Julien Wanders Workout Warrior

I agree with you. His coach doesn't seem to now the basics in physiologi.

I mean, he clearly is aerobically gifted and is a better half marathon runner than 5k runner. And his 13:13 and 27:17 are no joke at all.

This track season was definitely bad and I would agree he probably works out too hard to often, but its hard to knock a guy who has run 59:13 for a HM and is looking like he will probably run sub 2:05 when he tries the marathon.

It looks to me like he's the classic guy who just isn't build to run that well in events shorter than 10k. I was the same way, if I'm being honest. I was wildly inconsistent in the shorter events and I really hated running them. I admire his devotion to taking the time to try to improve on the track before moving up.

He’s bought into this method before, saying most runners focus too much on rest. And quite frankly I say more power to him. It’s gotten him to a world class level. He can always peel back if he really needs to.

I think a prevailing hypocrisy on this board is that a coach like Tinman who gives his runners arguably little high intensity speedwork (With which I pretty much agree) gets a TON of hate. But then anyone who goes hard like JW in this case or Alan Webb for example get hated on equally because they are ‘gonna burn themselves out’ and all. You gotta train with ambition and take risks to be great!

LRCers telling each other that World Class runner doesn't know what he's doing? Classic LRC.

Funny stff here. wrote:

LRCers telling each other that World Class runner doesn't know what he's doing? Classic LRC.

Exactly. I know Wanders a bit (really only a bit), trained a couple easy runs with him, and can tell you, he's an endurance machine. He seems to need those long hard efforts.

It is like a joke to tell him, whats he's gotta do in training. With ok-ish speed he ran 59:13. It is like you told - as an outsider - Mark Nenow to run less miles or to chill on his runs. That's insane. Even if Wanders never runs faster, he is a legend imho.

But of course just my opinion.

Funny stff here. wrote:

LRCers telling each other that World Class runner doesn't know what he's doing? Classic LRC.

Are you new here?

Did you know that the likes of Canova, Daniels, Tinman, Rinaldi and others have posted/occasionally post on LRC?

And even if they didn't, did you know that some of us are coaches?

And even if we weren't, did you know that people are allowed to share have an opinion and share it?

SUPERIOR ROACH JS wrote:

Funny stff here. wrote:

LRCers telling each other that World Class runner doesn't know what he's doing? Classic LRC.

Are you new here?

Did you know that the likes of Canova, Daniels, Tinman, Rinaldi and others have posted/occasionally post on LRC?

And even if they didn't, did you know that some of us are coaches?

And even if we weren't, did you know that people are allowed to share have an opinion and share it?

Good words there! If you really study the training of JW out from Strava this year you will find

he ( his coach?) does obvious 'beginner errors'.

Juice Springsteen wrote:

He’s bought into this method before, saying most runners focus too much on rest. And quite frankly I say more power to him. It’s gotten him to a world class level. He can always peel back if he really needs to.

I think a prevailing hypocrisy on this board is that a coach like Tinman who gives his runners arguably little high intensity speedwork (With which I pretty much agree) gets a TON of hate. But then anyone who goes hard like JW in this case or Alan Webb for example get hated on equally because they are ‘gonna burn themselves out’ and all. You gotta train with ambition and take risks to be great!

It isn't like his times are really out of line either. He just happens to be 1 notch better at the HM (or just had a really good day) than he is at 5 or 10k. And from what I have seen of his training, it isn't anything stupid. It is moderate mileage (i.e. no 140mpw) with 2 workouts/week and those workouts are hard but not crazy. I have not seen any workouts that scream 12:55 or the like. The dude is almost the opposite of a workout warrior as I would have expected more like a 60:00 HM out of him...

And yes you can't win on this board. Run 40 mpw in HS and people will complain you aren't training hard enough. Run 80mpw and people will talk about burnout. Dude has a plan that has been working pretty well (i.e his progression from 2016-2019 was pretty steady and what we all dream of when writing out 4 year plans).

