easy for 3 months and then start doing sprints and other faster running. Also he wants to keep speed and stamina at a high level year-round.

Why his athletes at the elite level plateau. And if you do Lydiard base phase properly. It is not just a bunch of jogging for 3 months. A lot of steady state work, hills and strides. This idea it's just a bunch of jogging is a misinterpretation of it. If you want to reach your max potential. One should train in phases. One phase building up volume. A transition phase and a peaking phase. Not this conservative rolling the ball BS. That might work for 20 minute hobby joggers. But anyone who wants to go pass that will retard their running going by tinman principles.

way too fast for CV wrote:

You must be terrible at racing then.

How could he be bad at racing? He gets plenty of practice racing every workout!

I can convince myself after every session/race/etc. that the perceived effort was just right and I had plenty left in the tank. Still doesn’t mean I’m not over training.

He doesn't have to visit the Wizard of Oz.. He can just visit The magic Wizard of running, coach JS, and become faster than ever. lol ))

Phil,

How would adapt if you were training for a half or full marathon?

Lydiard is my Lord and Savior wrote:

Why his athletes at the elite level plateau. And if you do Lydiard base phase properly. It is not just a bunch of jogging for 3 months. A lot of steady state work, hills and strides. This idea it's just a bunch of jogging is a misinterpretation of it. If you want to reach your max potential. One should train in phases. One phase building up volume. A transition phase and a peaking phase. Not this conservative rolling the ball BS. That might work for 20 minute hobby joggers. But anyone who wants to go pass that will retard their running going by tinman principles.

I agree with you about Lydiard - many people think Lydiard base phase is just 100 mpw at easy pace, and that's it. They couldn't be more wrong, sadly even today many people still got a wrong understanding of Lydiard's methods.

Lydiard was a revulationary coach and even today his program is one of the very best. But know what? Even Tinman himself was inspired by Lydiard! He often references him and says Lydiard was one of the biggest influences in his approach to training. Tinman does a lot of hills, like Lydiard. He does a lot of Tinman tempos, which Lydiard called "steady state". He strides multiple times a week. He goes from easy to transition to peaking - like Lydiard, just in a slightly different way, mostly that he is never ignoring a specific element of training (like speed, stamina, basic endurance, etc) and the transition between phases is a lot more gradual than the distinct separation that Lydiard used.

So while I agree with you, Tinman training is based on Lydiard and not something opposite. Even Seb Coe's training, which everyone believed to be low mileage/high intensity was influenced by Lydiard. Coe actually did 5 miles every morning on top of the training shown and ran 11-14 mile steady-state runs on the weekend tho which often weren't mentioned. A wrong understanding of Coe's training ("it's just super high intensity, hard intervals, very low mileage") led to the downfall of US middle/distance running back in the days.

Needsdcibce wrote:

Phil,

How would adapt if you were training for a half or full marathon?

Standard Tinman training (1k CV reps + Tinman Tempo + LR) is optimizing 10k times, but Tinman says if you can run a fast 10k, you can also run a fast 5k and 21k. He is right about that. With his CV training, I'm even getting faster at all distances - from 400m upwards and I could run a decent half now without ever having trained for it. So ideally, you want to train like a 10k runner for 2-3 months and then become a bit more specific in the last 8-12 weeks to sharpen for your race. I don't think drastic changes are needed for 5k or half-marathon, for 5k add a bit of VO2MAX and for half-marathon do some harder long runs or some mile or 2-mile repeats at HMP.

For marathon, his training changes significantly. He would again have you do 8-12 weeks of training to get your 10k time down, but then he would start his ~12 week marathon cycle where he does 2 "BIG WORKOUTS" each week.

Big Workout 1: 2 hours with 5x2 miles at HMP, 2 hour progressive long run, 2 hours with 3x5 miles at MP, etc

Big Workout 2: 90 min with 10x1k @CV, 90 min with 6-7 threshold miles, etc.

