RunnerWithoutAnAerobicBase wrote:
Thank you very much for your time!
I enjoyed it. You're welcome and good luck.
Update on 6 Month Lydiard Style Base Training for a 17 Year Old
Training Advice/Discussion
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I enjoyed it. You're welcome and good luck. -
Good advice by HRE. I will say that over many years of studying the Lydiard approach and watching how runners respond to it...the real thing to focus on is the undulating courses and the LONG RUN. You need to run as much as your body can handle, at a good aerobic effort, and over hills. Fartlek and progression runs are your bread and butter. Don't focus too much on the anaerobic reps. You can sharpen yourself with races as well and you'll reduce your odds of leaving your best race out on the practice oval.
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I've been thinking about your situation some more. As I said, it's hard to think how to approach training when there are no races for an indefinite time and that's what I was trying to factor into my responses. But today I came up with something that I think makes sense.
Let's assume you're going to have an outdoor season and it will begin in late March. I'd base my plan on that idea. If it happens you're set. If it doesn't happen you can have a little break and then work on a mileage build up for cross country. So given what you've told me so far, keep on with what you're doing for about four more weeks. Then find some hills and have 2-3 days a week of hill reps for a month, keeping in the long run, doing some strides at the top and bottom of the hills, and easy runs on the other days. This will carry to to mid or late March at which time you should have a good idea if there's going to be a season or not. If there is your team's practices would have started and you'd do what your team does. If not you'd need to think of other possibilities, time trials, informal races with friends and friends of friends, etc. Maybe that would be a time to resurrect this thread. -
First off,
Thank you so much for your feedback! I will definitely continue building my milage and eventually incorporate hills, and by then will know what is happening with sports!
I have been trying to find athletes that train in a way that would be beneficial for sporadic racing schedules. I think that the Ingebrigsten brothers don't periodize as strictly as other athletes.
For the past few weeks I have been doing research on the Ingebrigtsen training style. It appears that they do threshold training during their base building. Of course they could just be genetically gifted, but I think that what they are doing makes sense. They are not accumulating lactate, so they will not go stale. Hill reps and threshold will allow them to maintain their speed and increase the speed that they can run without accumulating lactate. Then they will do competition specific training to get ready for a meet.
I wonder if this is something that I could incorporate into my training (maybe even after covid), where I would spend:
January: Just milage (build up).
February - May: Reduce the rate that I build milage and incorporate a few threshold sessions(3) and hill sprints (with a time trial every 3-4 weeks and continuing to slowly build the milage) until I need to start peaking.
May (race in mid to early June): I would start peaking for the race.
June: Race, week off.
REPEAT
July: Just milage(build up).
Aug - Nov: Reduce the rate that I build milage and incorporate a few threshold sessions(3) and hill sprints (with a time trial every 3-4 weeks and continuing to slowly build the milage) until I need to start peaking.
Nov (race in December): Peaking.
Dec: Race, 1 week off.
REPEAT
From your experience with Lydiard training and marathon training, do you think that this would allow greater benefits than pure Lydiard without increasing my likelihood for burnout? Is it even possible to develop strength, endurance, and improve LT without going stale?
Thank you very much! -
I skimmed through this. Doesn’t seem like a 17 y/o, but oh well.. Keith Livingstone’s book is used by the Lydiard Foundation. If you have not read it... consider doing so.
Are you doing the short sprints throughout the year? Don’t confuse the heart attack victim workouts for the Olympic finalist workouts. There is a little different approach for the two. -
RunnerWithoutAnAerobicBase wrote:
First off,
Thank you so much for your feedback! I will definitely continue building my milage and eventually incorporate hills, and by then will know what is happening with sports!
I have been trying to find athletes that train in a way that would be beneficial for sporadic racing schedules. I think that the Ingebrigsten brothers don't periodize as strictly as other athletes.
For the past few weeks I have been doing research on the Ingebrigtsen training style. It appears that they do threshold training during their base building. Of course they could just be genetically gifted, but I think that what they are doing makes sense. They are not accumulating lactate, so they will not go stale. Hill reps and threshold will allow them to maintain their speed and increase the speed that they can run without accumulating lactate. Then they will do competition specific training to get ready for a meet.
I wonder if this is something that I could incorporate into my training (maybe even after covid), where I would spend:
January: Just milage (build up).
February - May: Reduce the rate that I build milage and incorporate a few threshold sessions(3) and hill sprints (with a time trial every 3-4 weeks and continuing to slowly build the milage) until I need to start peaking.
May (race in mid to early June): I would start peaking for the race.
June: Race, week off.
REPEAT
July: Just milage(build up).
Aug - Nov: Reduce the rate that I build milage and incorporate a few threshold sessions(3) and hill sprints (with a time trial every 3-4 weeks and continuing to slowly build the milage) until I need to start peaking.
Nov (race in December): Peaking.
Dec: Race, 1 week off.
