Arne Gabius EZ and LR pace: 5:50 min/mi - WHAT????? Never runs slower...

unless i am very much mistaken, this index stuff is misleading.

the key is: is the marathon training period long and specific enough? of course it´s necessary for a world class marathoner to be a proportionately fast 10k runner. but even the fastest 10k runner will fail to run a great marathon without adequate preparation.

why is gabius the first german 2:09 performer after decades and dieter baumann for example (sub 13/5k, 27:21/10k) failed?

whatever someone might think about canova, he knows what has to be done. look at gabius´ training - accurate. no altitude camp, no posing on photos in kenya in the belief that the kenyan running style is breathable. i am pretty sure many talented runners waste money, time and energy by travelling around or writing endless epic miracle stories about their running on elaborated, personalized homepages.

A few things about Arne:

- he decided to give up slow recovery runs because he noticed the time spent on his feet while running slower actually hurts his legs more. He talked about while running slower his legs take over more of a balancing/ stabilising task which apparently gave him muscular problems.

He rather takes a day off completely for recovery.

He is not coached by canova, just advised. He is self coached after he split with Dieter Baumann as his coach 3 years ago.

He is a vegetarian since childhood and should be among the fastes vegetarians out there. Also holds a degree in medicine MD/PhD. Went "pro" after finishing his studies 2 years ago and just focusses on running for now.

He can be extremely mentally tough, such as last sunday. But he has off days when expectations on him are high. Except for 2nd place at European championships last year he usually underperforms in big championships. Altough he can unleash a furious kick his lower distance performance on paper are not as strong as his longer distance Pr's (1500: 3:41 of this year, but ran 3:41 high already 8 years ago).

Baumann tried to run fast long after he was Oluympic Champion

3000 m at the European Indoor Championships in 1987 - SECOND

1988 Summer Olympics. The 5000 m final at Seoul - SECOND

5000 m at the World Championships in Tokyo - FOURTH

1992 Baumann narrowly missed the 3000 m world indoor record

1992 Seville - set a new German record over 5000 m (13:09.03)

1992 Olympics in Barcelona, the 5000 m final - GOLD medal

1994 European Championships - 5000 m - GOLD medal

1994 (13:01.72) to come second in Zürich behind Haile Gebrselassie.

1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta - FOURTH place

1997 World Championships in Athens - FIFTH place

19 October 1999 Baumann tested positive for nandrolone and received a two-year suspension, thus missing the 2000 Summer Olympics.

When he came back in 2002 he was 37 yrs old.

If you look here :

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieter_Baumann

IT seems like most of his improtant marks (1500, 3000, 5000, 10000) were all set in 1997 and 1998.

What yr did he run the marathon? and how old was he?

This has become a very interesting thread.

Though to the person who talked about athletes 'wasting time' going to Kenya, Gabius has trained in Kenya and does have a blog.

@Initrode

http://www.all-athletics.com/node/37921

Initrode wrote:

What yr did he run the marathon? and how old was he?

2002 in Hamburg (DNF), 37 years old.

He never ran a half marathon during his pro years. His PB of 1:07:15 h on a hilly course is from 2005, two years after his retirement.

You get it. These runners are faster. They aren't any better than the old school at the marathon, they are just faster at every distance than that era. Same as the 1500, Steeple, 5k and 10k runners of the last 23 yrs.

Except

I realize that Gabius is not coached by Canova, but when you look at his training it doesn't look so revolutionary to me. This is not meant as a slam, I just don't see where the "new" training is different than the training of those from the '70s and '80s. I don't see anything "new" there.

I don't spend much time poring over what Kipchoge's, Mutai's (both),or Kipsang's (both) training is like, but from what I have gathered Bekele used a decidedly LOW-mileage approach this time. Not very cutting-edge?

I did read about Kimetto's training in Track and Field News. It was stunning, for it's lack of volume and low intensity. Maybe something was lost in translation but he detailed every day of the week and he states he runs a MAX of 140 km. He must have left out morning runs because he detailed NONE of them.

M: 25km

T: 20 x 2:00 fartlek (20 km)

W: easy 15-20 km (20 km)

T: 40 km LR, sometimes 30 km (40km)

F: easy 15km (15km)

S: 20 x 2:00 fartlek (20 km)

Su: OFF

So, unless he is doing a 2:00 rest run on the fartleks, or he is running a 10km WU and CD on BOTH fartlek days, or both of these things, this is 140km a week.

Even if you add in 10km to before and after each fartlek it would be 180km, hardly more effective training than anything available and done since 1950 or even earlier.

Math honor society wrote:

Thus, I don't see any impact of the "new methodologies" in that respect. Renato's runners are obviously very well trained, but SOME runners of 30-40 years ago like Jones or DeCastella were EQUALLY very well trained, if judging through the "index of specific resistance" that all these runners could attained.

