This workout was not impressive at all for a 3:43 miler. I knew a 4:00ish miler who could possibility do that if his life depended on it. I'd be surprised if he broke 3:46 or even 3:48 at Pre.
Told you, dude just got beat fair and square. Where is the apology for all the downvotes??
Dude, your original comment mentioned nothing about this race. You "told" us literally nothing. IN FACT, you said you would be surprised if he broke 3:46, guess what he did. Looks like we told you lol.
We can’t know exactly what he can do at any race distance just by watching him do some 400s and 200s. Any 5,000 Olympic finalist could probably hit those times under the same conditions
1. His HR was listed for each rep. We can well assume his max HR is will north of 150s. 2. John thinks like an American coach by using comparisons to totally different athletes. I have no doubt other 5k olympic finalists could hit those times, but at what effort? What lactate and HR measurements? This workout was at the end of a 30k mileage day at high altitude with wind. I have a hard time believing any 5k finalist could match the effort-level numbers of Jakob in those conditions. Two different runners running the same splits at a workout does not equate to same fitness. 4. Jakob has mentioned on numerous occasions he never tries to find confidence in workouts by running race paces. The article above treats it like a "gee, I hope he knows what he's doing because a hard effort like that won't help him" when in fact the guy has run 7:54 for 2 miles. You can go ahead and give him the benefit of the doubt, John Kellogg.
On the first point, I've done this workout with lactate testing and HR monitors with athletes I coach. I can tell you that their HR was always way higher than this, at paces that were obviously way way slower. This is true even for older athletes, and we always try to keep lactate under 4.0, and usually under 3.5, and sometimes under 3.0. For a typical well-trained 23 year old, you would expect lactate to start going over 2.0 at around 173. Obviously, there's lots of variance among athletes, but that's a reasonable estimate for an average.
159 average HR at this pace at that altitude is really hard for me to comprehend. I don't think most commenters here grasp how truly extraordinary that is. He's running 13-flat 5k pace and he's basically at a lesser mortal of his age's "Zone 2" HR.
For high volume 400 reps on 30 seconds rest, for the athletes where I have measured or reviewed their data on Training Peaks, after the first few reps, max HR is usually 5-9 beats higher than average HR on a given rep. If that holds true for him, he might not ever be getting his HR above 170 on the threshold part of this workout.
That's why he is who he is.
Great post!
Exactly what I said on an earlier post. At sea level this is a good session for any elite runner, add in the altitude and average heart rate throughout the session it now becomes a world class session. Also, don't forget the total workload for the day (30k-18 miles). Given the time of the season, I was somewhat surprised at how well he ran yesterday (3:45). I predicted Josh would win in 3:47 with Nuguse and Jakob in tow at 3:48ish. Josh is wicked fit and confident right now, but will he be able to maintain this intensity for another 6 weeks or so? We know Jakob will be ready, given his current workload it seems he's still working on his aerobic fitness and hasn't really touched on his anaerobic fitness in earnest. Remember, this isn't Jakob's first rodeo, and he's quite aware of what he needs to do to win gold in Paris. Don't sleep on Nuguse or Hobbs Kessler.
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