Rest would just be easy running and some striders for coordination and to keep speed.

I really wanna try the big workouts, but first gonna max out my shorter distances while I'm slowly accumulating lifetime mileage (I'm only in my 2nd year of running, yes some people already do a marathon that early but I'm not an aerobic/mileage monster and rather take it slowly).

Still don't understand how you screwed up the CV pace so badly.

Phil,

it's funny you know so much and so little at the same time.

I feel like Tinman has evolved and you're stuck in his ways from 2012 on his message boards.

If you look at a buildup for some of his recent athletes, you will see the training for marathon does not resemble the 2 big workout per week model, nor anything close to 5 x 2 miles at half pace. The "biggest" might be 8 x 1 mile in a long run, but typically it is just 2 workouts per week and a long run that gets progressively faster (90% MP), but it seems for better runners he has moved away from the 2 big workout per week model.

As a few posters have pointed out, the self proclaimed Tinman expert is far from an expert. LRP has never been coached by Tinman. To call this thread Tinman training is way off the mark. The stuff posted on the Runzone forums is different than how Tinman currently trains his athletes.

He uses 3 paces, not 2.

He uses minutes, not miles.

Your CV pace and 200’s after are both way too fast.

It’s easy to get caught up with Strava and posting training. Easy to overtrain, Run too fast, like you’re doing.

The mods should remove this thread for LRP posting his Strava with details about his identity. Not recommended on an Internet forum like this.

Hdhdjddjj wrote:

As a few posters have pointed out, the self proclaimed Tinman expert is far from an expert. LRP has never been coached by Tinman. To call this thread Tinman training is way off the mark. The stuff posted on the Runzone forums is different than how Tinman currently trains his athletes.

He uses 3 paces, not 2.

He uses minutes, not miles.

Your CV pace and 200’s after are both way too fast.

It’s easy to get caught up with Strava and posting training. Easy to overtrain, Run too fast, like you’re doing.

The mods should remove this thread for LRP posting his Strava with details about his identity. Not recommended on an Internet forum like this.

The best way to get Tinman training will still be to get directly coached by Tinman himself - however, there are MANY runners out there who simply can't afford paying $200/month for individual coaching services (in my opinion Tinman is worth it, it's just that not everyone has a lot of money available). All these runners have to work with the information that is known about Tinman training - from his forum, his many videos (that are much cheaper and worth it), his posts on this website, his interviews and podcasts and the Strava logs of Tinman elite runners just to mention a few ways.

I might not be training 100% exact as Tinman would coach me, actually I'm sure I'm not, but I think I'm pretty close in following his philosophies. If I would be doing his training totally wrong and training ineffectively, even better because then my potential must be quite high since I'm about to run sub 16 in my second year of running with ineffective training.

Many people here have suggested 3-paced workouts, and I agree. I mostly used 2 paces, and will start incorporating 3-paces already in my next workout on Saturday this week (by adding strides after the hill sprints). This thread should help many people including myself to further optimize Tinman training for ourselves.

I use minutes too - look my plan. I'm not stopping a run tho and walking home or calling the car like Tinman elite runners are if I'm not at home at exactly 60:00 min - today I went for a new route which ended up being 75 min, a bit too long for an easy run but it's ok.

My CV and 200s are effort-based. 6-8 weeks ago, after my break they were at 3:40-3:45. You would have said too slow. Then on a hot day, they were 3:40. You would have said too slow. Then they were 3:30 3 weeks ago. You would have said "good". This week they were 3:17 - you say "too fast!". But in truth, all these were same effort, the hardest probably a 3:40 on a hot day where my HR went very high as I was still unfit with low blood volume and can't run well in heat.

I'm not a seasoned runner that's barely improving, I literally get faster every single week. If I had run 3:30 (CV-pace based of my 5k PR) this week, my HR would have been at 160 - which is below threshold, and in my Tinman Tempo HR zone. Instead of believing that my CV/200s are too fast, it is much more likely my 5k PR from April is not accurate atm, and I would have a faster PR this moment (but I'm not sure).

