Dellinger's 'Oregon System' vs. Coe's 'Multi-Pace Training'

I've read Coe's book. It's pretty wordy but full of good stuff. Can someone give me an idea of what exactly the Oregon system is? I know they run a lot of fartleks, but that's about it.

First, Oregon's "system" was one of the first to recommend the hard day, easy day, hard day system of training. Kenny Moore and some others improved greatly on the Hard, easy, easy, cycles (1 hard day followed by 2 easy days).

Looking at Chapa's and Pre's workouts, one sees a "typical" interval workout (16 x 400) one day and 2 days later a hard 9 mile run followed by 200 or 300s. Also, Chapa says he did a lot of repeat 2,000s. Speaking of Pre, Frank Horwill who subscribes to the 5 pace training system, believes that Pre did his repeat miles too fast with too much rest(3 x 4:08 mile with 3 minutes rest). He believes that Pre should have run 4:16 miles with a 200m jog if he was shooting for a 12:48 3M. Lars (or Knut) Kvalheim of Norway (former OU runner) did 2 x 1500 in 3:45 with 3 minutes rest to prepare for Pre in Europe. I assume he learned this routine from Dellinger. Maybe the super fast repeat miles/ 1500s with a lot of rest stress the lactic acid capabilities while the "slower" repeat miles with less rest develop the aerobic capacity more.

Lydiard advocated time trials and Snell's and Halberg's books continually mention these efforts (Snell ran 600m & 800m time trials--Halberg ran 2 mile time trials) as a way to gauge progress, sense of pace, and gain "racing-type" fitness/ confidence because one did not get a chance to recover as in a traditional interval workout. Then again, Lydiard did have his runners do 20 x 400m once in a while to really stress their systems. Perhaps Lydiard's 1/4, 1/2/ and 3/4 effort notations hint at some kind of connection to the present-day 5-pace training system. Thoughts from others?

Chapa was already the U.S. high school record holder, so you have to go deeper into his base, to see the real prep

requisites.

Plus you have to weigh his use of bud in the cycle.

Cool, I've never really paid much attention to the Oregon System, although I know Bowerman had some book called 'High Performance Training for Track and Field' or something like that.

So here's a question. Is it possible to blend the concepts of Coe's 5 paced training and Bowerman/Dellinger's 'Oregon System?'

First, let's give credit to the right persons. Coe did not invent the 5-tier training (not Peter nor Seb). Frank Horwill of Great Britian designed the plan long before he heard of Seb Coe. Bill Bowerman is really the person we need to give primary credit to the Oregon System, although Bill Bowerman would credit Bill Hayward(his coach) as part of the evolution of ideas. Bowerman gave credit to hard day-easy day to Hayward.

I think that the 5-tier plan has its merits, but I am certain that it must be spread out over a longer period of time than what Mr. Horwill suggests for the average person. Simply put, the 5-tier plan is too stressful if done over 12 days for most runners, even good runners. Seb Coe used 5-tier training during certain parts of the year. He used it for about half the year, actually. During the winter Seb used a combination of distance runs, hill reps, circuit training, fartlek, and 5k paced intervals. In the spring he switched over to the Horwill plan. The drawback to the Horwill 5-tier training plan is that one must have a lot of fast-twitch fibers to handle it. If you have a 70% or more population of slow-twitch red fibers then I will bet good money that you will break down on the 5-tier plan as it is currently designed. Even Tim Hutchins (former elite 5k and xc runner), Horwill coached/advised could not take the abuse of Horwill's 5-tier plan. You can ask Bris about it as I have in the past on letsrun.com

The Oregon System is a good one. The only thing I would caution you about is to tailor the mileage and or quantity of speedwork to your individual ability, much the same as I would advise doing so for the Horwill plan.

Thanks for the feedback indiana and tinman.

tinman, so are you saying that Sebastian Coe may have done a modified Oregon type training in the winter (fartlek and intervals along with distance runs & circuit training) and THEN moved into the 5 pace or tier training in the spring? I've often thought that was the case, but Coe's book is kind of hard to sift through, at least for me.

