Periodization for races with threshold training model

6-8 weeks before your peak/goal race is generally the best timeline. If you've got a season of races, you would try to time starting the race-specific prep so it begins 6-8 weeks before your last major race. Start sooner or go longer, and your performance will likely decline before you've finished racing.

If you've got substantial time between key races or blocks of races, you could peak for the first race and then back off race-specific training for a bit between them, prior to going back to it before the next ones.

Makes sense and tends to line up with most of the conventional wisdom I’ve seen across this site and others. Any recommendations for how many weeks a down cycle (presumably continuing with some threshold and easy mileage to maintain aerobic fitness) between 2 of those 6-8 week race blocks should be?

Did Ingebrigsten use 10-12 weeks this spring/summer?

coros.com

Inside the Numbers: Jakob Ingebrigtsen's 5,000 Meter Gold Medal

Gain insights into Jakob Ingebrigtsen's 5k gold medal winning run. Hear more regarding Jakob's training and the effort needed to step on top of the Paris 2024 Olympic podium.

Link:coros.com/stories/more-than-splits/c/i...

bump

He had a massive drop in CTL in May, nearly 50%. As someone who coaches threshold-based athletes and monitors their CTL frequently, I am confident he stopped doing what we understand to be double thresholds around then. Since he’s racing through the diamond league final, that’s nearly 4 months of competition period training. He typically does seven months (October-April, with probably a transition in Mid-May) of base. I know he was hurt this year, but I’m sure he was just on the elliptical 14 hours a week or whatever. So that’s basically a 2-1 ratio of base to competition period. I would pay good money to see exactly what he’s been doing since then, but my *guess* is regular workouts three days a week at 5k pace & faster that get his lactate between 8-10. That’s the traditional Norwegian formula and he talks about not fully testing himself in training a lot. For a well-trained athlete 8-10 mmol corresponds to 4-5k of work at 1500 pace or something similar. It’s a good session, but not killer.

you quoted 5k pace and 1500 pace for 8-10? 5k pace is slower than vo2 stuff. Are you thinking the 5k pace stuff is much longer reps to get the 8-10?

I do notice a lot of pros at this 5 k pace which kind of falls nowhere in the traditional model of easy, long, threshold, vo2, reps at mile pace or faster..

I said 4-5 kilometers of work at 1500 meter pace. Of course, I have no idea if he's doing precisely that. Based on the little data we know, he could be doing anything from threshold 400s in 62 to 100-meter sprints in these workouts, or a hybrid or combination of the above.

I don't think there's any current, publicly available breakdown of what he's doing these days in competition period. I have scoured the internet. I think the pre-2019 stuff about his competition-period training is dated and no longer accurate, and he's doing something new now. What that is, I have no clue. I can just read what data we have an infer what he's not doing.

Jakob said he started 2 weeks before Pre, so 12 weeks assuming Paris 1500m final was his peak

As you've seen in the discussion since, JI's situation is different and debatable.

And granted, most of us aren't racing at JI's level. What I mentioned previously is probably closer to true for most of us.

I was not trying to be a punk on this. I am honestly interested. I agree that JI is different in many ways. I think the 8 weeks or so is a good guideline, but do not think it is a steadfast rule.

there is no correct answer

you try it - see what happen - try another way - see what happens

that the only real way to find out

and it might be different with each runner