Jerry Schumacher Training

They're very secretive, so it's hard to know specifics. But I really think the key ingredient is that they just train really, really hard. 

If you've run in the NCAA at a decent school, you know that usually in your first year you get your a$$ kicked in workouts until eventually it stops being so hard. I think that's what BTC does, except for pros.

Grant says in his first few years at BTC he really struggled with the intensity, and could barely finish workouts. Well, after 2 years of getting his a$$ kicked, he is obviously much much stronger for it.

LMFAO at "assuming they are clean."

Idk if they are doing anything differently, I think some of these guys are starting to have 2-3 years of training under Jerry under their belts. Solinsky did run 26:59 in 2011, Jager ran 8:00 (with a fall) and got a Silver medal, Ahmed has run 12:47. Doesnt shock me that one of Americas biggest talents ever put it together over a fast 5k. Just a continuation of their high level from past years.

There are quite secretive, but they've been around for long enough and are all on enough podcasts giving little snippets here and there over the years plus that one time Karissa Schweizer was uploading stuff to Strava when she first joined the group. From that and their social media you can get a pretty good picture of their training. Not interested in speculating about their being clean or not. There have been some fantastic threads on the training of Marius Bakken/the Ingebritsen's recently; it would be great if we could have a serious conversation about training methods without screaming at each other about doping - there's 1000 other threads already dedicated to that without this turning into the same two posters arguing about the CAS trial.

Marc Scott on the Sweat Elite podcast gave a very thorough run down on their fall training. The general philosophy - which you can hear GDS quoting Schumacher in one of her post race interviews (with Citius or LR?), is that "strength is speed." So long as you have a minimum speed foundation and turnover, then what matters is having the aerobic capacity that your kick isn't compromised by most race paces. So lots of tempo work, lots of mileage, and leave the specific sharpening until later. Fall training then, put together from various media.

They alternate between two different weekly structures. Different athletes say they double, 2-4 times a week for 20-40min. So throw those in there.

Week A

Monday

60-70min Easy

Tuesday

Long 40min easy warm up. Hill repeats - they don't look like they're straining too hard on instagram when doing these. It's a hill near Duniway Park in Portland that's maybe 200m long, 5-10% grade max. Then down from the hill to the track where they do not too hard track work with lots of jog recovery.

Wednesday

60-70min Easy

Thursday

Tempo - they like to go to a turf field near Portland airport - Delta Park. They do 10 miles of tempo in various combinations ranging from marathon pace to 10k pace.

Friday

60-70min easy

Saturday

60-70min easy

Sunday

"Structured long run" as they call it - 2hr long run, with the pace winding up every 30minutes, finishing a touch slower than marathon pace. They do this at a popular running/cycling spot in Portland which is a 3.5mile undulating loop with about 170m of climb per loop. The women can do 18-19 miles, 5+ loops, so nearly 1000m of climb. So though the paces are slower, with the length and the elevation change it is almost like a 2nd tempo.

Week B

Monday60-70min Easy

TuesdayHills and light track workout from Week A

Wednesday60-70min Easy

Thursday60-70min Easy

FridayThey go up to Sauvie Island (where Shalane Flanagan ran the "Tokyo" marathon since Tokyo got cancelled in her marathon spree in the fall) and do a road tempo. It's a pretty flat 12 mile loop. Looks like they just run straight 10 miles nonstop.

Saturday60-70min Easy

Sunday2hr long run. Not structured, at athlete's own pace.

Scott also said that the majority of the mens team don't use GPS watches except for long runs, they just run for time and put that time in "Jerry/Badger Miles" - 7min of running = 1 mile for men, 8min of running = 1 mile for women regardless of what pace is actually being run. This rule is there to disincentivize people smashing easy runs as they're meant to be for recovery. Workout distances count 1 to 1 their actual distance.

What makes this work? Minimizing the amount of track pounding while prioritizing recovery to maximize the amount of time that can be spent at or around threshold pace in any given week. It's more Lydiard influenced, but if you read some of the great threads recently on the Ingebritsen training, the idea of minimal interval work + max recovery + max threshold is what they do but in a much more deliberate and scientific way.

A massive variable that is often overlooked - the quality and the quantity of athletes in the group. Most pro groups are quite small with one "alpha" who is head and shoulders above the rest. E.g. team Boss with Emma Coburn, NB Boston with Elle Purrier, Josh Kerr at Brooks. So if the alpha is injured, sick, or just having an off day, the group loses a lot. BTC men's is spoilt for athletes who can push workouts and drive each other on. BTC women had enough depth that they could lose Shelby Houlihan, Kate Grace, and Colleen Quigley in a few months - most groups would find losing those 3 an irreparable loss. Yet BTC is left with Cranny (4:02/14:33/30:47 + US trials champ), Schweizer (4:00/8:25/14:26), GDS (1:58/3:56/14:31 - underrated range), Frerichs (world and Olympic silver medalist). The "least hyped" member of the team - Andrea Seccafien, is still a world and Olympic finalist who, leading from 2km out, absolutely demolished the likes of Hall, Kurgat, Dom Scott, Kurgat in a 10,000 last year before she joined the group.

