To get a PR, register in a race where there are stakes. My 5K PR is still from a race I was in where you had to beat a guy in a banana costume to win a year of Jamba Juice.
To get a PR, register in a race where there are stakes. My 5K PR is still from a race I was in where you had to beat a guy in a banana costume to win a year of Jamba Juice.
keep it in perspective wrote:
keep it in perspective wrote:
You're training specifically for the 800m, correct? And/or the mile?
How do your current 5k and 10k times line up with your current 800m?
And what is your weekly mileage on that program?
Thanks.
Hey!
I am training for the 800/1500/mile right now, that is correct. I am however starting a mileage build in order to be competitive this XC season.
I’m currently in 1:54-1:55 800m shape, possibly sub 4:00 1500m shape, and according to recent workouts in 15-15:30 5k shape. Probably closer to the latter. I’m looking to come into this cross country season in sub 32:00 shape for 10k, but I do think that may be a reach, as I’m pretty fast twitch oriented. I may be a non-conference 8k only type guy this fall.
I’ve been hitting 50-60 mpw for the majority of this training cycle, but have just started my summer build. I ran 63-67-73 the last 3 weeks, I plan on building to 80-85 if my body lets me, holding that for 3-4 weeks, before I taper again.
A big part of my training schedule is that I put my workouts on a 10 day cycle, not a 7 day cycle. This adds an extra day for recovery after each workout and has kept me pretty healthy.
120 -140 mpw high mileage type training full of LSD and max effort hill sprints (like 12x10 sec max effort w/ 2-3 min rest) and some tempos/fartleks is excellent training for the mile if you’re slow twitch. I have never felt faster than after this type of training. I also find this not to be good for 5k and up racing, there isn’t enough stamina built to hold fast moderate paces, but recovery between reps definitely better when using any pace of workout. Seems almost counter intuitive until you feel it yourself.
Really large mileage jumps aren’t bad for you. In a year and a half, I went from 40 mpw consistently to 120 - 140 mpw without a single injury. I’ve run the past 6 months at an average of 100 ish mpw. All you need to do is run your shakeouts really slow. I do 50 - 60 min in the morning at like 8:30 pace and get the rest in the afternoon and I’m a sub 15 5k guy to give a pace reference. Afternoon runs can be whatever pace feels good.
After reading Letsrun for years and looking into canova, JK, Lydiard, Coe, etc I think the proper approach for an American athlete that finds running at 14 (high school) is to basically do JK training (focusing on lots of LSD and max speed with relaxed tempo/progression running) until after college and then switch over to a Canova plan (max effort hill sprints, long tempos, internal vs external stress preiodization, etc).
You should change workouts based off your strengths more than people tend to. This would mean if you have two 4:00 milers, one with 47 sec speed and one with 52 speed, the 47 guy should use 2/3/400 reps way more /year round(even for threshold type stuff, or at least cruise intervals) and the 52 guy should basically just do different tempo work and max speed work and touching on race pace when peaking.
People are way less injury prone than they think (unless it’s bone related), you just have to do your own research when something hurts and ice and take nsaids or something for a short period of time, take a day or two off, and then get back on schedule. Too many people go to a non sports focused doctor and take weeks off for things I’ve run 100+ mile weeks on.
Taking supplements is not “hogwash” they can help you a lot, even if you’re not diagnosed as deficient, especially iron.
The reason girls tend to develop worse than guys is because when a high school coach gets a talented girl, he throws tough intervals at them and they still improve until they don’t because they’re severely overtrained. I think girls should spend a lot more time hitting higher mileage than guys or at least more relative tempo work as well as max sprint speed and a lot less time on intervals than usually needed for a guy of the same level since girls tend to be better aerobically than guys (a girl who can run 60 for 400 will probably run a better than a guy with the same 400 at the 800).
A big reason some guys don’t last long after short success with high mileage is because it takes them over mentally. Canova once gave an example of some guys he had and one of them always “won” workouts, but didn’t necessarily go too hard, but the guys that always seemed to have bad workouts because they put less emotions into it tended to destroy the faster guy when it came to actually racing. Don’t worry about workouts, just put the effort in and call it a day.
Sleep is so important. I had been injured every season for at least a few weeks throughout high school (and I could probably have run through them like I mentioned above) but since getting 9 hours of sleep every night (instead of 4-6) I haven’t had any of the types of problems I used to have, especially those related to my hips.