I think he benefits a lot from the Vaporflys on the road.

Every track race he has run, he has run in low profile, traditional spikes.

IDK.

Something is off when he races on the track.

He could probably back off those two-workout-a-days.

A guy who's run under an hour for a half marathon and a 27:17 for 10,000 meters knows what he's doing. Some people can go hard for days on end. If you can't hold up under that obviously it's a problem. But if you can do it you'll be faster. Generally people who do a thing very well know what they're doing.

codaayyee wrote:

I think he benefits a lot from the Vaporflys on the road.

Every track race he has run, he has run in low profile, traditional spikes.

IDK.

Something is off when he races on the track.

He could probably back off those two-workout-a-days.

Why back off those 2 workout days? They are one of the biggest training breakthroughs in the past 30 years in terms of being able to train harder without breaking down...

HRE wrote:

A guy who's run under an hour for a half marathon and a 27:17 for 10,000 meters knows what he's doing. Some people can go hard for days on end. If you can't hold up under that obviously it's a problem. But if you can do it you'll be faster. Generally people who do a thing very well know what they're doing.

If you check his Strava this summer you see examples of beginners' mistakes with hard tempos the day after a tough 5 k race and so on. He and his coach knows what they are doing, but they don't know what's best for him .

Snake Yoda wrote:

HRE wrote:

A guy who's run under an hour for a half marathon and a 27:17 for 10,000 meters knows what he's doing. Some people can go hard for days on end. If you can't hold up under that obviously it's a problem. But if you can do it you'll be faster. Generally people who do a thing very well know what they're doing.

If you check his Strava this summer you see examples of beginners' mistakes with hard tempos the day after a tough 5 k race and so on. He and his coach knows what they are doing, but they don't know what's best for him .

And you do know what's best for him I take it. Have you considered that blindly following some formula without considering the ability of the athlete doing the running is a beginner's mistake?

This guy must be allergic to tartan, mondo or something.

Hard to believe he runs so poorly on tracks compares to roads. Yes he is a slow twich guy but still.

He did a killer workout shortly before Monaco, but sometimes you may go crazy on the hero workouts and leave nothing for the races. There's a fine line there. Seriously, though, there have been many Americans to run 13:13 and no one has beaten 59:43, yet Wanders is 30 seconds clear of that. Ritz, probably our most consistent half marathoner, ran 12:56 but never got under 60:00. And Rupp ran 26:44 on the track, 33 seconds better than Wanders's best, but Rupp's half best is something like 59:47, 34 seconds worse. It does look like Wanders will run 2:03-4 in the marathon if he can translate it from the half, which some can't.

Well I think this kind of performances really makes clear that running roads sometimes the courses can be short and on top of that new running shoes are making a bit of a difference. In the track the distance is never short and you don’t get the bouncy shoe help.

So the only way to really determine a fast runner is by his/her records on the track.

Roads races are never accurate distances.

Another thing to consider is track is a summer sport, whereas the big road races are usually in the fall and spring when the weather is cooler and more conducive to distance running.

If he is able to race like he trains he is capable of sub 13, sub 27, sub 59, and a 2:04 marathon in the future. He is incredibly smooth. I agree trains way to hard but if he is able to transfer his training to his races he will show up big time.

Well if you go hard all the time eventually it's going to catch up to you and your body will not respond as well to your training. He sunk his season because he is overtrained simple as that. There are plenty of coaches over the years that were never even good runners, just because someone is fast doesn't necessarily mean they know what they are doing. Vigil, O'Connell, Canova, freaking Arthur Lydiard. These guys most likely have forgotten more about training and physiology than Wanders will ever know.

The two a day workouts are a good idea, but running a tempo the day after your race is obviously a bad idea. On top of that saying that recovery is over emphasized clearly shows that he doesn't understand what he's saying. All of that is fine, he's paid to run and follow the coaches plan. Not every athlete needs or desires to know everything about what is assigned to them. If he continues this way he will continue to have uneven performances but we will also see some great races from him anyway.