My coach doesn't believe in thresholds and has us do only interval work. Is this normal for college?

Honestly, it doesn't matter that much. This entire track season we've done 1 (one) tempo run that was 7 miles. We still have had 7 guys under 32 minutes in the 10k (which is awesome for a D3 team).

Would I be better with tempo runs? Maybe. I'm personally good at tempo runs, but only with others. I fall off pretty quick when I'm alone. In that case, I'm much better doing a 8x1200m workout alone at 5:30 pace with say 60 seconds of rest inbetween than struggling through a 8 mile tempo run that averages 5:50 or so

SlowFatMaster wrote:

Daniels says cruise intervals should be at tempo pace. McMillan has cruise intervals faster than tempo intervals, which are faster than straight tempo runs, which are faster than steady-state runs.

A Daniels 14:55 5000 or 31:00 guy would do his tempo and cruise intervals at 5:13 pr mile. McMillan gives ranges, so the tempo range is 5:03 to 5:16, and the cruise interval range is 4:57 to 5:03.

I don't know anyone who calls intervals at 400 pace to 5000 pace with short rest "cruise intervals", do you? 5000 pace would be 4:48 per mile and 400 pace would be much faster.

Yes I do know people that would call those cruise/tempo intervals if they were done in the right way. For 400m pace, you'd have to keep the distance short and you could still get the same workout as a tempo runs. Something like 50m on/200m off or whatever the correct ratio needs to be.

Senior runner wrote:

I'm personally good at tempo runs, but only with others. I fall off pretty quick when I'm alone. In that case, I'm much better doing a 8x1200m workout alone at 5:30 pace with say 60 seconds of rest inbetween than struggling through a 8 mile tempo run that averages 5:50 or so

Hmmmmmm..... maybe you need to work on your mental toughness. Maybe if you can't do a 8 mile tempo run because you are mentally too weak then that is an area you need to work on.

Too many runners see an area they struggle in and so find a way to avoid it rather than taking that as a sign that it is something they need to work on to get better.

Senior runner wrote:

Honestly, it doesn't matter that much. This entire track season we've done 1 (one) tempo run that was 7 miles. We still have had 7 guys under 32 minutes in the 10k (which is awesome for a D3 team).

Would I be better with tempo runs? Maybe. I'm personally good at tempo runs, but only with others. I fall off pretty quick when I'm alone. In that case, I'm much better doing a 8x1200m workout alone at 5:30 pace with say 60 seconds of rest inbetween than struggling through a 8 mile tempo run that averages 5:50 or so

The track workout you are doing is pretty much THE SAME THING as a tempo run though. The OP is not doing anything like that. It doesn't matter if its one continuous tempo or intervals at tempo pace with short rest. They are both designed to do the same thing.

I feel like most people that post on this site don't read the posts before them and just look at the title of the thread and decide to chime in.

I was saying that we don't do any of that. In the summer I've done a 1200 workout like that, but never during the season. Most of our workouts start out with a 2k at 5:20 pace, then something like 12x400 or 4x800, 4x400 etc at 72-75 pace

Froshy- Are you going to ignore all advice or just the advice about getting tested for anemia?

Senior runner wrote:

Honestly, it doesn't matter that much. This entire track season we've done 1 (one) tempo run that was 7 miles. We still have had 7 guys under 32 minutes in the 10k (which is awesome for a D3 team).

Would I be better with tempo runs? Maybe. I'm personally good at tempo runs, but only with others. I fall off pretty quick when I'm alone. In that case, I'm much better doing a 8x1200m workout alone at 5:30 pace with say 60 seconds of rest inbetween than struggling through a 8 mile tempo run that averages 5:50 or so

Another idiot who doesn't even understand what threshold training is yet feels the need to share his wisdom.

Doing some kind of threshold/tempo work is crucial for the development of all distance runners.

As previously stated, if you're doing aerobic/moderately paced mile/1200 repeats with 60 seconds rest, you're getting about the same benefit as a continuous tempo run, as long as the effort level is appropriate. And if you say that you can't hold the pace or keep up on a tempo run, you're running it too fast. It should be an aerobic effort during which you feel reasonably relaxed and smooth. Even when doing anaerobic work like vo2 max intervals, if you're actually incapable of maintaining the pace, you're running too fast. Training is a controlled stimulus.

For the fellow who said that G. Mutai's training doesn't contain any threshold work, believe me, it's there, it just probably isn't explicitly labelled as such. Threshold work can take many forms, whether it be consistent moderately hard runs during base training, or cruise intervals later in the training cycle. When looking at an athlete of a different fitness level, it's hard to evaluate what work provides a threshold stimulus, as it's entirely relative to the athlete's fitness.

Froshy wrote:That's what someone suggested to me way back in Janurary. I've been eating red meat almost every day and a lot of spinach too ever since and nothing has changed. If anything I've gotten slower... I never feel good on runs like I did in high school, even though I'm not running any more mileage than I was then. Maybe I don't run well off of nothing but hard interval work? Is that normal? Do most runners run their best by doing hard interval work year-round? Or is this not very typical?

You should get tested; red meat and spinach doesn't cut it for all runners. Every very fast runner I know [yes, not a complete sample] has been anemic at some point in their career. Running is hard on the body, and you've been running hard.

The symptoms you describe are those of an anemic runner.

