Marathon Training On Low Volume???

There was a study, or rather a survey, in this running book in the '80s, "The Complete Runner" I think. It surveyed participants in a marathon, from 2:20 marathoners down to 4:00 marathoners. One of the conclusions from the survey was that those who ran more mileage tended to run faster marathons. Also, those with a faster mile time tended to run faster marathons. So, a formula was devised that takes into account mileage run, mile time, # of marathons run in the past, age, etc that predicts your marathon time. It was pretty interesting. I should still have the book at home. I look into it this weekend and report back.

Studies and surveys for years have proven Richard wrong.

I would also like to note that, although it is irrelevant to the discussion at hand, Richard is quite ugly.

Well I haven't taken DNA samples. You've got me there.

When you stop frothing at the mouth, you'll realise that you should have stopped there.

On the other hand, Have you ever seen Bill Reifsnyder run? Don Janicki? How about Tom Derderian, (who posts here occasionally)? Hell, even Alberto Salazar had hideous form. But we are to believe that these guys and all the others were all just "gifted".

You can believe what you like, proof is another matter. Let me turn your question around, are we to believe that these people were not genetically gifted, merely because they lack "good" form? That begs further questions;

What exactly does "genetically gifted" mean?

Why does the idea that a person has "good" genetics have to mean the same thing to everybody? (i.e. perhaps one person has better oxygen uptake, another better biomechanics and a third a better fast/slow twitch muscle fibre ratio. There is no proof that these things would not even out and produce 3 equally able athletes.)

Why is the conventional idea of "good" form important?

Could unconventional form not be "good" if it is economical for the particular runner?

Nobby Nomates wrote:

When you stop frothing at the mouth, you'll realise that you should have stopped there.

"frothing at the mouth"? I think you are reading some sort of confrontational tone to my post which was not intended.

You can believe what you like, proof is another matter. Let me turn your question around, are we to believe that these people were not genetically gifted, merely because they lack "good" form? That begs further questions;

No it really doesn't beg any questions all. If I were actually attempting to present a "proof" of ANYthing related to what defines "genetically gifted", perhaps it might.

But my ONLY point in mentioning these guys and their talent or lack thereof is that genetics of American runners, whatever they are, have not drastically altered in 20 years.

So if people are not running sub 2:20 marathons nearly as often as they were 20 years ago, the problem is not lack of talent. It is lack of TRAINING. Guys don't go out and run miles as they did. They're too busy listening to guys like Richard who tell them all they need to do is take it easy, run 3 days a week, wear a heart rate monitor, gallowalk and have 20 packets of Gu for their next 5k

So they don't run sub 2:20.

Crank,

Oh, I've got it now. You are on the horns of a dilema. You are enjoying our conversation and want it to continue but know that I don't engage in name calling, insulting type of posts. I choose to engage in intelligent, substantive debate only. You want to continue our conversation but don't really have any factual data to contribute and you training ideas aren't substantive enough to stand on their own. You want to keep communicating but dont have enough solid data to do so, hence the reason you try to keep the conversation going with insults.

Don't despair though. I have a solution. Let's us a secret system so we can continue to communicate. When you have something substantive and worthy of discussion just post it. We will call this Option 1. When you don't have anything substantive to say or not enough to stand on its own then post it with a bunch of insults all around it. We will call this Option 2. When I see a post with any insults at all I will know it is an option 2 post and will ignore it. When I see a post from you with no insults I will know it is option 1 and will respond. This way we can continue to talk but I won't need to respond to you each time you choose option 2. Let's implement this system now.

Talk to you soon.

I think you are reading some sort of confrontational tone to my post which was not intended.

Then I apologise, my interpretation was awry.

genetics of American runners, whatever they are, have not drastically altered in 20 years.

Interesting supposition. Anything to back this up?

So if people are not running sub 2:20 marathons nearly as often as they were 20 years ago, the problem is not lack of talent. It is lack of TRAINING.

So you don't hold with the idea that, although more people are partaking in the use of running as a fitness tool, there are simply fewer "serious" runners than there were 20 years ago.

I may be mistaken but that is not, to me, a lack of training, it's a lack of desire. I don't think that you can hold Richard and his ilk responsible for the fact that Americans (and Europeans) have a wider choice of leisure pursuits than they did in the past.

Richard_ wrote:

Oh, I've got it now. You are on the horns of a dilema. You are enjoying our conversation and want it to continue but know that I don't engage in name calling, insulting type of posts.

