The Van Aaken Method - Looking for ideas

There are a few very good sources on old Ernie on this board. One, HRE wrote an article for Marathon & Beyond on him and another, Vladimir trained under the good Doctor many years ago.

He felt that almost anyone should run at least 10K every day.That said I saw a middle aged runner that he advised that began running 5K four times a week initially.

You will easily get under 4 hours in your marathon PR if you follows his ideas on training, but I am not too keen on his dietary advice.

Thanks Bob for your reply.

Ideally the dream is a sub 3:45 that would be a good for age time and would qualify me to automatic entry into London marathon for the next 2 years (and Boston to i believe)

I too have read his dietary advice not too sure about that myself either

I have seen the old threads on here and am trying to go through them all but so much information to take in

Can you run at least 15K a day six days a week and 20-30K

on one other day? If so, you will probably go under that goal real soon.

5 or 10K in the AM and the opposite in the PM would not take that long if you could fit it in. One day a week you do the long run, but 20K would be fine on most weeks.

Bob certainly should be alright to do that.

Somedays however due to work i might have to do it as a single but that should be ok

The longer run shouldn't be a problem though i am way behind on long runs not done a proper long run in months but hoping it won't take long to get back into it

Many thanks

I would think that you should forget about how fast you are running and just get out the door. If you run by time instead of distance you will not feel presure to run faster. If you look back at Ken Young's old collapse point theory of "you can run three times your daily average". I do not kwow what is the required time for Boston, but if it is 3:45 you would have to average 75 per day. This is a very simple figure- I think you would be better served if you added a longer run- building from 75-90-105-120- 135- 150- 165- 180. Not all at once, but perhaps every two weeks or so. If you were running 55 miles a week at 10:00 pace you were already out there for 9+ hours. Your long run should have taken you around 2.5 hours- JUST DO NOT RUSH IT. Diet is another aspect that EVA was concerned with. In looking back I think it was more a matter of the economy rather than for running reasons. Remember EVA was more concerned with helping the general population get healthy than training elite runners. At the time I was around 5'6" and 105 pounds. That falls almost exactly into the (height in inches x 2 - 20%) formula. In this case it would have been 105.6- so I was under by .6). More important I think is his fasting to get used to useing the fuel in the latter stages of the race. All of this should be rehearsed in training. Bottom line is to run and enjoy it. Where do you plan to make your attack on the marathon?

Hello Vladimir

I've read and enjoyed your posts from the old threads and wondered if you still frequented this board.

I vaguely remember reading in a runners world book about the 3 times your average daily run is your collapse point.

The long run build up sounds very sensible and will certainly try that.

I'm in the UK and my marathon is in London (April 25th)

The fasting idea is interesting. I havent been able to find any confirmation of it elsewhere in the running literature. VA advised eating only 1000 calories a day to lose weight. However, I would think that you would have to eat a lot more calories than that in order to seriously train. His advice was to "train when hungry so the body learns to switch over to burning fat instead of carbohydrate. Run at least 14 hours after eating." But is it really possible to do that through fasting? Perhaps this advice was meant for the general population, as you say, rather than an athlete who is a serious runner and therefore in need of more calories for energy?

I do not remember reading it or even when it came up, but there were several times it came up in discussion. Now remember I am trying to think back around 40 years ago. I never ran up to my personal potential, but I did feel well racing and even some of the training when I was fasted. I never undertook a long fast. I would normally rest my system from Tuesday night until Thursday night. I tried the adjustment of going from fruits & vegtables for a day to juice for a day to water for a day and then back out the same way and it was harder for me than just taking water only from Tuesday night until Thursday night- usually around 50 hours. I was very careful as to how I ended the fast, but not that good as how I went into it. When I say normally I mean about once or twice a month. There was a guy by the name of Ian Jackson in California that had some good experiences and wrote about them in the middle 60's. I think he went at least a week or so on his water fasts and ran well at the end.-- (once again working on a memory).

Foof For Fitness by Ian Jackson. That was a Runners World Book that you told me about Vlad. Its long out of print and haven't heard anyting about Ian for decades.

George Beinhorn is still posting. I believe he roomed with Ian from around 1972-74 or thereabouts. maybe he will see the thread and comment.

I have the book at home (somewhere). I think diet was a minor part of what EVA was trying to give out. Diet was only important as too much was much worse than too little. Lots of controlled training was the adage. In a statement I would say it was "EAT WHEN YOU ARE HUNGRY, SLEEP WHEN YOU ARE TIRED AND RUN THE REST OF THE DAY"

Food For Fitness is what I meant to post.