If you've done track semi-seriously, you know how having a great training partner to drag you around is huge. Think about how much of a luxury it is having so many athletes who can carry a workout.

Hope people find this helpful.

The training is not rocket science. It's long threshold stuff in the fall and reps on the track. Large volumes of each. The strength work is some stuff his college buddy put together. The important part is that he has a big group of really talented athletes doing this training. There are some casualties, and the ones who make it typically aren't around that long. Similar to the Kim McDonald and Bideau (who learned it from Kim) models in that sense.

Well...

Does this prove that 8-10 miles of threshold in one session is better than the double thresholds? (I would say no but I am asking the question to get the discussion going since the double thresholds are in vogue at the moment).

Sorry for the double post.On the mileage, most are between 80-90. I believe Ahmed, Lomong and Scott are a bit higher but not much.

I'd be curious to know if/how much they've purposely backed off the intensity on easy days. Can confirm that the early days of OTC/BTC was a constant hammerfest. I'm sure that cut a few careers short.

Do they really do this little, just 80-90mpw? Years ago, I remember reading articles about Solinsky hammering like 120mpw, but counting everything at 7:30 even though he was pushing his easy days to 5:30 (Badger miles and so on...). It made it sound like he was pushing 140+

The real JS!

Yes, they really only do 80-90 miles per week. Karissa was on Strava for a while nd that is what she did. I have read/heard interviews with Jager, Shelby, Grant, Woody and Kieran that also state 80-90.

10 mile runs M, W, Th, Sa, long run around 18, doubles on workout days and that gets you there.

I have also heard that they take the easy days much more chill. They may progress a bit towards the end of a run, dipping under 6 for the men, but for the most part the easy mileage is much slower than what they used to do with Solinsky and those boys.

Looking at the week outline I gave further up the thread, assuming (conservatively) 6:30/mile pace for the easy runs, 3 miles warm up/cool down (6 miles on long warm up days), and guestimating the progression long run, that would be 11 miles Mon/Wed/Fri/Sat, 16 miles Tues/Thurs, 20 miles Sunday. That's 96 miles. Maybe some guys do less if they run closer to 60min rather than 70 on their easy days, but bearing in mind the higher mileage guys will do 2-3 doubles a week sometimes 40min long, conservatively at 7/mile pace that would get you another 15-17 miles so put people quite close to 120 real miles. 

Ahmed has talked on a podcast before about consistently being closer to 100 badger miles, and GDS has said she is up to 80 badger miles but closer to 90 real miles. If a 1500/5000 woman is hitting close to 90 real miles I imagine that most of the guys are pushing 100 at least. 

It’s not one or the other. Both work but it’s how they fit in the overall framework with a specific athlete that differs.

The Ingebrigstens like the double session threshing INTERVALS because it feels like a competition. However others like the long grind of a straight 10 mile tempo. Both accomplish the same goal of large volume threshold.

A double threshold is easier to recover from. Thus why the Ingebrigstens are able to do it multiple times a week. In contrast, a straight 10 mile tempo takes longer to recover from. Therefore, the double threshold has the potential to produce greater results. It does because Jakob is on a different stratosphere than anyone on the Burrito Track Cheaters.

Thank you. This is exactly what I was hoping for and interesting to hear about not only the philosophy, “strength is speed” but also the practical breakdown of the training and weekly structure. 

I can remember reading a lot about Schumacher’s approach back when solinsky took the running world by storm the year of the sub-27 10k. I remember reading about how they focus on strength and threshold work and almost sounded like all they did most of the year was hard long runs, tempos, and long intervals. Then, they’d eventually hit the track to sharpen up.

so I find it interesting to see that they still touch on speed now Year around with the hills and track work on Tuesdays. Is this new or has Schumacher always kept some speed in the mix? I wonder if that is part of the reason for another jump in the team’s performance.

in either case, thanks for sharing the details and certainly makes sense how they are running these incredible performances. Talent plus smart (aerobically focused), hard training really works.

**also, super refreshing to know they are not all Strava nerds and obsessive about their GPS metrics.**

It is the new super pogo spikes. They didn't suddenly get 10s faster in a 5k after years of training as a pro. They got a mechanical boost. Without shoes, Ahmed was a 12:58 guy, Fischer was 13:02, Cranny was 14:5?.

They are amazing athletes and train at a very high level. Everyone has the shoes now, so the field is level. But shoes are what changed in the past 2 years (Nike pros got them early).

Nice. Thanks.