Brazier 35mpw myth

flvmmox wrote:

I don't really believe it either. I would guess he is doing 40-50 and doesn't do a long run.

As a 400m-800m guy, my mileage counts during track season were entirely fictional. I only know for a fact I did 25-30 miles on the road a week. I did not count my track reps, jog rest, unspecified distance warmups/cooldowns. I probably hit 40-45 miles some weeks, but I have no idea.

Random tidbit:

A guy I ran 800s against in high school trained with a 200/400 group, ran ZERO road mileage, his prs were

21.high/48.low/1:57/4:40

- He was at an incredibly dominant sprint school, so he ran 800m/1600m at every single dual meet to score points. I believe he's the fastest miler I knew who legitimately did not run mileage.

1:57 is rubbish off 48 that does not really prove your point. Plus school kids are running around all day and doing different sports it all adds up

I don't think it's too unbelievable. He is a sprinter essentially who is training to make 50 seconds per 400m as relaxed as possible. It's not unfathomable to then say he can hold 57's for twice the distance (5-6 seconds per 400m at 51 second pace is a chasm). If you follow some world class 400m sprinters you will often see things like 6x400m as long aerobic workouts. I imagine Brazier isn't too dissimilar. The vast majority of his training will be stuff like flying 150's to work on power and speed.

I'm sure there were some vids put up of Emmanual Korir (another world class 400/800m guy) doing things like 3x300m with 10 minutes rest and calling it day. 4/8 guys are NOT endurance athletes in the sense that their primary focus will be on power and speed and not aerobic development. They won't need to be running 80 miles a week but can probably bump start a tank and run 22 flat for 200m.

Remember that Brazier is training for an event that takes him just over 100 seconds....

I also think it is completely believable. He didn't have huge mileage in high school and had a 45.9 relay split, 1:48 800, and a 4:07 mile. He's always just had natural endurance.

DB is a sub 3:30 talent. Now I think he could do 3:27xx but no better than this

Brazier is not a sprinter. at least not a short sprinter. He would be more competitive internationally in the 1500 than the 400.

He is not even the fastest 400 man out of the elite 800 runners of the world.

mediocre 800 runner wrote:

I ran 2:00 and 4:33 off of less than 20 mpw in high school. Trained as a 600-800 runner in college with low volume, high intensity intervals and ran 1:54. We did around 20 mpw as well and as the season progressed, even less. The LRC slow twitchers can’t wrap their spaghetti noodle biceps and licorice thick hammies around the idea someone can run fast off low mileage.

You were severely undertrained and did not reach your potential.

quality over quantity wrote:

I do not add in: 5 x 2000m &/or 6 x 1200m &/or 7 x 800m ....

....but I do not see the value of adding one or two miles of warm up before track workout at 9 minutes per mile. Same for one or two mile runs post track workout at 9 minutes per mile. ..

So, you don't count workout days at all? Your words, not mine.

quality over quantity wrote:

If you go one a 45 mile bike ride instead of a 10 mile run, do you count that also?

Yes. Not as a run, but as a shakeout/recovery/cross training workout.

You are the only person I have ever heard of that counts their milage this way.

Impala31 wrote:

hhhhh wrote:

His 1:42 is equivalent to a 3:29. So a 3:35 on 35 miles a week is not that surprising since he’s a 4/8 guy. 6 seconds is a lot at that level. I guess if he ran 50+ miles a week he could run sub 3:30. The thing is he doesn’t need 50+ to run a great 800, so that might never happen.

I think the difference in perfomance would be bigger if the 35mpw was true.

And remeber he ran 3:35 in a time trial with a huge last 400 suggesting he had more in the legs.

Give him another try at monaco and he probably runs 3:33.

He'd probably run 3:31- 3:32 in Monaco he looked like he could have ran 333 on that track.400/800m guys are not all fast twitch they can put down fast 1500m times. I bet Rudisha would run 3:31, in Monaco, in his prime.

Impala31 wrote:

.zip wrote:

typical week for an 800 runner like Brazier might look like this.

Monday: 3-4 miles

Tuesday: 1.5 warm up+4x1k+1.5 cool down

Wednesday: 3 miles

Thursday: 1.5 up + 6x400,300,200+1.5

Friday: 6 miles

Saturday: 1.5+3x200,150,100+1.5

Sunday: 7-8 miles.

You think a world champion do only a 3miles run and call it a day?

Even if you add a lot a gym, drills, plyo it is still a super light week.

If brazier could run 1:42 out of this, he would run sub 1:40 easily with more training.

And if he could run under 1:40 he would train for it.

That makes no sens.

Also most of you guy pretend he is fine with low volume because he is a 400/800 guy.

But 400/800 don't run 1500 in 3:35. Actually they don't run 1500 at all because that's too long for their fast twich fibers and their lack of aerobic development.

I just want to point out, a 3:35 is not competitive in the 1500. The lack of great American milers nowadays makes it seem like 3:35 is a great time. Realistically to be competitive on the world stage you need to be able to run 3:30 and be able to close off that pace.

Brazier cannot currently do that, nor will he try considering he is the favorite in the 800.