Yes, Bob you have made a type (the first one I have ever seen on LR), so you must run an additional 15k this week.

Just been reading a few things on here about diet which sound worrying

Not familiar with the The Van Aaken Method but anything like fasting, not drinking water or training the body to run whilst hungry is on very shaky ground.

I follow 2 main principles in running:

1) Follow what elite runnners do, but on a (can be very)scaled down level.

2) 'Put on your shoes and run out of the door' ie don't overcomplicate it

Sounds like your training is on the right track building up gradually. Look at entering a couple of interim races before London

Good luck

EvA did an interview with Tom Struak that later appeared in the "Van Aaken Method." The question was "What do you mean by fasting" or some such thing. The answer was to limit yourself to 1,000 calories a day. There's also a chapter in the book called "Diet for a Small Runner" which had some sample menus for 1,000 calorie days. He sort of lost me with steamed liver or boiled liver.

As vladmir says, I think the diet thing became more of a focal point than EvA ever meant it to be. In the same interview with Struak I believe he says that running is more important than eating. One of his interpreters from a US tour told me he ate steak and eggs frequently but seemed to have just one meal a day.

The workout of 10 x 350 with a 50 meter walk was used two ways as far as I could tell. One was as a recovery workout and you simply did that until you got to the 10-20 kilomters he recommended for most people's daily mileage (kilometerage?. The other version was something he said Harald Norpoth did and was followed by 2 km at a pretty decent clip, 6:00 for Norpoth who had run a hair over 5:00 for the distance when he went all out, followed by 5 x 350 with 50 meters walking, then another 6:00 kilometer until Norpoth had covered "17 or 18 kilometers."

But as vladmir says, don't get too fussed about times and paces. Enjoy yourself, stay comfortable most of the time and once you're feeling up to it vary the pace and efforts a bit.

Thanks ukathletics coach for your concern don't think i'll be going down that road but have cut out a lot of the rubbish i used to eat - try and eat healthy stuff.

HRE - Thank you for the further training ideas, the only thing i am concerned with is to keep it varied rather than running the same pace all the time

Now i shall have to hit the sack will be up early tomorrow for some running and work

I translated Van Aaken's book for Runner's World in '76. I met him when he toured the US with Dr. Joan Ullyot, who was a big advocate of women's running at the time, as was Van Aaken.

Frankly, I think the carbless running thing is absolute hooey - I won't go into that here, because it takes a while to explain my reasons, and I've already set the down here:

http://tinyurl.com/ydy5sug

.

Also, I know that personal opinions are at best just that, but I'm not without misgivings on VA's "slowly, slowly" style of training. For me, it seems very like Phil Maffetone's system, which I suspect works best for runners who've already built a huge aerobic base and need to slow down, or who've overtrained, or who are massively talented. When I did Maffetone training for a year, I got absolutely nowhere - my "MAF pace" did not increase one iota. OTOH, I know runners who've thrived and improved on the system.

Again, this is personal, but I'm a big fan of Keith Livingstone's Lydiard training book, Healthy Intelligent Training. I'm 67 now, and I love doing long runs Lydiard-style at medium to high aerobic pace (e.g., just under 80% MHR after a long warmup).

But, basically, let's face it - every body is different, many people have had good experiences with Van Aaken, and you've just got to do what works for you and keeps you happy.

That said, back around 1974 I ran with a German who knew Harald Norpoth and told me that Norpoth said he did speedwork behind Van Aaken's back. ;-o

Lydiard told me the same story about Norpoth back in the 70s but when I asked him about again in 2004 he denied it and said Norpoth was "always van Aaken's boy." Arthur was very complimentary towrd EvA and called him a "great coach." I was stunned. I'd never heard Arthur call any other coach "great."

Nightowl, there are threads here with samples of Norpoth's training and it was varied. It was not just slow running but the reps were slower than in other systems and there was more recovery. And I recall a post vladmir made on another EvA thread about how van Aaken would have marathoners run the distance in their desired time in the course of a weekend, e.g. if you want to run six minute miles for a whole marathon you might start off on Saturday with 13 miles in 1:18 and maybe follow it up that afternoon with 6 x 1 mile at 6:00 each, then on Sunday you might do 10 x 880 in 3:00 and then later two miles of something else at 6:00 pace.

We never ran intervals or reps at imperial distances...all of our tracks are in meters.

HRE

Thank you again for your reply last night and will certainly give that some consideration and probably build up to

off for a run now