800 dude wrote:
feckinfeckinfeckin wrote:
I guess that after messing about with running for 25 years or more I've come to the view that that, provided your training programme is vaguely sensible, the most important thing is being comfortable and confident with what you're doing.
Everyone probably needs to do a reasonable amount of mileage, probably run hard every few days and probably do a long run but beyond that there's plenty of ways to skin a cat.
Some people love the confidence that packing in the miles gives them, some people love to feel like they're running fast on the track, some people just like to do a long run in the countryside, some people like to feel quite fresh most of the time.
Yeah, maybe super controlled and planned intervals taking account of all the science and research etc. is technically the best way and a lot of people buzz off that but other people prefer to just get up and see how they feel that day. You'll probably get better long term results if you go with the approach that you're happiest with.
I generally take the view that the body knows best and move things about day to day whilst trying to keep within a broad framework based on how things feel. That means responding to fatigue, injury and also taking advantage of the good days when they happen! Thats what good coaching is in my view - anyone can prescribe a programme from a book and hold a stopwatch.
I think this is mostly right. The secret to training is finding the right workload, not in the precise details of any particular workout. That's why some coaches are fantastic even though they don't have a ton of education. They have the experience and intuition to find that balance.
I wouldn't go so far as to say it's just about running the way you feel. I've coached a lot of runners who only want to do one thing, and pushing them to do the thing they didn't like often helps a great deal. But I do think that you could sum it up in pretty simple terms: You need (1) race-pace training, (2) somewhat faster than race-pace training, (3) somewhat slower than race-pace training, (4) pure sprint, and (5) pure endurance. The guidance doesn't have to be more detailed than that.
What I think a lot of people miss when talking about science-based training is that none of this stuff is dictated by science. There are no studies saying that these "designer" workouts are the way to go. It's still 95% "art of coaching," with maybe a little science in the background.
Most complicated, multi-pace workouts that I've seen fall into just a couple of buckets:
(1) Fast finish. The idea of ripping 300s after you did 1ks is not remotely new. Old school coaches would call it learning to sprint on tired legs. If you want a more scientific explanation, it's easier to recruit fast-twitch fibers after you've exhausted slow-twitch fibers, so this is an effective way of training these neural pathways for muscle recruitment. This is probably the most common kind of mixed workout.
(2) Lactate tolerance/clearing. This is where you put yourself in a hole and recover while still running really fast. Lots of high school XC coaches do this kind of training. The theory (learn to clear lactate as effectively as possible) seems sound, based on our general theories of adaptation, but there isn't exactly a lot of science to say it works.
One thing that's clear is that both of these types of workouts have a huge psychological component. You're training yourself to experience something that you will experience in races, but which you might not really experience just doing conventional workouts. I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that the difference between "reasonably fit" and "PR shape" is largely a matter of getting your brain comfortable with pain. Your "key physiological metrics" (VO2, LT, RE) are almost never going to change during your last few macrocycles of training. (The exception being that RELATIVE VO2 will change if you lean out a bit, as is pretty common during that phase.)
Of course, there's another psychological benefit as well: These workouts can be fun! And athletes who are having fun tend to run better.