Thanks again for the input.

Prospective Coach

Prospective Coach wrote:

Thanks for the feedback indiana and tinman.

tinman, so are you saying that Sebastian Coe may have done a modified Oregon type training in the winter (fartlek and intervals along with distance runs & circuit training) and THEN moved into the 5 pace or tier training in the spring? I've often thought that was the case, but Coe's book is kind of hard to sift through, at least for me.

Thanks again for the input.

Prospective Coach

coe's book is rubbish. look in the index for EPO. it is talked about in the first edition and conveniently dropped in the second. yes, i had both copies but the book was so non-sensical that i tossed them out.

the truth is simply this my friend, if you are going to coach or run clean, get lydiard. if you are going dirty, see a doctor like rosa.

Dellinger (65,600) vs. Coe (996,000) = Coe Wins.

In re-reading the Dellinger book this weekend, it seems less like: hard day-easy day, and more like: medium day, hard day, very easy day.

You are doing some sort of quality, even if it is just long accelerations 4-5 days a week. It would seem you would need to take great care in not over doing it on each of those 4 days.

Uncle Pervy,

Would it be wise to mix in these Oregon type fartlek runs with the intervals, but do the intervals at a variety of different paces, like Horwill/Coe suggest? Again, kind of like blending the two together. Obviously having the appropriate rest days too.

Prospective Coach

Well, my opinion only: be careful following anything you read too closely.

That said, I think it depends on what you are doing. The system outlined in the book has you running "current" 5K - 15K pace during the base period, with the occassional mile goal pace reps for speed. During the season, Current pace gets closer to goal pace.

You do run lots of different paces. My concern would be that many runners, myself included, have trouble holding back. So if the workout is 4 x mile @ current 10K pace, I would be tempted to run a bit quicker. Do that a lot, and you find yourself a pile of dust before the first race of the season.

THE biggest mistake I made in college was running hard day-very hard day, for 4 years. It limited my mileage and caused me to be sick most of my senior year.

I like the idea of the Oregon system because I have trouble with the idea of spending 6 months doing LSD. However, be careful with the level of quality during the base period.

I could go on and on, but rather than hear it from someone that over-trained, or at least didn't train right, listen to some of the others.

Build your mileage while running 10K-15K pace once or twice a week. Toss in some hills or mile pace reps every couple of weeks, long runs up to 20-30% of total. Do that for a while and then your body will tell you when it is time to do more. I think the "secret" is to listen to your body instead of a book or some world class runner.

I agree. Books can offer you some interesting ideas, but listening to your body is the most important thing of all.

? EPO was not even approved by the FDA for human use until 1989. Where was Coe getting loads of a drug that had barely entered into preliminary trails during his medal days of 1978-86? Who even made it for him as it was not in large scale production?

What I like about Dellinger's Oregon system is the race simulation drills. I may be wrong I don't recall Bowerman using Dellinger's drills, I think this is something Dellinger brought forth.The drills prepare you for any number of race tactics that you may encounter. It is a train to race approach.

I'm familiar with the 5-pace system but could someone give a bit more of a detailed overview of the Oregon system?

I find these threads very frustrating. Coe vs Lydiard vs Daniels vs Oregon vs blah blah blah. You should read each book and look for key concepts. The main information I pulled out of Daniels and Better Training for Distance Runners was the paces. Both agree on easy pace, threshold pace, VO2 max pace, and speedwork pace. People think the 5-tier system is different from any other plan, when really, all it means is that you keep in touch with all paces year around. This doesn't mean you do speed workouts during the summer. It just means you should at least TOUCH on speed during the summer by doing things like 10 x 100 @ mile pace with full recovery. As for lydiard, people think he's all about super high mileage. WRONG. Read some of his books. He says more than once that 100mpw is sufficient. If you can run more than 100mpw, don't; just run your 100mpw faster. He kind of ignores VO2 max pace, but otherwise his training system isn't all that different from others.

Like I said, read the books and look for the key concepts and use your head to create a smart training plan.