Matt Fitzgerald's new book 80/20 Running - Rojo what can u tell us about this book since you wrote the foreward

Lydiard also said "you have a brain, use it". So whatever works for you, works for you.

Randy Oldman wrote:

Lydiard also said "you have a brain, use it". So whatever works for you, works for you.

How do I know if it "works for me"?

"Easy" pace very much depends on your level, and the relationship to marathon pace (MP) is the reverse of what one might expect:

For a 2h13 marathoner (5' MP), easy might be 70% of MP (about 7' pace)

For me, it is around 85% of MP

For a 5 hour marathoner, it is probably 100% of MP, as running any slower would put them in walking territory!

After reading this discussion (and review) I am wondering the following: Why no mention of heart rate monitor? Is that mentioned in the book? One person mentioned LT. I my mind, that is largely the issue, the accumulation of lactic acid as a measure of intensity when needing to stay on the 80% side of training.

Having read a number of books, I found Phil Maffetone's Big Book of Endurance to be the most insightful on this subject. Simply put, too much time in an anaerobic state will cause bodily harm. You can't recover from all the biologic processes. However, staying in an aerobic state can be done in large quantities. Phil gives his formula and makes claims that are debatable about his formula, but the general idea remains valid from my point of view. Recovery is a very high priority in his view. I believe Marathon pace is not considered easy in this light. The prescription is safely below the accumulation of lactic acid.

There is also the point of view that teaching the body to use fat efficiently is a great benefit and moving away from carb based fuels has long term benefits (this goes into the area of carb loading only during certain workouts or races that I am not clear on.) I recall hearing that there are a few cyclists that are going very low carb and that this practice take a long time to yield positive results (14-24 months?) The problem with this idea (low cab if not going into safe ketosis) is most studies do not last that long, according the person who I heard interviewed and whose name escapes me.

I listen to the Ben Greenfield Podcasts, is numbered podcasts are informative and entertaining. He is of the Bio Hacker crowd, I should note and his wife was a pretty fast miler, I think. Lots of questions answered and studies reviewed. He mentioned the 80/20 rule recently in a new-ish study and also mentions it in his book, Beyond Training, which I found very informative.

If you read between the lines of most of this newer Bio Hacking, Triathlete, Ancestral Athlete stuff, you will notice a tendency to remain active at a low intensity for most of the day. "Killing it" is to be done sparingly.

2 cents

In recently published runners world article on the 80/20 rule, Matty F. defines the Easy and Hard specifically with HR and not by pace.

Easy is anything under 77% of Max HR

Moderate is 77% - 92%

Hard is 92%+

http://www.runnersworld.com/race-training/train-at-the-right-intensity-ratio

When will you people get it in your heads, elite athletes running at 5:30 pace IS easy pace. Doesn't disprove the 80/20 thing at all.

SoreRunner wrote:

Randy Oldman wrote:

Lydiard also said "you have a brain, use it". So whatever works for you, works for you.

How do I know if it "works for me"?

Lydiard also said "you have a brain, use it."

80/20 would beat me up. 90/10 worked better. I know we're all different.

I think the whole 80/20 concept is not really well investigated and published and maybe even dangerous to follow. The study's always use three zones to classify training intensities. Zone 1 under 2 mmol, zone 2 between 2-4 mmol, zone 3 over 4 mmol. You should now do 80% under 2 mmol, and the rest over 4 mmol. So you do easy runs and intervals at 10-3 k pace. But what exactly is easy training intensity.

Take for example Stefano Baldini. 2 mmol was at 3:00 min/km. So what exactly is easy for Baldini ? Should he run 4:30 min /km- 4:00- 3:30 min/Km or 3:20 min/km. According to the studies it doesn't really matter. All aerobic running for him. Baldini had 4 mmol at around 2:45 min/km. So 20% running at a pace of 2:40 min/km ? You see my point. The whole concept oversimplifies training especially for elite runners. They have such huge speed ranges of easy paces.

Then theres Kawauchi, daily running at 5:00 min/km+ intervals at 3:00 min/km and races. Another perfect example for polarized training, isn't he? A lot of running under 2 mmol, some stuff at 2-6 mmol (incl. races).

The same als Baldini, a lot of training under 2 mmol+ some training at 2-6 mmol. this is the perfect prove for polarized training.

Yes, if we just have 3 intensity zones. But there training paces are totally different. Baldini running normally around 3:30 min/km for daily runs.

I think a big problem is calling zone 2 medium intensity. For an elite runner and even amateur runner medium intensity is still far under 2 mmol lactate and therefore slower than marathon pace. But in all these studies they have medium intensity at marathon/half marathon pace. Sorry, but this is not medium intensity for a good runner.

The terminology works for joggers. They are running marathon speed for there daily runs because they are so unfit.

I think the should study the effects of different easy runs intensities. Is it better to run at 65-70-75-80% of heart rate, should you mix it up,

is traditional base training usefull, does speed work kill base etc. There's so much pseudosciene in exercise physiology it's disgusting.