REPEAT
From your experience with Lydiard training and marathon training, do you think that this would allow greater benefits than pure Lydiard without increasing my likelihood for burnout? Is it even possible to develop strength, endurance, and improve LT without going stale?
Thank you very much!
I need to quote your post so I can check it as I write.
In the Lydiard system, "going stale" is almost always attributed to an imbalance of training in a way that has you doing too much hard running relative to the easier aerobic runs. This can happen from too much anaerobic running or too much racing. But as long as you keep a good bit of aerobic running into the overall mix you should not burn out or go stale too quickly. But we all have somewhat different tolerances for hard running so some may go stale on amounts that other do okay with. This is one area where a coach needs to know the athlete and it can take some adjusting.
The other big variable here, as we've said before, is what you're going to have in terms of races between now and autumn and the effect that will have. If you have a normal high school season with at least a race and maybe two every week you'll be able to tolerate less hard training than if you have none,, or one every other week, or some such thing. In the latter case you'd probably want to do more anaerobic running than in the former. ("You cannot simultaneously train and race hard" is a good Lydiard quote.)
With all that as a warm up, I think you have a pretty good plan but I'd suggest two modifications. In Arthur's system hill sessions are not supposed to be anaerobic running. So your hill reps would not be sprints. He'd have longer hills, maybe 400-800 meters, and he'd have you bounding or springing up them. I'd say just run them at a normal distance running pace with maybe a slightly exaggerated knee lift with some strides at the top and bottom rather than sprinting up the hills. And I would not keep building mileage once you're beyond the base phase. You're adding two stressors if you're running harder and also longer. At most once you're beyond the base phase keep your mileage where it is. Don't add to it but do keep the longer run in.
I'm a little squeamish about doing this but I'm going to put my secondary e-mail here in case this thread disappears and you have something you'd like to discuss. It's [email protected]. I don't check it every day, I don't want to put the one I do always check here. But I do check it and will respond. And I will also check this thread whenever it turns up -
HRE, Great advice, as always.
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With your modifications (don't sprint up the hills, don't increase milage and intensity), how well do you think that this plan would work compared to a traditional Lydiard plan? Would the thresholds increase the time that I can stay in base and increase the aerobic benefits?
Many thanks! -
RunnerWithoutAnAerobicBase wrote:
With your modifications (don't sprint up the hills, don't increase milage and intensity), how well do you think that this plan would work compared to a traditional Lydiard plan? Would the thresholds increase the time that I can stay in base and increase the aerobic benefits?
Many thanks!
This pretty much is a traditional Lydiard plan. You can increase mileage as long as you're doing aerobic work, i.e., the base phase. From there hold steady or reduce it slightly because you're emphasizing other kinds of work. It's very traditional Lydiard to that point. Arthur never thought in terms of thresholds but would tell you that as you got fitter your pace on distance runs would get faster naturally. You weren't supposed to force it and it will happen for you as you mature and do more work. -
Alfie wrote:
HRE, Great advice, as always.
Thank you much. -
Thank you very much! I think that I am going to try out the plan that I listed above and track my time trials over the base period monthly. I will probably start to see in a few months if a base with some focus on thresholds works well opposed to focusing solely on easier milage. Again, thank you so much for your time!
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Lydiard did not use the term "threshold" but hopefully the OP understands that the modern day understanding of threshold (and applied by the likes of the Ingebrigsten brothers) is not equivalent to what Lydiard would have you doing during the base phase.
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I am aware that this is not strictly Lydiard. I think that it might be a beneficial addition for two reasons:
It allows me to have a longer base phase (I wont loose my speed).
If I don't go stale during the base phase, I should become aerobically stronger than traditional all easy paced miles. -
RunnerWithoutAnAerobicBase wrote:
I am aware that this is not strictly Lydiard. I think that it might be a beneficial addition for two reasons:
It allows me to have a longer base phase (I wont loose my speed).
If I don't go stale during the base phase, I should become aerobically stronger than traditional all easy paced miles.
What is your understanding of threshold work? -
RunnerWithoutAnAerobicBase wrote:
I am aware that this is not strictly Lydiard. I think that it might be a beneficial addition for two reasons:
It allows me to have a longer base phase (I wont loose my speed).
If I don't go stale during the base phase, I should become aerobically stronger than traditional all easy paced miles.
Assuming that you're not trolling, this post suggests that you don't really understand the Lydiard approach and you need to get a little more perspective on your own training.
If you've increased your weekly mileage from high teens to high twenties, that's a good step, but you're still at the point where the main thing you need to do is run more. Most importantly just more over time, but also more on a yearly, monthly, weekly, daily basis.
How much more? That depends, but in ballpark terms, Lydiard talked about getting to the point where you're comfortable doing two hour long runs and ten hour weeks on a regular basis. In other words, a lot more than you're running right now.
If you feel like you would have a hard time running a lot more than you are, you're probably running too hard. Conversely, if you're running easy enough, you should be able to progress to running more pretty naturally and over a comparatively short period of time. Although you will get tired at times, you shouldn't feel exhausted or like you are trudging through your runs. On the contrary, you want to be working toward a state where you feel like you can run almost tirelessly.