I agree the 200s were too fast. Normally I ease into them, like 33-32-32-31-30-30 but this week the first one was already 30. Wish they were a bit slower so I can focus even better on form and not just go semi-hard to keep the splits up. How fast I can run 200s and kick is irrelevant at my level now (I have never been outkicked in a race anyway), I need to get my average speed/threshold up to eventually be able to compete with the sub 15 guys which win most of the races here.

But the marathon 2 big workout model is dated for good runners.

You had been a much faster runner with JS as coach. And he coach you directly with fast improvement at a third of the cost Tinman charges. That Tinman charges 200 dollars per month is just ridiculously.

Week 1b & 2 update

8/15 Thursday

PM: 10 mile easy run on hilly trails, pace 7:45/mi. New route was fantastic.

8/16 Friday

PM: Easy 7 mile run & 6x15s strides. New shoes (Nike Pegasus 36) came and felt very good. Extremely quick, averaged around 6:50/mi on trails.

8/17 Saturday

AM: 12 miles with a 6 mile Tinman Tempo in 6:00/mi pace and 6x30s hill sprints. Was warm and windy.

PM: Easy 2000m Swim & 30 min core

8/18 Sunday

AM: 5 easy miles in 8:00/mi pace

PM: 2000m swim with 10x100 in 1:40

8/19 Monday

AM: 12 mile fast finish long run over hilly trails, with average pace 7:30 and last 2 miles from 6:20 to 5:50. VERY HOT!

8/20 Tuesday

AM: Easy 22 mile bike ride (~20 mph)

PM: 7 miles in 7:30/mi pace and 6x20s strides

8/21 Wednesday

AM: 3 mile shakeout at 8:00/mi pace

PM: Combo Workout - 4x1000 in 3:19-3:19-3:18-3:18 (CV) & 4x600 in 1:50-1:50-1:49-1:47 (VO2MAX) & 4x200 in 34-33-32-30 (mile to 800m speed). Went very well, good weather.

8/22 Thursday

AM: 2000m swim "lung builder" workout (not breathing often)

PM: 7 mile easy run over hilly trails in 8:00/mi

8/23 Friday

PM: 7 mile recovery run over flat trails in 8:00/mi & 6x15s hill sprints

8/24 Saturday

AM: 12 mile with 4x2000m in 3:32-3:31 | 3:33-3:32 | 3:32-3:32 | 3:34-3:31 & 4x300m in 53-53-52-49. Calves were dead/fatigued, and it was quite hot so I had to take a 10 min break between 2nd and 3rd rep of the 2000m repeats. That was supposed to be threshold effort, but didn't go as smoothly as I hoped it would but it was a combination of dead legs and heat. I've been doing much higher mileage than ever before (65 mpw instead of 50 mpw) and it's hard for the body to recover fast enough.

8/25 Sunday

PM: 5 mile recovery run over hilly trails. Trying to get better legs again for tomorrow's long run.

Overall, training went quite well. Few weeks ago I was doing CV reps in 3:40/k, now I'm quite stable at 3:20/k. Same with my tempo pace which improved from 4:00/k to 3:30/k and easy paces got better too, unless I'm beat up. Improvements with Tinman training come quickly and consistently week after week for me. Next week is another hard workout, 3x1k @CV followed by 3x1k @Aerobic Power (slightly faster than 5k) pace. Never did 1000s so fast so I hope I'll have a good day.

I have checked your training at Strava and can only say with my experience of world class coaching : You should be able to run about 15:10-15: 30 at 5 k and then 31.20-32 at 10 k, but you won't do that with your home-cooked version of Tinman. You do the wrong paces. Just try to help you understand what's possible for you with real pro top class coaching.

- Magicman -

Agreed with JS and other posters. The irony of getting the most important pace wrong just because you can comfortably hit it for 1k of running.

