Question for Malmo regarding "too few tempo runs"

OK thanx.

Yer other comments about puking, fetal position etc. My only comment would be for some people, recovery from an effort like that takes longer than say for George Malley. 1-2x/month worked for GM. It might be suicide for others. It might also be too little.

I guess my question is - how did you measure your tipping point when it was "too much". And how did you correct it?...or did it ever happen? (trying to draw a generalization).

An aspect of talent is in the ability of the athlete to push him/herself. Some people cannot push themselves as hard as others. This is my subjective observation. Maybe it is a cop out.

thanx again. appreciate these comments.

I suppose what some other posters are reading is

1. Listen to your body

2. Bust your ass

The question is, how did this recursive process work in the case of Malmo? The only way to find your limits in racing and training is to push beyond them. This implies that sometimes, everybody has to overtrain, if only to know where the new line in the sand is.

I suppose we are also interested more in your training mistakes than successes. The majority of people posting have questions about their own mistakes.

Maybe this is a mental gap between world class and regular athletes that cannot be bridged.

Hey malmo, I enjoy reading your posts in this thread, I'm glad you're taking the time to post. I'm learning some good stuff.

On a somewhat unrelated note, do you remember a runner named Kevin Southard from your Penn State days? Kevin is the SID at my college (Scranton) and we had a chat today and your name came up and he was telling some fun stories from back in the day involving you and Harry Groves.

Just thought I'd mention that. Kevin was a sophomore when you were a senior.

I wish I knew a "malmo" when I was in high school and college! man, I don't know if you guys feel the same way but what he says makes so much sense to me now and his words are really motivating....

I agree Greg, his words are motivating and encouraging. Thanks Malmo, your advice has helped me and many others.

Greg and Drake, thanks for the kind words.

Chris, yes I remember Kevin. He was always on the cusp of making the traveling squad, but I don't think he ever traveled when I was on the team. Harry, used to bring 10-12 guys for road trips and a few times I think he got caught. It's not as though he ever tried to pull a fast one over the other team for a scoring advantage, he just wanted to give as many young athletes the opportunity to travel as he could.

Anyone ever get periods where you almost feel too good? I've noticed it's a sign that I'm overdoing things. I'll have great workouts and runs for about two weeks, even if I'm not sleeping much, and then just run into a wall. I wonder if it's the body's response to being highly stressed, or what.

Just curious if this happens to anyone else?

can somebody please describe for me the benefits present from steady state running that are not present when doing interval training when it comes to building aerobic performance? Thanks.

You need both, you should not perform steady state runs or higher intensity intervals alone. Steady state runs near marathon-half marathon pace will work mostly ST and FOG muscle fibers aerobically. In order to recruit the FG fibers more heavily you have to increase intensity. That´s why you also need to do interval training at 10k-800m pace, for example.

BBQ wrote:

can somebody please describe for me the benefits present from steady state running that are not present when doing interval training when it comes to building aerobic performance? Thanks.

Llama wrote:

Anyone ever get periods where you almost feel too good? I've noticed it's a sign that I'm overdoing things. I'll have great workouts and runs for about two weeks, even if I'm not sleeping much, and then just run into a wall. I wonder if it's the body's response to being highly stressed, or what.

Just curious if this happens to anyone else?

I don't think feeling too good is a sign of overtraining. You probably get too excited and then run yourself into the ground. It's more likely that the lack of sleep and high level of stress cause the crash rather than the great training.

Llama wrote:

Anyone ever get periods where you almost feel too good? I've noticed it's a sign that I'm overdoing things. I'll have great workouts and runs for about two weeks, even if I'm not sleeping much, and then just run into a wall. I wonder if it's the body's response to being highly stressed, or what.

Just curious if this happens to anyone else?

accumulated fatigue

As someone who reads these posts and whose coaching replicates what Malmo has been saying on here (for the mere reason this is common sense people) I was lucky to have a coach like him. I have used my own experience in my own coaching and have seen great success from it. However I can say this type of training is going against the "norm" and sets you up for battles against other coaches.

"Never train slower than race pace" is what one private coach has told me. My friend battles weekly against his head coach who is a sprint coach who doesn't believe in tempos. One coach I know never heard of doing intervals at 5k pace for a miler. These guys quietly bash our programs and people buy it. While their runners get hurt, mine go on to see success in High School and then improve even more in College. You think parents would see but they don't. Intervals are a quick fix, and a program full of them will get their kid fast and then plateau. There seems to be a lack of looking at the bigger picture.

Please understand people there is no magic workout, I chased that for years and went to Stanford in the 90's in search of it. It doesn't exist. Just hard work day, after day, after day. In the night, in the heat, in the cold, in the rain.

But there are magic workouts .... they are the two that you going to do today!

Some Coach wrote:

But there are magic workouts .... they are the two that you going to do today!

I like that.

Someone asked here what was the most important workout? I said "The most important workout is this: morning, cold, dark and rainy or warm and sunny, 4-10 miles easy. I've done thousands of them"

Thanks Malmo and Hodgie-San.

This is an awesome thread! I am also dealing with this. I have been doing harder/faster workouts than I ever have, yet I have not done as well in races. My coach says it's because I don't push myself enough in races and that I have to push myself harder in training. I know what I have to do..... Every day of the week.

malmo wrote:

"look at you right now. You don't look like you just ran a 5 mile XC race to me." He said, "what do you mean?" i said "look, when I was in college, after every single cross country race i ran I was so sick that I had to go back to my room and curl up in bed to recover with a 3 hour nap." Then I asked him, "have you EVER felt that way after a race?" His response was a very quiet "no."

That sounds like a "I used to walk uphill in the snow barefoot to school" type of story to me. Methinks malmo is getting carried away with his own machismo.

Malmo, "EVERY SINGLE cross country race" in college, you were so sick you HAD to basically pass out in bed for 3 hours? Never once, did you, ya know, kida recover more quickly and maybe go out to lunch with your parents or team, and then, hey, it's getting late, maybe I'll skip that party and go grab a beer tonight. That NEVER happened?? Hard to believe.

Yes, every single XC race. You have a problem with that?

frozen north wrote:

This is an awesome thread!

I am also dealing with this. I have been doing harder/faster workouts than I ever have, yet I have not done as well in races. My coach says it's because I don't push myself enough in races and that I have to push myself harder in training. I know what I have to do..... Every day of the week.

Part of the problem is that athletes often try to "keep up" with teammates they have no business trying to run with. There's nothing wrong with training hard or even very hard, if it's within your current ability. If you find yourself keeping up for part of a workout and then fading. Or training at your level, then challenging the faster runners on the team during the last few reps, you're probably shooting yourself in your feet. I've seen situations like I just described, where athletes would show up and run one big workout, or parts of a workout with the leaders, only to be so shot afterwards, you wouldn't see them again for a week -- then to repeat the same idiot cycle all over.

Tranining is a recurring process of stress then recovery, not stress then crash and burn.