You get it. These runners are faster. They aren't any better than the old school at the marathon, they are just faster at every distance than that era. Same as the 1500, Steeple, 5k and 10k runners of the last 23 yrs.

Except

I realize that Gabius is not coached by Canova, but when you look at his training it doesn't look so revolutionary to me. This is not meant as a slam, I just don't see where the "new" training is different than the training of those from the '70s and '80s. I don't see anything "new" there.

[/quote]

I also have followed this thread and thought there is nothing new in what Gabius is doing. I knew 2:20 guys who didn't run slower than 5:50 and when I was able to run 2:35-2:40 I was always around 6:00 pace once I got warmed up and going. It is sort of unusual these days but hardly new.

re: nothing new in what Gabius is doing…We've heard Renato's comments, i'd love to hear comments from Salazar, Deeks, Shorter, Billy etc. I don't think Gabius training is revolutionary, but it does seem evolved, or evolutionary. e.g. 20% of mileage between 95-105% of MP is, i think, atypical. If Gabs is running 250k, that's 50k per week around MP, so more than a marathon a week at pace.

Also i find the long fartleks somewhat unusual for marathon training, not that no one does fartleks, but that the distance is quite short and speed quite high. I think this is important for efficiency of stride, and Gabs must have been very efficient to beat Renato's goal by 1-2 minutes. Ironically, i find this somewhat similar to Salazar's plan of doing speed week every year, to keep turnover fresh and efficient. Also sounds a bit like Igloi's techniques.

The "not running slow" is not new, and i don't think Renato said it was.

The final point about it being evolutionary training, is that, although i really loved say, Jack Daniels theory/training and followed it for years, it's too cookie cutter. Renato has evolved his training to be uniquely tailored to individual strengths and weaknesses. This in itself is not new, it's what every good coach must do, but Renato seems to have a good intuition for how to tailor training and he has the results to show for it. Also, i could be wrong, but i don't think your average college coach has the time or inclination to tailor training for everyone on the team. Even the Hanson bros and Schumacher struck me as a little too cookie cutter.

One could argue that this thread is a case of selection bias, only Renato's successes are publicized here (what *did* happen with Ryan Hall anyway?), but i don't doubt the fact he would share his failures and probably already has in some other thread.

This thread makes me want to be young again and try some of these "evolved" techniques, my last few marathons i tried running more MP per week, to try to hammer into my brain what MP pace should be. I did no where near Gabs volume, but i feel it made a difference.

Everyone has read Daniels' book, but the only mentions I've read of his actual training were some remarks by malmo that he told Ken Martin that his tempo work was too fast. Martin posts on LR; perhaps he would be willing to share some training logs.

I have to say that I was referring to this specific 5-week stretch:

http://www.arnegabius.de/downloads/training-35-39-kw-2014.pdf

I should have looked further at the remaining 4 weeks. I assumed there are 4 more weeks. It was written that he "only" trained for this for 9 weeks.

This looks like good training, and who cares what I think anyway. This five weeks looks like the best way to run 240-255 km per week (150160) at largely 3:35-3:55 per kilo (5:45-6:15 per mile). If you really look at each day, the paces are really close to 6:00, most of it. Some of it is as fast as 5:45, but none of it is Fast Long Distance.

The 1st and 2nd weeks have nothing faster than 5:50 paced running. Nothing. They are both about 150 mpw.

The third week has a hill workout and a 5x5k and a 4x5k. Some of the shorter runs are at 5:45 pace or close.

The fourth week has 10x1k at 2:48-50 (28:00-20 10k pace) and a nice race. This is a taper week.

The fifth week is more 6:00 paced running. There is a 10x2min + 10x1min fartlek and a faster paced 5k test (14:33) and a short race. So, 20 miles hard and 88 miles easy.

Doesn't seem like there is anything revolutionary here. People have said it was "accurate" ... I don't get that. Do you mean focused? I don't see this training as anything different than what many have done for 50 yrs. It may look "accurate" because it is entered in a grid and timed to the second and has a pace down to the second. But I don't see it as different than Viren's training or Bedford's or Shorter's for that matter? I should be even-handed and say that only one person called it "accurate".

Except for the TWO 4-5x5k workouts there is no MP training to speak of in five weeks. It is all much slower or their are about three workouts where he ran somewhat faster than MP. So about 45 km out of 1060km. Maybe 20km at a faster pace, and two races making 22km.

So that is about 80-90 km (some at MP) out of 1060 and the rest at slow pace.

When you see old school logs they usually say ...

M: 10 miles at 5:45 pace.

When entered into a grid and written as ...

