Dear Distance Gurus: What Do You Think Of Hobbs Kessler Doubling Every Day?

Nice work brothers Johnson. One of the best additions to LetsRun in a long time. I have always loved hearing JK's take on things and take some solace in the fact we are so often in agreement and seeing the same things.

For many people the answer is to run twice per day over the solo long runs. But as mentioned in the article it does depend on the person. And you must insert a little speed somehow.

You make several good points. I often say that training for distances 5K and up is easy, just run a heck of a lot of miles. However, in doing that there are things that get complicated. Just as life gets complicated.

I am glad you commented and I read your entire post. But you are right in that it was too long............lol

I liked the article. Obviously a bit biased here:)

One question for JK. They wrote:
"The same principle is in play when you do two moderate intensity workouts in a day (the so-called “double threshold” method) - provided you don’t go too hard or do them too often (like we all did in college in my time)"

Is John saying he did did double thresholds in college? That would be news to me. As I figured that was just one thing they didn't do back in the day. Seems like a new concept.

As for "easy" day pace, I'd hear stories of Geb recovering at 8 minute pace in a car park the day after a race. Now granted that might be the day after a world record.

Or maybe 1:47, 3:59, 14:00 does nothing for BYU anymore. The more I think about it those times won't make NCAAs:) but still think they'd like to have a guy like that on the team.

I think there is a great difference between an easy run after a race, and an easy run in a proper build up in a training block towards a race months or weeks later.

Easy runs after a race are generally social gatherings and taking in the sights of the town while on the move on your 2 legs. And also for blood circulation. It's not really for fiber adaptation you know?

Its the case for almost everyone who isn't back of the pack or in the top 10% of the ncaa. The best runners can work to the bounds of their circumstances, but for some that just isn't possible.

1 hour is on the long end for workouts. Unless you're talking a marathoner doing 1hr+ easy then a progression or tempo pace.

Very few subelites above the 400, maybe 8, warmup for even an hour. I don't know anyone with a running contract per se, but I don't imagine its much different. I can't imagine that a 2 hour warmup wouldn't be counterproductive for aerobic events.

Apparently, “Stimulus to Fatigue Ratio” is the new term for “Overtraining.”

The evidence is infinitely stronger in 2024 that supershoes improve sport performance than 'training' absolutely (not relatively) does the same also in 2024.

Training is a brain thing more so than a body thing. How do you explain that different elite runners with completely different coaches and training philosophies can achieve same or similar degrees of success as one another across all time eras????

The whole basis and premise of training being a differential element is completely farcical!!!!

There is far more stronger correlation between ethnic origin or racial group and sport performance than so called 'training' and the same!!!

On televised TV at the 2004 Athens Olympics, before the 1500m final during warmup already El G was shown doing laps around a soccer field for 30 friggin minutes at 6min mile pace which is already 8km or 5mile in total distance-----which is the distance limit our friend Hobbs feels like he is almost bonked.....simply incredible..........

Our current crop of elite athletes are so physically spent and weak even before the warm-up (ala EL G's era) has finished LOL and why???

It's kinda obvious what or where the biological harm is coming from now right???

I agree they used to warm up a long time for middle and long distance runners but that was 30-40 years ago. I witnessed it first hand, Ma's army of Chinese women runners would do a 20km warmup at 3000m of altitude before doing their track repeats or speed workouts.

Another runner from another country with a different training philosophy would do minimal warmup (just a 5min jog) at sea level but rather ease into the workout as a warmup in and of itself.

Both sets of warmup theory have just as equal success as one another, just like the way both static and dynamic stretching are both equal to one another.

End of the day, you can actually train however you want and apply pressure on your body in whichever way you prefer and the performance outcome hardly varies. They say all roads lead to Rome, well all training routes lead to the same performance outcome assuming all things being equal!

Wejo,

I remember 2 occasions while competing in college (late 80's) being assigned double LT workouts in a day - meeting at 6:30 AM and doing an 8 mile run with the middle 4 mile at what would be roughly LT pace and then doing it again at normal practice time in the afternoon. I remember the instruction was to keep it manageable and no faster than what we'd do our normal 5-6 mile tempo runs in (which we did for the AM run and then ran too hard in the afternoon because we were college idiots). On the other occasion we met for the same 4 mile tempo run in the morning and then did a 16 x 400 session in the afternoon with what was essentially 15 second rests between them. (we ran them in lane 5 or 6 and the only rest was walking from the finish to stagger start line in lane 5 or 6) - pace was a bit quicker then LT on those repeats as I remember, probably something near 8k-10k pace. In hindsight my college coach probably kept us on the track for the second workout so he could make sure we didn't overcook it like the first time.

These double sessions were definitely not popular or used often but the concept has been around for a while and some coached experimented with it from time to time.

It really doesn't matter how you train qualitatively or quantitatively as long as you train and train consistently, do you get it??

Instead, it matters more how consistently hygienically you sleep, eat, drink and radiate/electrify!!

Training is mostly all about management of brain energy and how much concentration you are able to demand and invoke out of it.

El G was simply able to demand and invoke the best concentration of his brain out of all the milers to be able to do easy runs at 3min/km because he had the energy to do so! Your question would be then WHERE did his brain get such colossal energy?? Well it's from Ifrane's extremely hygienic EMF environment (back then, not now though).