No, you don't "get it now." I stated flat-out that it would be great if you disappeared. But if you remain, you will surely invite further insults. Capisce?

Richard_ wrote:

I choose to engage in intelligent, substantive debate only.

Good one! Right up there with "The check is in the mail," "I won't jipe in your mouth," etc.

Anyway, as I keep pointing out and you keep ignoring in favor of agitated and pathetic attempts at dressing me down for my potty mouth and bad manners, you clearly have no evidence to support either of your claims (i.e., the one about low-mileage elite marathoners and "potential-realizing" three-times-a-week recreational runners). The burden of "proof" lies on you. I don't need to actively discredit you since you do such a fine job of this yourself, but I'm here to remind you that the only way you can "win" here is to follow through and dig up some evidence that favors your nonsensical postulates. Until you do this, I'll facilitate your downward spiral, since you are clearly incapable of ignoring me.

Crank,

Some coaching feedback for you. I think you've got our secret system down. That is clearly an option 2 post, with nothing substantial enough to stand on its own so you surrounded it with personal attacks. Nice. It doesn't appear you will need any mor coaching on our system so keep it going and in the future I will respond to your option 1 posts.

Talk to you later.

Richard_ wrote:

That is clearly an option 2 post, with nothing substantial enough to stand on its own so you surrounded it with personal attacks. Nice. It doesn't appear you will need any mor coaching on our system so keep it going and in the future I will respond to your option 1 posts.

R-man, just because you're dumber than a used tampon doesn't mean you have to be so bloody predictable. Immediately after claiming you wouldn't respond to insulting posts, you did just that.

As I noted, you're a helpless, hapless, weaselly little turdball. You're also a liar, since my last post did in fact contain "substantive" material. Read the bold text, or alternatively have someone who understands English explain it to you. One more time:

you clearly have no evidence to support either of your claims (i.e., the one about low-mileage elite marathoners and "potential-realizing" three-times-a-week recreational runners). The burden of "proof" lies on you.

That's the heart of the matter. I have to go watch the Cardinal Invite now, so you have a number of hours to collect "substantive" material for your reply. Posts referring to "Option 1" and the like will be summarily mocked along with their shitbrained author, but I trust you will nudge yourself back on topic and so I look forward to a fruitful discussion regarding marathon training.

Richard_ wrote:

I believe and research supports that the people recover at different rates. Some recover fast, some slow. I recall a study where one subject recovered in a matter of hours while others took 3 days to recover. I've seen studies where it took 7 days for some subjects to recover. So, if people recover at different rate then how frequently should each individual train.

Do you have a citation for said studies showing, presumably great, differences in recovery rate in equally trained runners? Have you considered that the more a person trains, the better s/he may recover from training. You assume falsely, it seems, that a person’s “recoverability” is fixed.

First, you need to define the population you are speaking of. I’ll assume you’re talking about open-aged runners in good health, all equipped with two lungs and two legs.

I do believe “hardiness” varies to some extent, even among runners of similar age and health, but not nearly to the degree that would allow one to deduce that 3 runs per week is appropriate training for any significant number of runners. The difference in hardiness between subjects would have to be freakin’ huge for a person to be at his or her maximum training load at only three days of running per week, when we know daily training benefits a great deal of non-elite runners. People aren’t that dissimilar. Your dose-response theory simply doesn’t extrapolate so far as to allow your conclusions to be valid.

Now, if you are talking about novices (who possibly should only train three times per week), once a higher level of fitness is reached, it will always be beneficial for him/her to increase his/her work load. I think this could be proven far more readily than the alternative hypothesis, that training three times a week yields greater or equal benefits than training 4 or more days a week in trained runners. This, actually, would be a very easy experiment. Thing is, it's already common knowledge that an increase in exercise causes adaptation.

Though I don’t know that you’ve acknowledged it, in advocating 3 days per week of training as optimal you would, necessarily, be suggesting this to runners in the tail end of the "recoverability" distribution. Those of us in the middle already know we can handle and thrive on daily or near-daily running. We’ve all had to cut back due to busy-life factors, and guess what, we find we lose fitness. Your idea of 'do less, get more' has been shown wrong by every individual who has ever progressed from three runs per week to three plus and found they gained fitness. (Yes, I know confounding variables such as overall time training would have to be controlled for.)

genetics of American runners, whatever they are, have not drastically altered in 20 years.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interesting supposition. Anything to back this up?

