sirpoc84 wrote:
Probably. That goes for me too. Bakken has been kind enough to give me some of his time, and we have been discussing a few things. Ultimately, we came to a lot of the same conclusions in different sports, independently of each other. A lot of the conclusions we both drew came from some already established principles. Just—he is focused on the best way elites can train in terms of bang for buck (I mean, he has obviously cracked it)—and mine is based on how time-constrained runners with a life can train, based on my experience from cycling at its core and introducing some of those somewhat alien principles to a lot of runners.
Ultimately, good training usually comes back to the same point, or roughly the same point. You increase load in some meaningful way (however you measure it, even on a basic level—just mileage or time on feet weekly)—and you manage fatigue by making sure you are sufficiently recovered. That's pretty much it. The best training manages to increase the load you produce as much as possible without fatigue winning the battle.
Everything else is just filler, for that person's specific philosophy. That doesn't mean these bits tied to an individual philosophy aren't important—they are—but it does mean pretty much any training at this point has its roots somewhere else.
The biggest issue is if you have a lot of hours to dedicate and go full double mode like Marius suggests, or the single-adaptation approach I propose, there isn't much room for error. As again, the best training is often on a knife edge in terms of that balance between increasing performance as much as you can and managing fatigue. But that's also its success: as when you get it right, you haven't fallen into the trap of a lot of other training where the balance is all wrong and, despite all the work you have done, you are overcooked (which is how I came to post here in the first place).
I still have no idea to this day why I assumed running was inherently different to cycling, and that I had to "train like a textbook runner". Although if I had done that from day one, we probably wouldn't be here. As in a weird way I enjoyed the long process of solving the puzzle of how to get better. People who are newer to this seem to think I came up with some grand plan or something. My only goal was to stop getting my ass kicked at parkrun.
The great thing about this post, is the idea of sirpoc84 and Bakken chatting away not realising their reach. I think just about everyone would agree, normal and humble guys. Be that Bakken effectively being responsible and laying foundations for the new generation of talents like Jakob, or sirpoc finally leading guys like me to sub 3 hour marathons after 9 attempts trying or the thousands of others like me who have had their hobby jogging life changed due to what is now the massive reach of this thread.
Also neither guy, is actually ever telling you this is how you must train, but god damn they are giving you the tools to actually think outside the box and make some minor changes to suit individual needs.
In a way I wish these conversations were recorded and content created, but on the other hand it's kind of nice to really make the most out of either of these guys sharing you might need to get down into the dirt. As opposed to the videos and content that comes up on my feed. "5 hacks to run a better Marathon" or similar nonsensical stuff.
