what is the THIRD most important workout?

Runningart2004 wrote:

I would say the OP's orginal assumptions are false.

ok, i get that. a lot of people are saying it and i agree. the thing is, i present them as assumptions so that we can forego the discussion of whether they are true, because that discussion is not germane to the question i'm asking.

here would be another way of stating my question:

in the current phase of my training, which will be about 3-4 months, i have been building mileage for the better part of 6 months, and i don't want to build mileage again for a while. i, personally, respond best to easy runs of about 40-45min (or 6mi), a long run of 70-90min (10-12mi), and a 10-20min tempo run (warmup/cooldown not included) each week. i would like to substitute the tempo run every other week with another workout, one which would address some other aspect of my training that is currently being neglected. what do you think that workout should be?

Interval workout! You can do things like 4xmile@5k pace with 3:00 rest and add some 200s or 400s at the end later when you are ready to race this summer. For the tempo runs don't run less than 20 min, a 10 min tempo run is just kind of dumb.

Malmo wrote ---

But even for the marathon, if you wanted, you could train successfully without ever running over 10 miles on any single run.

Maybe, but Moneghetti knew that anyone who wants to win a marathon will not stop at 10 miles for their longest single run in training.

It's a bit like some of the comments on this site about low mileage (50 ish) high intensity programs being adequate if executed properly. --- MAYBE, but in reality the rest of the world knows it's a crock :)

Malmo wrote ---

But even for the marathon, if you wanted, you could train successfully without ever running over 10 miles on any single run.

Aus wrote:

Maybe, but Moneghetti knew that anyone who wants to win a marathon will not stop at 10 miles for their longest single run in training.

It's a bit like some of the comments on this site about low mileage (50 ish) high intensity programs being adequate if executed properly. --- MAYBE, but in reality the rest of the world knows it's a crock :)

Aus, you are not processing information very well. For a competitive marathoner competing at the highest level, of course he's going to be doing long runs. I'd never recommend that one don't, I certainly haven't stayed away from them myself, and probably have done as many 20+ milers as anyone who has ever posted on this board. But that doesn't make the long run the most important run. In fact, for most people the long run has become so sacrosanct that they get it in at the expense of every thing else, when they'd be much better off concentrating on the other six days of the week and making that 7th day more proportional to their overall mileage.

Since 99% of those who post here are not competitive at the highest levels, it's safe to safe that the long run is one of the least important aspects of long distance training.

I agree with you that long runs are not the most important run and I even agree that you could do away with them altogether for any distance under the marathon, but to say you could successfully train for the marathon without ever running over 10 miles? Who has ever done that?

You're not listening Dan. I'm not saying to not do long runs for marathon training. I'm saying that a runner could get away with it if he wanted to. It is definitely not the optimum way of training. To optimize marathon training, of course you will do long runs. A runner running 120-140 mpw of 10/10 could run very well in a marathon.

I don't like trudging out anomalies, but here's one; Steve Jones has come close. I don't think he ever ran very many over 12-13 miles, and if he wanted, her certainly could have not run a single run over 10 miles and been successful.

Dan Moriarity wrote:

I agree with you that long runs are not the most important run and I even agree that you could do away with them altogether for any distance under the marathon, but to say you could successfully train for the marathon without ever running over 10 miles? Who has ever done that?

chris stewart of great britain ran 213 at new york on 13 runs a week but none over 7 miles.

mike musyocki ran 210.30 in his only marathon on a schedule of 6 runs a week none over 1 hour but usually at a pace covering 12 miles per run, he did not run twice a day and he took 1 day of rest per week.

mike musyocki's schedule, always the same

monday 1 hour usually 12 miles or 20km

tuesday same as monday

wednesday same as monday

thursday 3 mile warmup and cooldown 8-20 x 400 in 62-65, 200 rest.

friday same as monday

saturday race

sunday rest

doug burke wrote:

mike musyocki ran 210.30 in his only marathon on a schedule of 6 runs a week none over 1 hour but usually at a pace covering 12 miles per run, he did not run twice a day and he took 1 day of rest per week.

mike musyocki's schedule, always the same

monday 1 hour usually 12 miles or 20km

tuesday same as monday

wednesday same as monday

thursday 3 mile warmup and cooldown 8-20 x 400 in 62-65, 200 rest.

friday same as monday

saturday race

sunday rest

I would like to see the source for this one?

malmo wrote:

doug burke wrote:

mike musyocki ran 210.30 in his only marathon on a schedule of 6 runs a week none over 1 hour but usually at a pace covering 12 miles per run, he did not run twice a day and he took 1 day of rest per week.

mike musyocki's schedule, always the same

monday 1 hour usually 12 miles or 20km

tuesday same as monday

wednesday same as monday

thursday 3 mile warmup and cooldown 8-20 x 400 in 62-65, 200 rest.

friday same as monday

saturday race

sunday rest

I would like to see the source for this one?

"Train hard, win easy" by Toby Tanser.

