(Road Racing and) Time Trialing and Training Thread - Week Ending 11/29/20

@outsiderunner - If you're looking for an early spring marathon, my teammates just started their 14-week build for the Snickers Marathon in Albany, Georgia. Right now the race is still a GO for March 6.

So, I wanted to discuss a bit more what was brought up last week in the thread, around the 80-90 min run theory that is being developed. I also will then share some observations I have seen over this past year with my training, the shift it kind of unknowingly took due to the pandemic, and how I think it has impacted me... guess I'm feeling a bit reflective with the "season" coming to an end.

To start, the 80-90 min run. Let me say, I'm talking about this in the context of historically training for 5ks as most of the hobby jogging world does. This thread is pretty unique in that I think there are a good chunk of marathon focused people here. I know stat thinks he's a miler, darkwave runs miles and marathons, and OR is in love with the marathon. I think this 80-90 min run daily, wither that be moderate or easy, is a great ideal for marathon training. I understand what OR says when thinking 6 miles is a waste. Maybe it is for him, but it's not for someone like me. A moderate run of 80-90 min is bordering on a long run for me, as even this week I did 14 miles in 90 mins. That's plenty for me if I'm focused on a 5k. Maybe a few more miles is good, but not much more.

Anyway, all that to say, 80-90 mins feels great to me too, but I think as a 5k focused runner, I'm doing a disservice to myself not being more specific and hitting the speed. Without that, I think times stagnate.

Which brings me to this year. late last year and early this year, I was focused on a few things:

Mileage - 55-65 a week

Speed Workout - Tuesdays

Tempo Work - Thursday or Friday

Sunday Long Run (90 min plus, no quality, just 6:50-7:20 pace)

During this time, I saw my PR for 5k go from 17:13 to 16:49 to 16:29. I felt stronger, faster, and better than I ever had at the distance. I also was looking to try my hand at the Broad St. 10 miler in the spring, so I started to transition to training for a bit more distance. I eased off the quality, went for a bit more quantity, so my weeks started to look like this:

Mileage - 65-75 a week

Workout - Longer speed sessions (mile repeats, 2 mile reps, etc.) at 10k pace, so 5k pace work as well

Sunday long run - 16 miles, progression run down to the low 6:00's most weeks.

This also coincided with the pandemic and training with someone that was pretty focused on the half marathon distance. It was a boon to my fitness for the longer distances. I ran a 1:15 HM solo and had some of the best longer workouts of my life.

But, turning back to the 5k at the end of the year, I think I realized that all this training I ended up doing for the longer distance, really didn't set me up to PR by much in the 5k this fall. Losing touch with that speed/strength that was needed at the end of the hard all out 5k effort left me jelly-legged in the last 1200m or so. I did go from 16:29 to 16:16, but that 16:16 was a struggle.

So the plan starting in late Dec/Early Jan will be to keep mileage about where it is today... 70+ miles, not more than 80. But to try and structure weeks to include:

1. 5k speed work of intervals <1 mile

2. A tempo day of 3-6 miles at threshold pace

3. Long run (if I feel good, progress, if not, easy)

4. Look at incorporating short doubles on workout days of say 4 miles in the AM. I tend to workout in evenings and have noticed when I do a short 30 min shakeout in the AM, I feel way better for a workout in the PM.

Anyway, really enjoyed catching up on the training discussion last week so wanted to weigh in and kind of review what I've done this year, and the loose idea of what I might look at next year.

Somewhat off topic Lanc... I know you are focused on the 5k but it seems you actually might be better suited towards the HM and beyond in my opinion. You seem to have been chasing the shorter distances for awhile based on your history in this thread yet in your single HM attempt you put out a performance that is in the ballpark of your all-time best @ 5k based on the VDOT tables. This is not super-typical in my experience. My guess is that this is a combination of the fact that your training may be a bit more utility oriented than you give yourself credit for + you may just be more talented as the distance gets longer. Now you may enjoy the 5k and certainly you should race what you enjoy but I would put money down that a year of HM training would yield a better VDOT score than you have been able to put down to date.

Just a thought.

Good feedback, and something that has crossed my mind as of late.