Your CV paces are simply too quick. They should be on current fitness that day of what you could run for (your level) a 10k.

Its not to be based on target dream 5k goal.

Keep the ball rolling? Yours will stop rolling around 9mins at that pace.

3.18-3.20s CV pace = 33.00 10k.

Are you really in that shape right now given that your 5k best is 16.55 pace on a 4.2k?

Your structure and sequencing is mostly right.

As said above, prob best to pay him 3 months to get the real deal.

jordanddonnelly wrote:

Agreed with JS and other posters. The irony of getting the most important pace wrong just because you can comfortably hit it for 1k of running.

Your CV paces are simply too quick. They should be on current fitness that day of what you could run for (your level) a 10k.

Its not to be based on target dream 5k goal.

Keep the ball rolling? Yours will stop rolling around 9mins at that pace.

3.18-3.20s CV pace = 33.00 10k.

Are you really in that shape right now given that your 5k best is 16.55 pace on a 4.2k?

Your structure and sequencing is mostly right.

As said above, prob best to pay him 3 months to get the real deal.

All my races are on road, and my CV reps on the track - so they will naturally be faster on the track, as there are no sharp turns and it's flat. The one "race" I did on the track was a mile TT which was much better than my longer races would suggest, but I'm also more of a fast-twitch runner.

CV is an effort for me - if I would be doing the reps too fast, I wouldn't be able to have just 200m rest and totally recover (120-130 HR). Also the heart rate is well under control, although I agree that heart rate is not a good measure of effort at higher intensities since it depends on way too many variables.

Tinman would recommend me to do a 2400m time trial on the track and take CV paces from that. I would need to run it in 3:03/k. Last week I did 4x1000 in 3:19 followed by 4x600 in ~3:02/k. So theoretically I should be able to string them together and run the time-trial that is equivalent to my current CV paces. But I can't really fit in a time trial right now so it will stay exciting until race day on 09/24.

Most important, I'm improving week after week and my HR at any given pace (easy/tempo/CV) gets lower. So no need to slow them down right now. And once again, I'm only in my second year of running so I'm improving faster than most people and what I raced a few months ago could already be outdated.

LateRunnerPhil, very impressive progression and thanks for the detailed description. I will use this information to updated my training.

I can share my experience as well. Started running in mid 20's and followed Daniels plan. Got down from 22:xx to 16:34 for 5k. Then I stalled for three or so years due to health issues. Now for the past year or so I'm mixing Daniels with Tinman and have PRed in HM again after four year pause (ran 75:xx).

What is bugging me is - how do you execute CV workouts. When I compare your CV paces to mine it seems you are running 1000 repeats a bit faster (3:25/km yours vs 3:28/km mine). Usually I feel wasted after CV workout for two days afterwards and I do max of 5x1000 (with 90 sec recovery @ 6:20/mile pace). I think my problem is a bit too fast recovery running (I borrowed that from Daniels cruise intervals). The question is - how do you set up recovery? Do you walk, jog or run? How fast?

I think you're right on target.

My recovery jogs are nothing spectacular. Usually between 10:00/mi to 11:30/mi. Just slow enough so I feel fresh again for the next rep. This has to do with muscle fiber distribution - I'm very FT-based, so my recovery jogs are very slow. A slow-twitch monster can probably do 8:00/mi and recover just fine.

Similar thing can be seen in alternation workouts (like 5x(1k at 10k, 1k at 10k+30s/mi)). I despise these workouts, as I can never recover in them, whereas my ST friends love them and average incredible paces during such a workout.

Tinman recommends 200m jog during CV reps, so you can adjust the pace. On a hot day, or when you feel bad, you can go slower on the recovery jog let's say 90s whereas on a good day you can go in 70-75s and, the important part, in both versions you will still hit the appropriate CV pace.

If you run recovery during a CV workout at 6:20/mi pace, that's gotta be the reason you feel so dead, I'm usually just fine after CV workouts. What kills me are races!