why does David Roche keep banging on about being in sub-4 at altitude shape?

It's a free country.

And its not for no reason. It's because he is obviuously a liar

Are you actually reading the threads? There's many well thought out reasons provided here.

The fun thing is I couldn't care less about his training. Let's let the racing speak for itself.

Well thought out? Its 9 pages of people agreeing an aging trail runner can't run sub-4, that an influencers personality is grating and that we should hate him for that. I don't know what to tell you kid, that's just hating for hating's sake and it would be fun to see the haters have to eat it.

My issue with David & Megan is that they’re influencing an entire generation of terrible copy & paste coaches.

Years ago they pointed me to one of their pro athletes as a “great up and coming coach who gets it.” I signed up, but after 9 months of a training log filled smiley face emojis and “awesome,” “killer,” “so cool” responses with no substantive coaching and very limited access to the coach, I left. The training itself could have been A copy & paste from one of David’s Trail Runner plans.

Last year I decided to try being coached again, this time though a professional organization. I got set up with a pro runner who, for less money, pushes out workouts on Training Peaks, provides in depth feedback and training insights, is available to text or call pretty much any time, and wants to meet over Zoom regularly to catch up on my training. My eyes have been opened to what SWAP offers versus what real, professional coaching looks like.

It's not hating for hating's sake.

It's calling out someone who is clearly running a coaching farm, and lying about it, and lying about the workouts that he runs.

This level of lying is indicative of poor moral character, not of someone who should be a running influencer and leader

Yeah it's not just his own personal running workout brags and lying. It's that his whole 'coaching' practice and business is also misleading. It should be called out and they should be held accountable.

Nah, this is good hating. A lot of people are tired of all these fake positive “grow the sport” people that clearly are only here to grow their wallets and egos.

Maybe the Roche’s intentions were pure at one point, but the poison of influence has corrupted them.

That is a different topic and a different thread. But I agree it might have some merit, if they were intentionally misleading people and not refunding people that were misled, that's an issue. If their services just aren't worth the fee, just don't pay for it. Plenty of people overpay for training plans.

They are intentionally misleading people in order to profit and not refunding these people:

-they're lying when they claim that they are providing personal coaching services. But they're not. They're running a coaching farm. They have hundreds of athletes who receive a copied and pasted training plan and incredibly minimal interaction. As they've attested here, many of these athletes do eventually realize something is amiss, but only after giving the Roches $100s of dollars

-they're lying when they claim that the products they advertise for--on their podcast, or to the athletes they're coaching--provide the advertised benefits. Look up the debacle around the product they created, Awesome Sauce. It had nowhere near the benefits, carbs, or calories that they advertised it had

therunningchannel.com

Spring Awesome Sauce Gel Controversy Uncovered - The Running Channel

Mark Dredge

Research into Spring's popular Awesome Sauce gel has suggested that it contains a lot less calories and carbohydrates than the packet advertises, with under 20g of carbs when it states 45g. What does this mean for runners who...

Link:therunningchannel.com/spring-awesome-s...

-they're lying about their training. David Roche has impressive road PRs--he was probably capable of running a 14:30 5k and 30 flat 5k. It's incredibly impressive that he has won the trail races he has with those PRs against runners with much much faster PRs, like sub 28 10k. And he broke the course record at Leadville, too! Incredible. That should be his story--that he was a sub-elite flat runner who became an elite trail and ultra runner. It's a better story and it's the truth.

But for some reason he feels it's necessary to go out of his way to lie about his training--time and time again. Look at his workout yesterday. 6 x 1 mile 4:36- 4:27. At altitude. You'd have to be a sub 28 10k runner to run that workout. The type of elite flat runner that David has beaten in trail races. And then look at his rest interval pace! 5:15 rest interval! So he'd have to be closer to a 27 flat 10k runner.

At 25, he had a 31:30 road 10k PR and probably had the talent to run 30 flat on the track. There's no way he's running workouts 12 years later that would make him a sub 28 10k runner.

Add all of this together, and you're talking about the behavior of someone who is a pathological liar...and who knows what else. Malignant narcissism. Sociopathy. For what?

For money. For fame. For power.

The two strongest determinants of performance in mountain ultras, at least, are maximal aerobic speed and muscle force, in order. There is no correlation to running economy.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Performance Factors in a Mountain Ultramarathon - PubMed

This study aimed to determine mountain ultra-marathon (MUM) performance factors in a large group of endurance mountain runners. Maximal aerobic speed (MAS) was assessed one week prior to the MUM. The level and graded (10%) en...

Link:pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28799161/

They might be louder than most, but they're not at the cutting edge of training theory, by any means. Same message you can find in lots of other places, from lots of other coaches, or even on your own (if you like to dig into the research yourself).

This made me curious: what do runners his age do for 10k?

Here are David's colleagues:

Emmanuel Bor (1988) 27:43

Zerei Kbrom MEZNGI (1986) 28:03

Sam Chelanga (1985) 28:04

Joseph Kiptum (1987) 28:33

I guess David doesn't strike me as the same kind of runner as Bor and Chelanga.

agreed. There's no rational need for David to exaggerate/lie about the workouts that he runs.

But as someone mentioned previously in the thread, he considers himself an influencer, which means he is the product.

That means it's not enough for him to have won Leadville in a course record. It's not enough to post "good" workouts in the buildup to his next 100 miler race--that race is months away and who knows how it will go? 100 miles is a long distance and even the best prepared runners have stuff that happens to them.

No, he, as the product, needs to be exciting now. And in his mind the best way to do that isn't to run a "good" workout, but to run an "amazeballs workout huzzah!"

Except that it's a workout that's physically impossible for him to run

How is it physically impossible for him to run it? What proof is there that he isn’t in shape to run it? I understand he hasn’t run a sub 4 minute mile, but that doesn’t mean the workouts he’s doing right now are lies?

I also think it’s kind of silly for anyone to think that someone’s Strava tells the whole story. Strava is just another social media app. I’ve never met an elite athlete who shares everything they do on Strava, even if they’re an open book.

(1) he is running workouts that would indicate that he is sub 28 minute 10k shape

(2) he has never been in sub 28 10k shape and to be in that kind of shape at his age he'd have to be a runner the caliber of Sam Chelenga or Galen Rupp. David has never been this type of runner. He is a decent flat runner who made himself into an elite ultra/trail runner

(3) The only flat sea level 10k races (or equivalent) that anyone has been able to find of David's were from 12 years ago when he was 25. He ran 31:30. So, there's no way someone who was at most about a 30 minute 10k runner on a track in his physical peak is now, 12 years later, a a sub 28 minute 10k runner when they're 36 after years of training for and racing trail and ultras.

(3) He only runs workouts like these on his treadmill, never on a track or the roads

(4) He uses his Garmin to track his treadmill workouts. Garmins are known for making is seem like you are running much faster than you are. Just look at the data of his workout, it has him running his rest intervals in between his 4:30 mile repeats--at 5:15 pace

Okay? what do you mean by this?

How those treadmills that he’s got work is that you connect your watch to the treadmill. The reason he is running so fast on the treadmill is either that it’s uncalibrated, or set on a downhill due to the floor it’s resting on. Either way, we can completely ignore the treadmill workouts when estimating his fitness. At the very best I would say he is in 4.10 and low 14 min shape based on his other workouts.