I do have aspirations to go sub-16 in the 5k, probably because its the most available distance from a racing perspective and something I have a benchmark for. I haven't ACTUALLY raced anything over 10k in my life. I've TT'd a half this year, but that is it. So, maybe I do owe it to myself to go after that distance next year, and maybe I will in the back half of the year. I think the past year of training has made me much less afraid of the distance. My long runs used to barely touch 13 miles, but now I can go out and do that any day easy, and run 16+ once a week on most weeks. Not something I was doing even last year. My long runs in 2019 were 11-13 miles max.

So, long response to get to, yea, I know. I might be suited for something longer, though I may not want to admit it. It's probably because I'm 37 now and not young and "fast" like I thought I used to be. I mean, going back to high school (late 90's), I was an 800/Miler. 5k seemed long to me. I need to get out of that mindset, 5k isn't long.

This was definitely an up and down week:

M: off

T: 10.11 miles @ 7:27

W: 10.01 miles @ 7:28

TH: 2 mile W/U 5K 2 mile C/D (5K: 16:16)

F: 10.37 miles @ 6:54

S: 11.12 miles (3 mile w/u, 10 x 1' on 2' off), 3 mile C/D

W/U: 6:59, 6:44, 6:41

Workout: 4:52 (6:37), 5:10 (6:47), 5:07 (6:46), 4:57 (6:43), 4:56 (6:58), 4:49 (6:38), 4:48 (6:22), 4:50 (6:13), 4:46 (6:00), 4:55 (6:02)

C/D: 6:24, 6:25, 6:18

S: 12.42 miles, 7:15 pace

Total: 61.19 miles

Was super discouraged by my "turkey trot" this Thursday. Having a lot of trouble running in the cold and it's definitely taking me longer and longer to warm up. Didn't help that I completely ruined my sleep schedule this past week being off work and just being dumb. Workout on Saturday went really well. Used the carbon x's and went on a new route that led me out of Columbus. Had some wind and a gradual uphill for the first half that had me wondering why this was so hard. Turned around and it felt super easy.

Having some issues with my hands getting really cold. I've never had this issue until last winter. One pair of gloves doesn't cut it anymore even at like 40-50 degrees...

Buy hand warmers on Amazon. Life changing for me.

Mittens > Gloves

? ?

LancRunner - FWIW, I think long singles are better for marathon training, and doubles are better when focusing on shorter stuff.

I also like your plan for the next few weeks - I think it's a good follow-up to where you have been. I personally think that there's a lot of benefit to be gained in cycling back and forth between training focused on longer distances and focused on shorter distances. Mileage is important, but you can't keep increasing the mileage forever. Shifting back and forth between multiple training structures means that you can change your training stimulus every 8 weeks and reap benefits from that.

The discussion last week amused me some, just because my sweet spot is more like 1:45-1:50 minutes...

Trust me... I know the feeling. I doubt I could break 60 in the quarter right now.

I would honestly kill to be in your position. My shorter distance times are comparably slower than my longer distance times and while I know I can close the gap to a degree by putting in volume and more cycles I suspect I will always slightly underperform in the HM and full. Your 5k seems plenty quick to run well into the 2:30s. Additionally, I would bet that a HM cycle might actually drive your 5k down with a short 5k cycle following it than just hammering out 5k cycles (to Darkwaves point). Majority LT work seems to do wonders for me and I suspect it would for you as well.

At peak training, a daily 60 min run supplemented by 30+ min doubles to reach mileage and a weekly long run is all you need to worry about. A daily 80-90 min run as a rule is not necessary. Not for mile training, 5k, or marathon.

The problem is most of us are balancing other things, so a daily 80-90 min run may be necessary to reach mileage targets. There's nothing wrong with that, but that doesn't make it ideal.

VERY good advice given by dw and hhw. And I do not mind being characterized as being “in love” with the marathon. It is accurate and honest. Gotta run what you love...otherwise, why bother? And if ya don’t love it, ya will never be good at it.

Tyler_Runs_Lifts wrote:

@outsiderunner - If you're looking for an early spring marathon, my teammates just started their 14-week build for the Snickers Marathon in Albany, Georgia. Right now the race is still a GO for March 6.