Your final questions sound pretty loaded to me. You're an 18 or 19 year old kid. You oughta be able to train your ass off if you are healthy. Intervals, tempos, easy runs, mileage, whatever. If you feel like YOU are going too hard, then just back off a bit in practice. It's your responsibility to monitor your own effort.

Talk to your coach, tell him your concerns.

Oh yeah, and get tested for anemia.

As mentioned before, LT work can come in many forms. Interval training can be a great way to train LT. I can think of a 200 workout that would improve your LT. Tempo runs are not magical, they are just easily quantifiable and since they are done at your LT pace, improvements can be easily followed. I think a good argument can be made for doing shorter intervals on the track, as you are able to tolerate increased velocities and longer periods at your LT before exhaustion.

Seb Coe's classic LT workout is 2x20 min with 5 minutes rest or 2x4 miles, whichever comes first. This is much easier to recover from than 1 40 minute effort at the same pace. As a runner and medical doctor, I would be shocked if a young healthy male that is eating a decent diet had clinically significant anemia. The chances are far greater that you are simply an overtrained/overreached athlete who needs to back off and recover. I would estimate that 30-40 percent of collegiate distance runners are overtrained for a significant portion of their careers. Its a shame really.

I didn't say do them only in the summer. I said to make that the bulk of what you do quality wise in the off season which for a collegiate athlete means summer and Nov-Feb for people who don't over do the indoor season. You assumed that I meant that would be the only time you'd do threshold/tempo and that's not what I wrote. Depending on what event(s) you are focusing on, you may choose to continue them or not. Some people do the Coe 2 x 20:00 or the 4-7 mile threshold while some do the in the form of cruise intervals. That's all well and good to set the table, but at some point you need to mix in Max VO2 work, anaerobic power, lactate tolerance (not threshold for MD), max speed, etc. ..again-the mix of which is dependent on the the events and the what the athlete responds best toward. First work capacity then tolerance.

As an athlete, I preferred to do threshold runs in the morning and then a steady state in the afternoon on recovery day. Many of the kids I've coached couldn't take that kind of intensity for that kind of volume. I could do that and sandwiched by a long set of Max VO2 work and a shorter set which was usually 400 meter paced work. It was very similar to what John McDonnell did with the milers at Arkansas. Sunday runs were steady state and again, I could recover.

Fast forward to kids I've coached and the trick is to find out what works best for each athlete you coach. Some thrive on a steady diet of steady and tempo runs and theshold/cruise intervals in more of a Lydiard type build up where we layered the faster stuff in later in the program. I have watched coaches who couldn't get past the work capacity or the "training to train" phase and their kids were always pretty fit, but never really hit that peak racing fitness. You've got to be able to push past the threshold and also be able to deal with varying paces that championship races often feature.

OP, if you are dealing with a coach who just will not do everything he/she can to improve then I do feel for you. I had such a situation and ended up writing my own workouts from high school through college. Talk to the better runners on other teams and determine if what you are doing is similar to what they are doing. Good luck to you.

Yo Frosh, how fast do you run your recovery runs? Surprised no one else has asked this.

I would recommend that look into transferring if running is an important part of your college life. your coach sounds like an idiot.

would be interested to know what division school you run at, how fast your non-workout runs are, typical mileage. DON'T add tempo runs on recovery days, this will break you down really quickly.

Have you tried talking to your coach about his training philosophy, what he thinks you're getting out of these workouts? my college coach always said "if you can't look at what you're doing (i.e. training) and answer the question 'why am i doing this' (i.e. how is this making me a better runner) then you shouldnt be doing it." if your coach can't answer this then he doesn't know what he's doing

also educate yourself so you can formulate your own opinions rather than rely on those of idiots like me on letsrun. the names of coaches and training philosophies being thrown around on this thread would be a good place to start.

Coaches News Network wrote:

Get out of Daniels for a minute and check out Horwill and Coe for a change and see how you feel then.

John Kellog wrote:

People like Horwill and Coe set back Western running 20 years.

Coaches News Network wrote:

Get out of Daniels for a minute and check out Horwill and Coe for a change and see how you feel then.

John Kellogg wrote:

People like Horwill and Coe set back Western running 20 years.

*fixed

We're D1. I usually run 6:30-7:00 pace on easy days, about 60mpw. I've tried to speak with him a little, but I don't know what to think because he calls things different than my coach did and usually just says stuff like "this will get the legs to move a bit quicker" and "keep your heartrate up." He'll call 500m reps at mile pace VO2 max, and when we do do tempos, he usually wants me to run a pace equal to or faster than what I could in a race. I never can of course, so I run slower, but he doesn't get mad. Everyone here seems to think as long as you're running hard, you're training right. That's really the only philosophy I can gather: run hard, and you will get faster. Nobody else on the team believes in threshold work, mileage, or periodization either. I'm not sure if it's because of our coach or not.

Froshy wrote:That's really the only philosophy I can gather: run hard, and you will get faster.

Not a bad philosophy. I've heard worse.

have you seen this thread? this guy gives what I consider very sound advice.

Froshy,

Are you improving? Are you getting better?

Also, consider slowing down your easy day runs to 7:30-8:00. During season, there are no easy days. They should mostly be recovery runs instead. 6:30 type easy pace is for the off season. Unless perhaps you can run 10k under 30 minutes.