Weights aren’t needed, just do hills as a part of your training and core often.
We should have hundreds of guys sub 2:20 in the marathon, and 10s of guys sub 2:10. They might be training “hard” but they’re not training “right” if you can go 29 flat in college and can’t touch 2:10 - 2:13 right after college (within 2-3 years).
400m guys in high school should attempt the 800 in college. You’re not gonna set the WR unless you can go 45.xx (doesn’t need to be an official race).
That’s enough for now...
CopperRunner wrote:
Here’s my last and most controversial point. Salazar is a doosh for encouraging athletes to dope, not a doosh for encouraging athletes to lose weight. Weight is an essential factor in running and I don’t think Salazar should have been cancelled over his methods. The unfortunate reality is that signing with the Nike Oregon project says you are looking for world championships, and you want to get there by any means necessary. You usually have to be underweight, and sometimes unhealthily so to be successful at 5k and up on the world stage, and if you aren’t okay with that, you don’t have to run professionally.
As an exercise physiologist, I strongly disagree with your last point. If you calculate the BMIs of 5k runners who made it to the world stage, many actually have a BMI in the normal category. Purposely trying to make yourself underweight when you are already very lean is not going to make most people faster. Instead it's only going to make runners more likely to sick, injured and drain their energy, bringing about relative energy deficiency syndrome(RED-S). When your body is not receiving sufficient caloric intake, nutritient deficiencies and ammenohea is likely to occur. Because of these factors the body's ability to repair itself is impaired. Consequently, injuries, especially stress fractures are much more likely to occur. In addition, nutrient deficiencies and lack of energy cupped with intense, high volume training increase supstability to injury. Because the ability to train and recover properly is severely impaired, runners can not get to their highest level when they are sick and injured.
jazzytherunner wrote:
CopperRunner wrote:
Here’s my last and most controversial point. Salazar is a doosh for encouraging athletes to dope, not a doosh for encouraging athletes to lose weight. Weight is an essential factor in running and I don’t think Salazar should have been cancelled over his methods. The unfortunate reality is that signing with the Nike Oregon project says you are looking for world championships, and you want to get there by any means necessary. You usually have to be underweight, and sometimes unhealthily so to be successful at 5k and up on the world stage, and if you aren’t okay with that, you don’t have to run professionally.
As an exercise physiologist, I strongly disagree with your last point. If you calculate the BMIs of 5k runners who made it to the world stage, many actually have a BMI in the normal category. Purposely trying to make yourself underweight when you are already very lean is not going to make most people faster. Instead it's only going to make runners more likely to sick, injured and drain their energy, bringing about relative energy deficiency syndrome(RED-S). When your body is not receiving sufficient caloric intake, nutritient deficiencies and ammenohea is likely to occur. Because of these factors the body's ability to repair itself is impaired. Consequently, injuries, especially stress fractures are much more likely to occur. In addition, nutrient deficiencies and lack of energy cupped with intense, high volume training increase supstability to injury. Because the ability to train and recover properly is severely impaired, runners can not get to their highest level when they are sick and injured.
Well obviously being underweight the whole season is only going to lead to burnout or injury. But I do think you should start off the season with some extra weight and cut it down to the point where you almost look "unhealthy" by championship season. I listened to an interview from some pro (can't remember who) in which the guy said he knew he was in shape when his family asked if he was sick, because it meant he was "lean and hungry". I believe it was Abdi now that I think about it.
Star wrote:
I believe you should try to gain 40-50 pounds in the off season and utilize the extra weight as resistance training.
Talk to your cardiologist before trying the above.
jamin wrote:
Long runs as a regular part of training for 800-10000m crowds out more useful training you could be doing. If you workout Weds and Sat and long Run on Sun then you are spending Mon and Tues recovering. Instead, of that, you could use Sun as a rest day or recovery run, then do something like 10 x 400m on Mon and still be fresh for Weds. This adds up to a higher volume of fast work, what matters in the end.
A compromise. Long run every other Sunday.
CopperRunner wrote:
Sham 69 wrote:
Oh yeah. And a woman equivalent to sub 4:30 is sub 5. The only reason why most girls don't do it compared to guys (4:30) is because a lot of them are not built for running, so they shouldn't count towards the population pool. A lot less girls come out for sports too. If women were had a more consistent body structure and culture like us guys, there would be plenty of girls doing sub 5 for sure.
