no interval work success?

bump

I don't believe that Ric Sayre did a lot of interval work in the mid 80s, early 90s and he had a very good marathon career (2:12:?? I believe, 4 Oly trials and quite a few wins around the US/World).

I had a gal I coached who, after we changed her training from the traditional "base, drop mileage/add intervals" to "base and just fartleks and tempos" from 39:00 to 37:30 in under a year. The main thing she said is that when we did something 8 x 400 @ 78, she felt like crap for 3-4 days after. But, if we did 12 x 400 @ 88-90, she felt great the next day and also felt like it just made her stronger.

I've found that athletes that I've coach who have poor leg speed tend to benefit from this type of training. High intensity intervals seem to be like kryptonite to most of them.

Just my two cents.

MOST DAYS I DO A WARMUP PLUS A SINGLE 800M TO 5000M RUN AT MEDIUM TO HARD EFFORT PLUS A COOLDOWN. AND I LOVE WHAT IT DOES FOR ME.

Quality over quantity. Sometimes it works.

800mto5000m......How has this training changed your performance? Also, what is your weekly volume? Thanks

MY WEEKLY VOLUME IS USUALLY AROUND 35 MILES. I FOUND THAT HARDCORE SPEED SCREWS ME UP. PROBABLY BECAUSE I REFUSE TO EVER RUN HIGH MILEAGE. I'D MUCH RATHER DO A BIT OF BRISK RUNNING ON EVERY RUN INSTEAD OF A COUPLE OF BIG WORKOUTS PER WEEK WITH JUST EASY DAYS ON THE OTHER DAYS. I ALWAYS FEEL GREAT WITH THIS PROGRAM AND I DON'T GET INJURED ANYMORE. I'M A MASTER SO MY ALL TIME PR'S ARE ANCIENT. BUT I'M A COMPETITIVE MASTER AND I DON'T THINK I'D BE RUNNING FASTER UNDER A "CLASSIC REGIME".

Interested Runner wrote:

800mto5000m......How has this training changed your performance? Also, what is your weekly volume? Thanks

I met Ric and talked to him a bit about his training. Not only did he steer away from speed work, but his training was all relatively slow - like 7 minute pace. He raced frequently, though. I think he might be the last American to run 5 sub 2:15's in a year?

BUMP

Ed Friggin Witlock jogs around that graveyard.

For every athlete that trains one way, I believe you will find others that do the opposite. I also believe there are times runners will run most of their runs at threshold without any lactic intervals and switch to lactic( VVo2)typer workouts that have slow running in between. Sometimes rather than jog ridiculously slow, some chose X/c skiing or some similar cross training. Some feel that slow jogging can create a pattern of slow nervous system habituation and so by changing the mode, there is recovery between workouts and an aerobic benefit but not rehearsing the plods.

I actually think the closer in to racing requires close to race pace practice without going to the well. Too much Anaerobic( high acidosis training interferes with and reduces aerobic enzymes. Also time is required to heal the destruction of muscles torn by eccentric contractions and high acidity.

I am a high school senior running about 50-60 miles per week right now. I think I am a high efficiency runner. Does anyone have any ideas of what a typical week could look like?

Also, is there specific way of peaking at the end of a season, or does it simply consist of cutting back a little mileage and/or intensity of the runs?

bump

I love this thread. Dug this up out of an old notebook I had from high school:

Rev Norm Green, who owned a number of American records at age 50+.

M - 10 miles

T - 7

W - 10

TH - 7

F - 5

SA - 15

SU - 7

Most runs done at 5:45-6:00 pace, or about 30-45 seconds above race pace. Simple, solid training. Worked for him.

bump

I've had a lot of success this year by following this pattern:

Mon- 1 hour steady

Tue- 1 hour steady

Wed- 1 hour steady

Thu- 1 hour steady

Fri- Tempo (maybe once a month some intervals)

Sat- Easy recovery day

Sun- Longish 90 minutes, steady

Wednesday and Friday I try to get in a second, quick run of 3-4 miles. I'm 40 and presently run about 16:30 for 5K.

I read through all of this thread.

Last year i was hammering track sessions everyweek and found myself very tired but ran a few good races..16.32 for 5k and 34.24 10k

I burnt myself out with the track and have had a few months away and just done tempos and hills and built up to 75-80mpw. Last 2 weeks i ran a time trial 5k in 16.11 and a week later a 5 miles in 27.12 all off no intervals just fast tempos.

Bump, I think I'm the type of runner who is like this. That is do my best off of steady mileage. Can anyone give me any advice to follow this school of thought?

Steady strength runner wrote:

Bump, I think I'm the type of runner who is like this. That is do my best off of steady mileage. Can anyone give me any advice to follow this school of thought?

Thanks for the bump. I read through the first few pages. Fascinating stuff, as I too, think I could benefit from a similar approach.

So, no advice to give at the moment, other than that I'm currently just running miles. Sometimes easy, sometimes steady/pushing. It's enjoyable, which so far is enough.

But what have you been doing in the past that makes you think this style is for you? What blocks of training produced the best results?

Bump.