van aaken

Steffney's got a story in his book about a time when he was running in the German Junior (I believe) 1500 championship.

He says that he ignored the advice of running very little the day before the race and instead went on a long, very easy run, of 30km or so, seeing how long he could stay relaxed. He ran his best ever 1500, at least for the time, the next day.

In a somewhat similar vein, I ran my best ever indoor mile/2 mile double (ok, that's a fairly specialized PR, but the mile was my fastest ever) in an indoor meet on a Monday night AFTER running a marathon PR the day before.

I agree that for many running a short race the day before a marathon is a good ideal. I do not know how close Shorter 10k at the olympics was to his marathon, but it was not too far apart. I would find it hard to go marathon followed by a short race- I once had to race a 400 the day after Boston and felt like I was going to pull every muscle in my body.

Vladimir you have to be the only one I've ever heard of to try that.

Forget the beer mile, lets see who can win a 400 race the day after racing the Boston Marathon.

I've known people who say there legs were shot for 3 months after running that course with its long down hills.

The first 440 was pure hell. I really expected to drop out but didn't want to do that before the half mile. So I hung in there and the rest of the race was better.

I will have to relook at my reply- did I say that I won it- NO- I think our relay did, but it was in spite of me not because of me. I was in college- I did not tell the coach I was going to run Boston. We had a relay meet scheduled on Tuesday. He never said anything about it- he just pulled me from the DMR & 4 x mile (my normal events) and put me in the 4 x 440. He knew I ran the race (ran well enough to be top local runner- name in paper, etc), but I never said a thing and he never did either. I think I ran a shade below 60, but it was the most difficult 440 in my life. Remember this was before we (the USA) went to meters.

I believe that the 10K and marathon were seven days apart.

It definitely takes me longer than a week to totally recover from a 10K race. Of course, I'm light years behind Frank Shorter's class and about 28 years older than he was in Munich.

To Vladimir,

I have listened to the comments in this thread and have seriously backed off on my training pace. I am a 17:20 5k runner who trained at 7:15/mile pace. I have since backed off to 8:30/mile pace and have felt very fresh even as I run 50+ miles a week.

My question is: how many striders should I do,what length should they be, and for how long total should the workout last?

I dont plan on doing any serious racing again until spring time. Therefore, how can I incorporate Dr Van Aaken's methodology into my training.

Thank you,

- Philip Passen

Philip, lets first look at what you are doing: You used to train at 1.29% of your 5k race pace. Now you are training at 1.52 of the same pace. If you were a 12:30 5k runner it would mean that you were doing your long runs at 6:07 pace. Does anyone really think that the world leaders are really training that fast. I do think that <9:00 is a must (at least for me) to retain a running motion. So do not think that you are training too slow. In the past you used to train at 1.29% (of your 5k) if the world leader did that they would never run slower than 5:10 per mile. Have confidence in what you are doing! Now for how to work it into you training. With the following assumptions: 1)you are male; 2) selected race distance is 5k and above; 3) not over weight; 4) not injured; 5) about 35 years old; 6) running about 7 hours a week (50 miles at 8.5). I would look at time and not distance (run different courses so you can not compare times and want to improve them). MONDAY, TUESDAY, THURSDAY, FRIDAY, SATURDAY DO 60:00 EASY WITH A 300- 600 FINISH (RACE PACE); WEDNESDAY 20:00 WARMUP 30:00 MINUTES OF STRIDES (NO LONGER THAN 100 METERS WITH A NICE WALK BACK BETWEEN). KEEP IT EASY (1500 PACE- WHICH SHOULD BE EASY FOR THIS DISTANCE). YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO RUN THESE EASILY IN :19 (WHICH IS ABOUT A 5:00 MILE PACE). RELAX AND CONCENTRATE ON YOUR FORM- DO IT ON A SOFT SURFACE (HOPEFULLY YOU LIVE IN CALIFORNIA). SUNDAY IS A GAMBLE? DEPENDING UPON YOUR NORMAL LONG RUN IT WOULD BE NICE TO BUILD YOURSELF UP TO RUNNING A CONFORTABLE 120- IF YOUR LONG RUN IS 60:00 ALTERNATE 60/75/60/90/60/105/60/120 THEN 75/120 ETC. REMEMBER THESE ARE GEARED UPON THE ABOVE INFORMATION- IT WOULD CHANGE IF YOU ARE GEARING UP FOR A MARATHON. Hope this is help- remember to enjoy the trip and let me know how it is going.