This is what happens when you raise a woman like a man:
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeWvUPTm/I agree with this statement but not the reasoning behind it. How many HS girls have you met that do doubles to build mileage? How many do their entire routes without walking? How often do you see girls choose to just not try on speed work day cause it’s hard?
The culture is completely different. HS track/XC is a serious sport for 80% of the boys that do it, and a hobby social sport for 80% of the girls that do it.
In high school we had one girl run 18:30s and the rest were all 21:00+. 18:30s girl had the same amount of talent, she just played soccer and ran 30+ mpw year round, while the rest of the girls would leave practice early, walk whenever the coaches weren’t looking, and have sh!t attitudes about everything.
It’s very common for multiple girls to run sub 5 on teams with a competitive female culture. I think the translation is actually more like 4:30-4:55 if I remember correctly.
If that is what you observed, that is unfortunate. Most likely those male to female ratios are not true if you were to compare U.S. male teenage swimmers and U.S. female teenage swimmers. As you know, U.S. female swimmers are some of the best female swimmers in the world.
This is a good take, basically.
Americans as a rule do not run enough. The level of general talent in the population may not be quite as high as Kenya, Ethiopia, but is probably close given the total population discrepancy, but assuredly higher than Japan either way.
There are many structural factors that prevent people from training at a high level, both throughout the school / collegiate system and beyond it. But as a rule Americans seem to try to get away with training the least they can. Again, structural reasons - run 2:09 on 90mpw and have a 50% chance of going to the olympics, or run 140mpw, risk injury, etc, to maybe run 2:05/06? .
But in general we have high schoolers running their 4:10's 8:50's on 50, 60mpw tops, we have post collegiates running 2:09/ 2:11 on sometimes as little as 90, 95mpw, etc. People are just flat out leaving potential on the table.
Mental/psychological training is the most important part, and widely ignored by most coaches.
think about this wrote:
jamin wrote:
Long runs as a regular part of training for 800-10000m crowds out more useful training you could be doing. If you workout Weds and Sat and long Run on Sun then you are spending Mon and Tues recovering. Instead, of that, you could use Sun as a rest day or recovery run, then do something like 10 x 400m on Mon and still be fresh for Weds. This adds up to a higher volume of fast work, what matters in the end.
A compromise. Long run every other Sunday.
I think this depends on what you consider a “long run”. I agree that going out and running 16-18 miles steady at 6:00-6:30 pace is probably not ideal for someone trying to run say a 15:30 5k. That said, a 2 mile warm-up followed by 8-12 miles at sub LT 5:40-6:00 followed by 2 miles cool down still gets you up on the distance range and I think most would consider an absolute staple to 5k training.
Don't do anything special the night before a race. Don't eat a huge pasta dinner, drink an abnormal amount of water or try to go to sleep really really early. Just follow your normal (hopefully) healthy routine. It's what your body is used to.
3hr-marathoner wrote:
Don't do anything special the night before a race. Don't eat a huge pasta dinner, drink an abnormal amount of water or try to go to sleep really really early. Just follow your normal (hopefully) healthy routine. It's what your body is used to.
Oh My! How radical of you! Don't do anything special the night before a race??? BLASPHEMY
MPW is a dumb metric. You get zero information about a runner's fitness from it, but it is the first thing people ask about when they want to know what kind of shape you are in.
One theory I've had recently: maybe we don't need as much long tempo/MP/threshold volume for marathon training
I've been reading up on guys from the 70s-90s such as Aussies (Steve Moneghetti and Deek), Shorter, Rodgers etc. The training tended to be high mileage (120-140mpw) with 2-3 fast interval days that were shockingly low in volume by today's standards. On the other side they were able to do some speed year round and maintain 120 miles per week for years on end. If you add today's shoes effect to their times, they'd be competitive with any Australian or American runner today (maybe not Rupp, but honestly Mona ran 2:08, so that could be 2:06 with shoes).
I contrast this approach with the more common "Big Workout" type approach of NAZ elite and Jerry Schumacher with these incredibly tough long sessions of 10-15 miles of quality work. And you see some good results but a lot of inconsistency.
My theory is that some of the runners might do better switching to the old way. Doubling every day, lots of long runs, workouts not too long and never that important, stay consistent. (I would highlight Chris Fox and Lee Troop as following this approach roughly)
More importantly, my other theory is that for recreational runners it might be better to do the shorter workouts and focus on consistency rather than crush long workouts that leave you drained for several days. It fits into daily life (parenthood, work etc) much better.
