Does anyone know the specific of Marcus O'Sullivan training?

Training Advice/Discussion General

8 months ago 08/19/2023 12:01pm EDT

Hello everyone,

one of the most interesting approaches in collegiate coaching out there is Marcus O'Sullivan approach in my opinion, with a great emphasis on the efforts based on lactate and HR monitoring. I found online a lot of interesting clinics and lessons where he explains his methods, however, by looking at the Strava of his athletes, I noticed a couple of acronyms which to me are not so obvious.

His athletes categorize a lot of the aerobic workouts reps as LZ, UZ. For what I understood, this is a HR range based on a lactate effort, but I don't know the specific of that. Is LZ 80-85% of HR and UZ 85-90% of HRmax? Or is it 1.5 mmol and 3mmol or both?

And the lactate testing protocol he does is pretty interesting, with a lot of 800, starting from 3:20-3:10 and going down by 10 seconds by test, with the rest time of about 30s, just the time to take the sample.

Can anyone confirm this stuff or correct it?

7 months ago 10/08/2023 8:04pm EDT

re: ItalianJob

Bump. I’d be curious in any resources related to this topic, too.

7 months ago 10/08/2023 8:31pm EDT

re: Bumpity

It's.a great place for fragile runners to go to school. He's a great coach, but results will be few and far between in this era for him.

7 months ago 10/08/2023 10:29pm EDT

re: I'd rather wear clogs than ON Shoes

I\'d rather wear clogs than ON Shoes wrote:
It's.a great place for fragile runners to go to school. He's a great coach, but results will be few and far between in this era for him.

Thanks for sharing…

What about pat tiernan? Or the long list of sub 4, sub 13:45, sub 1:48 guys that go along with their XC success over the long term? From the outside looking in, Marcus has a real thought out system that emphasizes what 99% of runners here would advocate: putting together month after month of healthy, progressive, consistent training and racing year round. Speaking from personal experience, I’d take that over the ‘throw them against the wall and see what sticks” approach you’d see on most mediocre college xc teams that churn out lots of 25-26 mins guys on the depth chart with low 9’s 2 mile high school talent.

7 months ago 10/10/2023 8:38pm EDT

re: ItalianJob

ItalianJob wrote:
Hello everyone,
one of the most interesting approaches in collegiate coaching out there is Marcus O'Sullivan approach in my opinion, with a great emphasis on the efforts based on lactate and HR monitoring. I found online a lot of interesting clinics and lessons where he explains his methods, however, by looking at the Strava of his athletes, I noticed a couple of acronyms which to me are not so obvious.
His athletes categorize a lot of the aerobic workouts reps as LZ, UZ. For what I understood, this is a HR range based on a lactate effort, but I don't know the specific of that. Is LZ 80-85% of HR and UZ 85-90% of HRmax? Or is it 1.5 mmol and 3mmol or both?
And the lactate testing protocol he does is pretty interesting, with a lot of 800, starting from 3:20-3:10 and going down by 10 seconds by test, with the rest time of about 30s, just the time to take the sample.
Can anyone confirm this stuff or correct it?

His teams have really underachieved recently despite having great talent. I wouldn't recommend copying anything he does. It may be fine, but there is better out there.

7 months ago 10/10/2023 9:09pm EDT

re: ItalianJob

I have a Championship Productions DVD of his LT training philosophy.

7 months ago 10/10/2023 10:48pm EDT

re: ItalianJob

He often trained wearing a full Leprechaun suit, hat and slippers. In order to up his mileage his coach would drop a trail of Lucky Charms on the ground at about the 8 mile mark and tell him there was a Pot O' Gold at the end. . Marcus fell for it every time.

1 month ago 03/24/2024 2:45pm EDT

re: William Butler Yeats

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