I remember seeing that Musyoki schedule in an old Runner's World ( I think it was 1985 ) but it was one hour a day, 6 days a week and he did one or two interval sessions a week in addition to his daily 1 hour run, so actually 7 or 8 runs a week. Also I got the impression that the 12 miles in an hour was on a very good day, not a regular daily occurance. At that time he had the Olympic bronze ( or silver I guess after Vaino's drug DQ ) in the 10k and the world best for a half marathon, but I wasn't aware he had ever run a marathon or if he changed his training at all for the marathon.

malmo wrote:

It is definitely not the optimum way of training. To optimize marathon training, of course you will do long runs. A runner running 120-140 mpw of 10/10 could run very well in a marathon.

I don't like trudging out anomalies, but here's one; Steve Jones has come close. I don't think he ever ran very many over 12-13 miles, and if he wanted, her certainly could have not run a single run over 10 miles and been successful.

Well, I guess we're just getting into semantics if we're talking about 'successful' marathon training vs. 'optimal' marathon training. I would say they mean the same thing, ( if you ran worse than 'optimal' is that really successful? ).

Having said that, I don't doubt that a talented and tough guy like Steve Jones could run a decent marathon without running further than 10 miles, and since you mentioned it, I suppose one probably could run a good marathon on 2x10 miles/day.

malmo wrote:In fact, for most people the long run has become so sacrosanct that they get it in at the expense of every thing else, when they'd be much better off concentrating on the other six days of the week and making that 7th day more proportional to their overall mileage.

Truer words have never been written on this board.

Because of job requirements and kids at home, I have always run just 3 runs per week, and for about 6 years I progressively improved my racing times by doing various things.

What worked best was:

Long run at tempo pace

Medium run with hills

short run consisting of mile repeats.

My off days I lifted mainly upper body weights 3 times per week including crunches and core work, plus one day per week swimming about 1.5 miles.

The tempo run was usually 18 miles or longer at 45 sec. to 1 min/mile slower than half-marathon race pace. The short run was usually 8 or 9 miles of very hard mile repeats consecutive. The medium run was about 2500 feet of cumulative uphill elevation change, run like they count but not hard enough to die afterwards. The core work include a hundred situps, 3 sets of crunches, and 15 rep heavier weights x 3 sets.

The long run discussion has been interesting. I've found Malmo's suggestions of fewer long runs and more doubles to be valuable. Listen to that man. He is also correct that successful and optimal are subtly different.

Anyhow, an uncommented aspect of the OP's question was that he only had time for one workout a week. I grant that often workouts do take longer than easy runs (changing shoes if you go to the track etc etc), but if you're doing a 40-45min run anyway you have time to squeeze in a short workout. 15 minutes warm-up, 10 x 1 minute on, 1 minute off (or 5 x 2 on, 1 off), 10 minute cooldown. There's your VO2 workout without hitting the track.

Fartlek can also be squeezed into your schedule easily.

The most important thing is getting out the door consistently and frequently.

citius5000 wrote:

For the tempo runs don't run less than 20 min

really? i've never heard this. although, i should correct myself- my tempo runs are actually more like 15-20min. i forget where (tinman maybe?), but i heard somewhere that 20 minutes at tempo pace is "ideal" in some physiological sense. i kinda just operated on that assumption for a long time.

To say that a single easy run is more easily dropped is misleading because we are talking about types of runs-tempos, intervals, easy runs, long runs, etc. Try dropping all your easy runs and see how long you last.

malmo,

I think I understand what you are saying, but what do you think of "recovery days" that are much shorter than the average weekly mileage?

Say my schedule looks something like this:

Mon 10 / 4

Tue 9 / 5

Wed 13 / 3

Thu 9 / 5

Fri 10 / 4

Sat 18

Sun 6

(total 75/95)

Would you recommend making Sunday longer (and saturday shorter)? You do realize that, by diminishing the importance of the long run, you are flying in the face of a LOT of "standard" approaches to distance running. However, I do think that people can get too attached to the long run. It seems to me that it's much more beneficial to take an easy day after a hard 8k xc race than to pound your legs for two hours.

What about a recovery day? wrote:

I think I understand what you are saying, but what do you think of "recovery days" that are much shorter than the average weekly mileage?

Would you recommend making Sunday longer (and saturday shorter)? You do realize that, by diminishing the importance of the long run, you are flying in the face of a LOT of "standard" approaches to distance running.

Take recovery days as needed. I'm not recommending that you drop anything. Your long runs are proportional to your daily mileage, but there's nothing magical about a long run. 13-15 miles would be fine for you. You are getting in all of the pieces.

For many here, hanging onto the disproportionate long run is no different than a beginning basketball player who spends his days dunking on an 8ft high hoop, at the expense of practicing on ball control, shooting and passing.

Read this (if you can decipher the bad hand writing)

Harry Kooter wrote:

I think that the importance of the long run depends on the specific training program. If you're running 100+ mpw, you're already getting a ton of aerobic work and it probably isn't all that important to get in one run that's longer than all the others. If you're doing 60 mpw, there's probably a greater benefit to the long run.

Agree with Harry. Someone training for 10km/HM off 100mile weeks needs long runs less than someone running 30miles a week training for 10km/HM. Then again what constitutes a long run? For the 30mile a weeker 10miles is long. For the 100mile a week guy 10miles is just another run.