ARE YOU SERIOUS!!!!???? If you know anything about genetics, this is not a supposition. Genes cannot change drastically in 20 years. Good god.

Student's t wrote:

Your dose-response theory simply doesn’t extrapolate so far as to allow your conclusions to be valid.

Leave it to Richard Gibberish, the World's Dumbest Smart Guy (tm), to equate doing a training run with taking a drug (at best a very rough analogy) and then treat this analogy as hard science.

If he's going to insist on drawing parallels between adapting to training and adapting to a medication, what he should be focusing on is the fact that while some people naturally metabolize a given drug more rapidly than do others, all of them, in the absence of liver problems and such, will ultimately increase their tolerance thanks to hepatic enzyme induction and other mechanisms. Similarly, although maximal useful workloads vary among runners, everyone can boost the level of training that initiates more adaptation than it causes breakdown. But this doesn't sit well with Richard's agenda, so he leaves it unexamined.

Why people bother arguing with this recalcitrant, fact-resistant nobody is beyond me. He plainly invites personal attacks so as to allow himself license to ignore the facts accompanying those attacks. Well, I for one am not going to play that mentally challenged douche bag's game.

Student's t,

Check out the following link for a more detailed discussion of rate of recovery.

http://www.powerrunning.com/Exercise%20Physiology/The%20Effect%20of%20Training%20Frequency%20on%20Recovery.htm

In the referenced study the average rate of recovery from the first training program used was .9 days. Standard deviation was 2.1 days. In the second training program recovery increased to 3.6 days with a standard deviation of 2.0 days. 98% of the population will fall within 2 SD of the mean so my math says that the range of recovery for the second training program is less than a day to 7.6 days.

"Have you considered that the more a person trains, the better s/he may recover from training."

I have absolutely considered this idea. Logic tells me that if rate of recovery sped up significantly then runners should be able to conduct an increasing frequency of hard workouts per week as their fitness improves. So, a beginner might only be able to handle 1 hard workout per week, a novice maybe 2-3 per week, an experienced runner 4-5 days per week, and an elite 6 or more hard workouts per week. I don't believe this to be the case though. How many programs do you know of that suggest an increasing number of hard workouts per week as fitness improves? How many programs suggest you can increase to 3, then 4, then 5, etc hard workouts per week as fitness improves?

I would point out that being able to run more miles per week does not necessarily mean that the runner is recovering faster. There is another, simple explanation for being able to run more miles per week that doesn't include a faster rate of recovery.

"Those of us in the middle already know we can handle and thrive on daily or near-daily running."

Do you also know that half of all runners become injured at 40 or less miles per week? If you accept that an intrinsic injury is an indication that the training load has exceeded the body's ability to adapt (recovery rate again) then this injury data should somehow be reconciled with your statement that those in the middle can handle daily or near-daily running.

http://www.powerrunning.com/Training/Running%20and%20Injury.htm

http://www.powerrunning.com/Training/How%20much%20should%20you%20run%20part%203.htm

Regards,

Richard_ wrote:

Do you also know that half of all runners become injured at 40 or less miles per week?

Um, I'm betting that all runners at some point become injured regardless of their training mileage. Do you think every elite runner who's suffered an injury, which is pretty much all of them, should consider a three times a week schedule?

You are not convincing.

Student,

I don't suggest that elites run just 3 days per week. My 3 days per week recommendation is for those of average genetic talents. Training load should be based on rate of recovery. If you are the lucky guy in the study that recovers in less than 1 day should you train only once every 3 days? If I'm the guy in the study who takes 7 days to recover should I train every day? What do you think would be the result if I take 7 days to recover but insist on training daily?

Regards,

Richard_ wrote:

What do you think would be the result if I take 7 days to recover but insist on training daily?

Keep whacking away at those straw men. Sad, sad...

Richard,

You're allowed to still run AND recover.

Yes, but studies show that those who run while recovering -- conventional wisdom terms these runs "recovery runs"-- suffer more injuries than those who check into a hospital.

Ya hear that? Studies! I have studies! Poorly-conducted studies that bandy about hard-to-define terms like "well-trained" without a care.

brettman10k,

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

http://www.powerrunning.com/Training/Easy%20Runs%20and%20Recovery.htm

More research definitely needs to be done on this topic. My personal bias is that there is some duration, frequency, and intensity that the average runner can run at and not impede recovery, but that it is less than is currently believed.