Thanks very much, Tyler. Georgia is a bit far for me, but I will look into it.

Is that Canova? and I assume workouts are with long runs where it’s an exception? I should start to double when I reach 70 this cycle

RunnerSam wrote:

Is that Canova? and I assume workouts are with long runs where it’s an exception? I should start to double when I reach 70 this cycle

It's mostly my experience, but I'm heavily influenced by Daniels, Lydiard, Pfitzinger, and Tinman. The belief in doubling goes back a long ways. Lydiard's athletes doubled. Malmo harps on it on these boards all the time.

Daniels wants us to ask what the purpose is for each run. No matter what distance you train for, daily runs are meant for general aerobic development, maintenance, and recovery. Workouts get you into race shape, and it's that specificity that really differentiates whether you're training for a 5k or marathon.

In terms of marathon training, at peak training you're generally getting a 20+ mile run/workout and a 14-16 mile midweek workout. Those are the critical pieces to being marathon ready. Easy runs in this context are meant to get you ready for these workouts, recover from them, and maintain aerobic development. Sticking to 90 min runs as a rule is probably not moving the needle on marathon readiness.

At least that's been my experience. I tend to run 90 min runs daily during marathon training due to time constraints, and once the big workouts start, the longer singles hinder recovery. If I had unlimited time, I'd run 60-70 min primary runs and double pretty much every day.

Doubling I understand/agree with though I don't practice it as often as I would like. I was questioning only exceeding 60min once a week rather than say 75/80min. I can see that argument based on recovery. I should double more once I'm back at full training. - RS

JB - I get what you are saying, and it embodies the now classic type of polarized training. Yes, recovery and maintenance sandwiched around two weekly workouts. In this paradigm, you save yourself for the workouts, and those workouts drive the needle forward. My method (and what has been discussed here lately) uses a different way to push the needle forward. It is a gradual, daily method for advancing one’s fitness. Instead of focusing on two workouts per week, the long daily singles (which for me are always progressive) gradually drive the needle forward by pushing the body a little every day. Thus, the reason why I say an easy or easy-ish 5 or 6 mile run is a waste of time is because in such a run, the runner is missing out in the best portion of the run...if the run is extended to say 10-13 miles, the body will usually respond (hormonally?) and provide some type of kick (more or less kick, depending on the day) and therein the true benefit of the run. Plus, I would argue that the the long-ish continuous nature of the run is good mental training for the marathon. It strengthens one’s ability to hang on at a certain pace, or close to it. Even though I was dealing with significant quad pain for the last eight miles of my recent marathon, and it felt that I had slowed down a lot, I was still within about 10 seconds (per mile) of my goal marathon pace...actually (I just did the math) I averaged 6:30.3 in the last 8, and so I averaged within 5 seconds in the last 8 (GMP being 6:25) with the last 4 a little farther from that, but still 6:30s...6:31, 6:33, 6:39, 6:37.

Great read LancRunner et al. on these topics - I'm in YR2 of more serious running so this is all great perspective.

re: doubling - in my last marathon training I was forced to double a la commuting to work (about 1 hour 10 in the morning, 45 in the evening) about 12 miles a day - and it was quite incredible for my fitness (helped with a 2:53 marathon debut @ NYC with basically no speed work - just doubling + progression LR / week) but like many, find "doubling" to be draining at times and inefficient (2x the fixed time suck associated with running).

LC - assuming running is like weight training, changing up your routines (as you're doing) seems like a smart idea. I have also found success doing dedicated weeks of "elevation gain" work, where I just look for hills, etc to try to get above 100 ft / mi average. Seems to help a lot, also.

RunnerSam wrote:

Doubling I understand/agree with though I don't practice it as often as I would like. I was questioning only exceeding 60min once a week rather than say 75/80min. I can see that argument based on recovery. I should double more once I'm back at full training. - RS

To clarify, I'm not saying don't go over 60 mins. I'm disagreeing with the idea of long singles being inherently better. I don't want to get hung up on specific time limits.

OR - your training has been dissected on this forum many times, and I don't really want to open that debate again. And I'm not going to try to talk you out of doing it. It's just not supported by any modern approach from at least Lydiard onward.