DL 15km

56:02min

3:40min/km

It may look somehow more sophisticated, but it is not.

But I should shut it, because I have no beef with Gabius.

Great runner, very interesting, bravo to him for being so transparent with his training. It is all very interesting to the arm-chair coaches and runners out there. And congratulations to him for running 8:10y, 13:12 and 2:09:32. I hope he can reach his goals on the track and the German record if that is what he wants.

My complaint was about Canova stating that today's 2:03-2:07 marathoners are able to do this BECAUSE they have unequivocally better training than the generation before 1990. I don't see any difference in their training, but I should have been more clear that I was talking about the ones who are running incredible times and not about Gabius.

You and HRE need to provide us with full training schedules from world class marathoner from the 70's-80s era. Once you guys do that then we can compare the schedules. For sure, Bill Rodgers didn't train like this

Viren, Bedford and Shorter did not train like this.

Clayton, Bill Adcocks, Jim Peters, Steve Jones. But I wasn't even talking about world class guys. We had 3-4 guys in the Washington Running Club who hardly ever saw the high side of 6:00 pace.

HRE wrote:

Clayton, Bill Adcocks, Jim Peters, Steve Jones. But I wasn't even talking about world class guys. We had 3-4 guys in the Washington Running Club who hardly ever saw the high side of 6:00 pace.

Those were the best of their time, especially Peters. However, their training was not the same as the Kenyans are doing today. Peters, for example, evolved to not doing any repetitions, and his fastest 10k was 30 minutes flat (6 mile conversion), giving him a 92% percentage to the marathon.

as a german and, in all modesty, with some insight into german athletics i know very well he used to stay in kenya, like many others did or still do. and i repeat with the greatest of pleasure: this trend is a waste of time and energy, due to factors like journey time, acclimatization, vaccination, not to mention that all about the training there is well known. whoever believes in training camps and altitude training should think about alternatives. and therefore i pointed out that his actual 2:09 is a result of training at sea level.

please note what gabius and baumann did considering the preparation for the marathon. look what other germans do.

Renato Canova wrote:

This means the current training system for Marathon is better than the system of 40-30 years ago.

The fact Shorter ran 3 times faster than Arne Gabius in 10000m, and Arne ran about 1 minute faster than Shorter in his first Marathon, says not that Arne is better than Shorter, but that his preparation for Marathon, ALSO IF NOT LONG ENOUGH AND NOT COMPLETE, is better.

Renato, I have to respectfully disagree with you. Marathoning in Shorter's day and marathoning today is quite different. The difference isn't about new methodology, a big difference is in the numbers of perfectly built runners competing and in the numbers of hyper-fast opportunities available. There were no big money marathons on hyper-fast climate controlled courses in Shorter's day (except maybe Fukuoka). No Frankfurt, Berlin, Rotterdam, Paris, Chicago, London and on and on and on.... Would you take the time to guess how fast Shorter would have run at Frankfurt if we could take him back to the future? What if instead of running New York and Pan Ams, etc, and cross country, what if he ran Berlin or Rotterdam, or Chicago?

Let's face facts, Shorter ran in Olympic Trials marathons, Pan Ams, Olympic marathons, and New York. None of those events were in situations that could produce superfast times -- your "modern" training or not. (yes he did run Fukuoka)

Now explain to me why dozens upon dozens of "modern trained" 2:06 marathon runners from Iten have lined up at the start of the NYC Marathon, the same course that Shorter and Rogers ran, and yet they completely sh!t the bed? Do you really think that Arne Gabius can run as fast on that same NY course as Bill Rodgers? Have him run it next year and see how he does?

You just cannot cherry pick Shorter's 10k times and compare them next to Gabius' and make a valid claim that since he ran faster than Shorter in the marathon on Frankfort's superfast course it must be because of his modern training.

Gabius has proven to be a much better track runner at 3000m-5000m many times. Can we then come to the conclusion that his "modern training" is what made him a worse, decrepit 10k runner than Shorter's "ancient, backwoods, ignorant, stupid-ass" old skool 10k training?

See how circular reasoning works?

The only issue, malmo, is that when you speak to Frank or Bill, or even Alberto, they flat out say the training today is eons ahead of where they were. Frank's the first guy to say that he trained like he was training for a 10K but just added a negative-split long run to it.

I do agree with you that there weren't the magnitude of fast races as there are today, but back then Fukuoka was THE RACE to blitz your time, out-and-back. Frank ran the same courses as Bill and still only ran 2:10. If his training was better, on THOSE courses he should have run sub-2:09, etc.

I'm not sure what your point is but I do know that those 3-4 guys in my club were not the best of their time. My only point is that there is nothing new or revolutionary about never running slower than 5:50 pace.