Could you rephrase that a bit more concisely and clearly?

Sorry , i'm not an english native speaker. I mean the 80/20 polarized training is nothing new. If we divide total training intensity in three training zones like they did in the studies mentioned by Fitzgerald we get low intensity 4 mmol.

Now we take an elite marathon runner. He has 2 mmol/marathon speed at 4:50 min/mile = 3:00 min/km. Of course most of his training must be at speeds slower than this pace maybe 90-100 %. It's totally logical that he can't run 50 % at a faster speed than that and that high percentage of training has to be smaller than 2 mmol/l. Now these studies label this slow/easy training. Of course this is not the case for a highly trained marathon runner. Maybe 6 min/mile is easy.

Comparing Kawauchi's training with Baldini's training it's totally different. Baldini running much faster daily runs. But according to polarized training concept it's the same. It's all zone 1 running. Is a difference of 1.30 min/mile (5:30 vs 8:00) not relevant ? Same training intensity distribution ? One running at 75- 80% of max heart rate daily training runs. The other probably 50-60 % of max heart rate?

What i want to say is that it's totally logical to use only small amounts of speed work or marathon pace running. The investigations are nothing new and the intensity distribution in 3 zones is totally bullshit.Especially calling 2-4 mmol medium intensity. For an elite runner this is racing.

The problem with lactate intensity distribution is the lack of really elite runners in these studies. Mostly participants are students or amateur runners, cyclers. But it's a totally different situation here. Same with hobby joggers. They race marathon at 7:00- 9:00 min/mile. So the lactate concentration is totally different. The start jogging and are actually running at marathon pace, having lactate concentrations of 2-3 mmol just normally running. They feel normal because otherwise they would be literally walking. For them 2-4 mmol is moderate running used for every day training.

Sorry for the first sentence. Deleted some stuff unfortunately.

Low intensity < 2mmol

Medium 2-4 mmol

High < 4 mmol

Just a small story to further show you some problems.

Did once 4x 2000 m lactate testing.

2 mmol heart rate: 182 bpm

4 mmol heart rate. 186 bpm

max heart rate: 200

Of course I have to do most of my training under 182 bpm. Even 20 % of 182-200 would probably kill me.

Running at 160-165 bpm is medium intensity for me. Not 182-186 bpm.

It's a ROUGH RULE OF THUMB. Like the the 5% rule. POINTING TO OUTLIERS AND EXTREME EXAMPLES IS A TERRIBLE WAY OF DEBUNKING A "RULE OF THUMB"Stop over thinking it. The point is that most runners, which includes the dreaded "HOBBY JOGGER", spend to much time running somewhat hard, and not enough time running easy and running very hard. PERIOD. THat's it. Simply takeaway. A method of applying this simple insight to your own running is to see how your training stacks up to an 80/20 rule. IT IS NOT MEANT TO BE AN EXHAUSTIVE METHOD OF TRAINING.Jesus you people are morons.

hey listen you dumb crotchety dope. I was simply sharing my own recent "80/20". No need to be such a POS. I thought it might be interested for people to share actual training log numbers and see how that compares to this supposed rule. Rather than a bunch of running dweebs yapping about "XYZ runner did this", "so and so runs this fast on his easy days, my mom told me", "scientific studies show that physical adaptations occur on the steepest part of the Lactate/Velocity Curve", and "Lydiard said rabble rabble rabble".

First of all excuse my English; I'm an Spaniard from Spain.

I'm happy to be part of this forum for the first time.

I have a question.

When you talk about 80/60 (80% 'easy' 20% 'hard'), is it time or distance?

Thank you.

I measured mine over distance. My reasoning is that over time would give less weight to hard efforts, whereas, over distance gives more weight to hard efforts. However, that may explain why I can hit "30%" hard without destroying my body.

I just re-read the runners world article and it's supposed to be over time.

! Jr wrote: Mo Farah might be able to train harder a lot of the time due to PEDs, or if not PEDs, whatever enhancements NOP can provide. What if you had a book from a couple of years ago and it said, well, Rita Jeptoo used to do her easy runs at 7:30 pace, but then she switched to doing them at 6:00 pace, and dropped her PR from 2:23 to 2:18?

Well said!

OverTheHillAndBack wrote:

Stop over thinking it. The point is that most runners, which includes the dreaded "HOBBY JOGGER", spend to much time running somewhat hard, and not enough time running easy and running very hard. PERIOD. THat's it. Simply takeaway.

It's a simple takeaway, but is the message right? The Lydiard guys, Ron Clarke, Derek Clayton, Mark Nenow all did a lot of medium hard running without running "very hard" apart from racing. Yet these guys were breaking national and world records. You could also look at guys such as Bannister or Doubell, or Bob Schul who did only "hard" interval training. If such a group of runners can be so successful despite their training being so radically different then maybe there is no "rule of thumb" to follow when it comes to distance running training.