Once you can do this, you should be able to progress pretty naturally to doing some of your running faster and at a stronger effort, doing the kinds of progression runs, steady states, and fartleks that parkerjohn is talking about. And just to emphasize, you want to let this come naturally, like you're letting your legs do something that they want to do. If it's not there on a given day, don't force the issue. (Discipline is involved here in not trying to push things too much/too soon/too often.)
While you are working your way through this process, it's a good idea to do a good amount of running over hills and also some SHORT strides and pickups when your legs are feeling lively. If you do this, Lydiard-style base training should actually develop your speed. (Lydiard placed significantly more emphasis on pure speed development than many people seem to recognize.)
TLDR: The main thing is, you need to run more. If you run easy enough, running more should come pretty naturally. Once you are running more, doing some of your running faster/at a stronger effort should also come pretty naturally (but you need to be disciplined and not force it). Doing lots of hills and a little SHORT work on pure speed will also help. -
Wow! I did not notice anything in the OP's post about how much mileage he's doing and somehow thought it was a lot more. Good catch. OP, forget most everything I told you and listen to this guy. Get your miles up. Don't worry about losing speed because you need endurance to maintain that speed for any sort of distance. I'd say you need to be doing maybe twice what you are now before any of the things I suggested matter. There's a point where "run more" is the most important thing. Sorry I did not see those numbers in your original post and went into all this other stuff. Vision is not my best functioning sense.
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I was planning on slowly incorporating some thresholds while increasing my milage. However, I think that you are both right in that I need to focus on milage right now more than anything else. I will wait at least 1-3 months (50 mpw) until I start incorporating some threshold into my base. Thank you both very much! (Also I am not a troll).
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I completely understand that I need to run more miles. However, I was wondering if I could simultaneously do a little bit of threshold work during my base training. If it wouldn't make me stale, then I see no problem with this addition to my base as it should help me aerobically. However, you both have far more experience than me and if you think that threshold training could make me stale before I need to peak, then I will wait a few months until I incorporate those sessions.
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RunnerWithoutAnAerobicBase wrote:
I completely understand that I need to run more miles. However, I was wondering if I could simultaneously do a little bit of threshold work during my base training. If it wouldn't make me stale, then I see no problem with this addition to my base as it should help me aerobically. However, you both have far more experience than me and if you think that threshold training could make me stale before I need to peak, then I will wait a few months until I incorporate those sessions.
There are definitely different schools of thought about whether/how to include threshold in base training. There are smart ways to do it, and it could work for you. But if this is the first time that you've built up to a higher volume of training, and it sounds like it is, I think you'll be better served to build and solidify the volume first before you start adding in some stronger efforts. Basically, the rationale is that the “running more” part will go more smoothly if you keep things pretty easy, and you'll respond better to the “running stronger” part if you’ve already built up to running more. In a future training cycle, when the volume itself is no longer a new stimulus, you might experiment with bringing in a little threshold stuff a little earlier (and then again, you might stick with a more phased approach).
To be upfront, part of my thinking here is that young runners tend to try to do everything a little (or a lot) too hard and thereby make everything more difficult than it needs to be. (Speaking both from personal and coaching experience.) So, my suspicion is that if you do threshold workouts, you're probably going to do a little too much, a little too hard. This is not because there's anything wrong with you, it's just that it's what most young runners tend to do, and it's especially tricky to avoid if you're training on your own, you don't have a lot of experience, and you don't have a lot of endurance built up already.
Part of the "doing things too hard" tendency is youthful exuberance, part of it is anxiety, and part of it is overthinking things. Youthful exuberance is great and there are times when you should indulge it and even knowingly overdo things, as long as you make sure that you recover afterwards. Like, if you feel great one day and you just want to rock out, I'd say go for it, have fun, just make sure you give yourself a chance to bounce back afterwards.
Anxiety and overthinking are more problematic, and just to be clear, I have definitely been there and done that with both of them. In your case, you seem to be concerned about "getting stale" on the one hand, and "losing your speed" on the other hand. On one level, there can be real trade-offs here and you're right to think about striking a good balance. But on another level, you do seem to be over-stressing and over-thinking things a bit. So, part of what I'm saying is that you don't really need to sweat this stuff too much, you just need to get out and run, and as Lydiard said to HRE, "Enjoy your running."
Hope this is helpful. -
I'm almost embarrassed to get back on here after missing such a big part of your original post. As long as you are able to run more miles over time without exhausting or hurting yourself you can do anything reasonable. Telling someone to run easily enough that they can run more doesn't necessarily mean everything needs to be at the same (or so) slow pace. If you want to do some faster stretches, some unstructured fartlek, some strides (if you're really worried about losing your speed) it can be fine. The thing is, when you start thinking about how to get these things into your training it's easy for those things to become your focus and that can inhibit the progress of running more. Make that your top priority and fit in other stuff if it works out.