And about the 3 mile runs...those are probably recovery runs. If you acknowledge that the furthest he’s ever run is 50 minutes (probably 8 to 9 miles) then it shouldn’t be hard to understand that on normal weeks training he’s running 7-8 miles for his long run and 3-4 for recovery runs. I don’t think .zip is saying that’s exactly how Brazier trains week in week out, but generally it isn’t going to differ much more than that. 400/800 guys just simply don’t need that much volume

[quote]dsrunner wrote:

It's the LR mileage dogma messing w rational thought.

^You can’t sum up the enormous bias towards high mileage on here better than this. It’s very much a distance-centric forum so you have a lot of people who don’t know much about the 800m or have never run it as their primary event, trying to say that Brazier is just an exception to the way training should be or that he is lying.

In reality, there are runners of ALL levels who do best with similar volume to Brazier in the 800m. Yeah he has run 3:35 and could probably get around 3:30 but if you’ve actually listened to him in interviews he is VERY clear that he prefers the 400m over the 1500m because he wants to keep developing his 400m speed. Slight increase in volume for 1500m training just isn’t worth the risk in his eyes.

I’m an 800m/mile guy and I just had my best season running ~25 mpw. One hard track workout, one day of hill sprints, race day, and long run. Didn’t lose a mile race. Wesley Vazquez ran 1:43 off of mileage that peaked at 40km/week. There are countless other examples of mid-distance success on low mileage, but the typical LRCer who has been stuck in the echo chamber of glorifying high mileage for years will never acknowledge it.

There’s a thing called cross training. Peasants like you wouldn’t understand.

Lyndsey Sharpe has run 1:57 off max 35 miles per week. Does 3-4 track sessions a week. She does some cross training. Andrew Osagie ran 1:43 and made the Olympic final running low mileage. Fairly common for 800m runners from a speed background to run low mileage. Less common for them to be able to run a good 1500 off that training but 3:35 is not that fast for a 1:42 guy.

spruce wrote:

hog wild man wrote:

I believe it. I ran 10 seconds slower than him in the 800m and 19 seconds slower than him in the 1500 with the same mileage. No runs longer than 60 minutes, and only a few of those per year at that. If one can run 1:42 on 35 miles, I think one can run 3:35 as well. Upping my mileage significantly didnt improve my times.

Can you share a typical training week?

I was more of a 4-8 person, but had mild success in the 1500 provided I get in 2 workouts at 1500 pace leading up to it (something like 2-4-6-4 with short rest to get the pacing down ). My weeks would vary throughout the year of course, with raw speed being a big component of training in the fall some years and cross country others.

My better seasons were the springs after I did NOT run cross country. Most typical would be something like this:

M: 35-40 min easy. If ran just easy for my long run the day before, would mix in some aerobic theshold pace this day (which was real slow compared to 5k-10k guys on the team) would sometimes run with the girls team this day. 5 miles

T: 400/800m track workout. Think some of the longer rep clyd hart type workouts. Like 3×500m or 4-5 300m with LONG rest, say 10 minute. 6-10 200ms maybe. Would never really repeat the same workout. 3-4 miles

w: 35-40 min easy. 5 miles

t: more traditional "v02 max" type work of slightly less - think 5-6 3-3.5min intervals on grass field with 1.5min rest. 6-7 miles

F: pre-race (25-30 min easy w/ strides). 3-4 miles

S: race or speed development. 3-4-miles

S: long (50-60 min, with a mix of uptempo for 15min or easy fartlek - 20 seconds on, 2:40 easy for 15 min). Usually on very hilly course. 7-8 miles

Probably not Optimum training, but was able to keep my head in it and I loved training this way. Tuesday and Thursday would flip week to week depending if or what race I had coming up.

Nobody is talking about body type.

Rudisha and Brazier both have body types where they can run a fast 400m and yet still be very lanky and skinny.

This is going to translate to higher efficiency for the 800m.

A mesopmorphic guy like Symmonds needed to run 70 mpw to cut the fat off and stay efficient. No way symmonds would run a fast 800m off of 35 mpw.

Oh of course 1:57 is bad for 48. He was literally training with 200m guys.

There is a middle ground between "800m runners should train like marathon runners, except they do fast 200 repeats during race season" and "800m runners can play quarterback in fall and that's all of the aerobic development they need"

Impala31 wrote:

I don't buy it.

No way he is running 3'35 with 35mpw.

Why don't you buy it and what is your 1500m PB?

You were severely undertrained and did not reach your potential.

quality over quantity wrote:

why would track miles not count? wrote:

I don't know anyone who counts their miles that way, and I am certain Brazier does not do that. That's very weird.

Maybe you should meet more runners. I write down all running for the week but I do not see the value of adding one or two miles of warm up before track workout at 9 minutes per mile. Same for one or two mile runs post track workout at 9 minutes per mile. When some asks you your mileage, you break out your calculator? It is not weird to only count mileage runs. If you go one a 45 mile bike ride instead of a 10 mile run, do you count that also?

I agree. 400/800 runners think about workouts for training, and jogging on off days. Not like distance runners where the total mileage *is* the training.