Having a good running form is key forall ages.
A more consistent and healtier running (less injuries) is possible.
Simple as that.
peekay wrote:
I've been reading up on guys from the 70s-90s such as Aussies (Steve Moneghetti and Deek), Shorter, Rodgers etc. The training tended to be high mileage (120-140mpw) with 2-3 fast interval days that were shockingly low in volume by today's standards. On the other side they were able to do some speed year round and maintain 120 miles per week for years on end. If you add today's shoes effect to their times, they'd be competitive with any Australian or American runner today (maybe not Rupp, but honestly Mona ran 2:08, so that could be 2:06 with shoes).
.
I'm not sure about the others but Shorter did a weekly long run of 20 miles with the last 10 miles at around marathon pace. I think that could be put in the category of big workouts. However I do see your point. Personally I have found those big workouts during long runs to be incredibly stressful on my body and frequently leave me exhausted for 3 or more days.
I believe Chris Fox has a similar approach to which you are describing. If I remember correctly Martin Hehir didn't do many big workouts before the Marathon Project. I think his longest workout was an 8-10 mile tempo? I could be remembering wrong though.
CopperRunner wrote:
A big part of my training schedule is that I put my workouts on a 10 day cycle, not a 7 day cycle. This adds an extra day for recovery after each workout and has kept me pretty healthy.
Thank you!
I too just very recently started upon a 10-day cycle, but I'm still a little unsure on details. Here is what I have listed so far in structuring a 21-day (i.e., three weeks) cycle:
2 - Long Runs;
2 - VO2max sessions (typically 1k's);
3 - Lactate Threshold sessions;
3 - RacePace, combined with Running Economy, sessions.
^This plan is only leaving one day of recovery, typically, between sessions.
Would you please share your daily typical three-week-training-block, in detail, to help a guy out? (I think/hope I can adjust any listed paces to my fitness level.) I'm really curious about your workouts.
Thank you! It is good to see you having such incredible success!
peekay wrote:
One theory I've had recently: maybe we don't need as much long tempo/MP/threshold volume for marathon training
I've been reading up on guys from the 70s-90s such as Aussies (Steve Moneghetti and Deek), Shorter, Rodgers etc. The training tended to be high mileage (120-140mpw) with 2-3 fast interval days that were shockingly low in volume by today's standards. On the other side they were able to do some speed year round and maintain 120 miles per week for years on end. If you add today's shoes effect to their times, they'd be competitive with any Australian or American runner today (maybe not Rupp, but honestly Mona ran 2:08, so that could be 2:06 with shoes).
I contrast this approach with the more common "Big Workout" type approach of NAZ elite and Jerry Schumacher with these incredibly tough long sessions of 10-15 miles of quality work. And you see some good results but a lot of inconsistency.
My theory is that some of the runners might do better switching to the old way. Doubling every day, lots of long runs, workouts not too long and never that important, stay consistent. (I would highlight Chris Fox and Lee Troop as following this approach roughly)
More importantly, my other theory is that for recreational runners it might be better to do the shorter workouts and focus on consistency rather than crush long workouts that leave you drained for several days. It fits into daily life (parenthood, work etc) much better.
Agree with this one. Deek and Mona are still the 2 fastest ever Aussie marathoners and yet often their training methods are thought of as outdated. I wonder, however, how many fast long runs they did that were somewhat equivalent to the big sessions done nowadays.
Ganbatte wrote:
I'm not sure about the others but Shorter did a weekly long run of 20 miles with the last 10 miles at around marathon pace. I think that could be put in the category of big workouts. However I do see your point. Personally I have found those big workouts during long runs to be incredibly stressful on my body and frequently leave me exhausted for 3 or more days.
I believe Chris Fox has a similar approach to which you are describing. If I remember correctly Martin Hehir didn't do many big workouts before the Marathon Project. I think his longest workout was an 8-10 mile tempo? I could be remembering wrong though.
Fair point. I have read this, but I've also heard Shorter on podcasts say the 20 miles were easy. But then he said they were usually 1:50-1:55 so certainly not slow.
Frank does say he thinks the key to his longevity is that all track workouts were limited to 3 miles of work.
Agree, Chris Fox is an example I'm thinking of. When I see Marty Hehir run 2:08 in med school it really lends some credence to the principle, especially as applicable to the everyday runner.