Thank You Vladimir.

I feel very confident with the training.

- Philip

What a difference a week makes. I managed 20.83 miles in 3:20:03 yesterday, Sunday morning.

Fasted the whole day after the long run and was, not surprisingly, lacking energy this morning.

The right heel felt better this morning than it has since the pain appeared. My guess is even though there is a relatively poor blood supply to that area, a long run provides enough blood in that area to aid in the healing.

I believe the 10k & Mth were more like 5 days apart in 1972

vlad, what would van aaken say about drugs in our sport, i find in ridiculous that people would take epo and then be held up as great athletes

I saw the Giants too. Unfortunately, in my view, Eli probably has to take a lot of the heat for their poor performance, at least on offense.[/quote]

the giants should have kept kerry collins and drafted a real good linebacker, but they has to have manning...........

I think he would have been shocked both as an individual and a coach/doctor. He never put that much stock into how well you raced- it was just an outcome of running. He had the same attitude with me when I ran 2:40. He seemed real concerned when I did not finish, but it was more or "are you ok" as opposed to "what went wrong". I think he (like most of us) can not understand drugs in the sport. If you offered me a drug (illegal one) and told me it would allow me to run a pr- I would refuse it- not because I do not want to run fast, but because it would not be me doing it. What satisfaction would I get out of running faster by drug use-the same satisfaction I get out of riding my bike faster than I used to run. I am sure that if he was alive today he would have been accused of "tampering with" any athlete that ran well- just because he is a doctor. Let us look at the recent 21.1k record set- most of us on this website can run a 400 in 66 (speed) and we can run a half marathon (endurance). What we are unable to do is run a half marathon at 66 per 400 (stamia- ability to run fast for a set period of time).-- yes that is a very simple way of looking at it, but Geb is not working on improving his time for the 200 or 400. He is trying to maintain his strength for a longer period of time. That is what he (Van Aaken) was trying to do with his athletes. He was more concerned with the general fitness of the human race.

I am not that big of a football fan, but we (my running group) usually end up watching something on tv after our workout & races so Tuesday & Thursday evenings and Saturday & Sunday afternoon we are parked in front of a tv. Football or what ever sport is on tv is what we sit and discuss- how fast would the "BUS" run a marathon- probably measured in days instead of hours- most of us would be great running backs- because there is no way I would allow one of those linemen close enough to squash my 55 kilo body- they may be fast, but it would not overcome my fear of death. I stopped paying attention to football back when Y.A. Tittle (spelled), Jim Brown, etc were playing. I only felt bad for the Giants, because I lost a bet- having to leave a warm house and pick up the pizza is a hard bet to lose.

The fasting part of his program is currently what is

most interesting to me. I recall a part of the van Aaken

method book in which he supposedly advocated running after

14 hour fasts. Is it possible and even likely that he

favored that approach due to the fairly high consumption

of things like sauages in the typical German diet of those times?

In the developing stage we would do a long run on Thursday afternoon. Then fast until Saturday and do your longer run then. On Friday we would do only short runs (usually three (3) times 60:00). So in the beginning it would look like this: Thursday morning 60:00; afternoon 120:00; Friday 3 x 60:00 and then Saturday 180:00. This would be for someone who was able to run the the required distance usually figure about 21 hours a week, but had not tried the fasting concepts. I do not think it had anything to do with what they were eating.

So you pretty consistently hit that 40k per day or thereabouts that EvA wrote that marathoners should do? And you mention a developing phase which implies other phases?

vladimir - did he advocate fasting before a race as well, or would eating normally before a race be deemed more effective after training your body to be more efficient at fat burning?