train slow, race fast

Maybe you need to reread the stories. Jon Sinclair once told me he met Viren and Viren himself said that he crawled most of the time during base. Only once he got through the winter did he start throwing in faster workouts. And slow means 8-9+. Of course, legend is that he ran 6:40 miles at 45% max heart rate...so, he definitely had some ridiculous gifts.

slow except when not:

You are about the same age, run the same times in the same events, and train in a similar fashion. Next, you will be telling me that you also have a quite fast girlfriend/wife = :-0

I used to live on a fast-food workout intensive running plan. Then I got hurt just about every couple months for the entire first four years I ran. This year, however, I started running only 50 miles a week, with workouts only when I felt it (about once every two weeks I would do a pace run), and paces that weren't too intense. The long run was also a little longer than 20% of weekly mileage (I had a few 18 mi long runs). After 35 weeks of consecutive training without injury, my half marathon PR pace is one second faster than my 8k PR pace from last year.

I don't know if it will work for everyone, but it definitely worked for me.

Pax.

slow except when I'm not wrote:

I think you can train very slowly 90% of the time, then really nail some quality workouts and race very well indeed off of that mix.... Works for me anyway. Plus keeps injury potential down. Volume kills, (not speed).

Every distance runner should be forced to read that, because every bit of it is true. My coach laughed at me when he saw me running so many miles so slowly, but he wasn't on the track late at night to see the real work being done. Two months later, I beat many of his athletes who had no business losing to me.

i believe jack daniels running formula applies to this, my high school coach has perfected his training based off daniels. i left hs with a ton of potential, i ran the best workouts of my life by far in college but my 2 mile mile prs still destroy my mile 2 mile 5k in college. but now im back on his program and daniels and i will pr

the documentary "lasse viren: running is your life" shows some great footage of viren training. you can argue whether it left stuff out, but it shows him steady, controlled, but rolling along, in winter, at altitude, wherever. certainly nothing in the 8-9 mile pace.

No offense, but I don't think you, or anyone, is in any position to say Seb Coe was "full of shit" concerning anything running-wise.

Wait, I refreshed my olympic memory, and saw all the medals Jeff Kilgore won. Nevermind.

I'm not a fan of LSD, but it certainly works contrary to what Coe said. Ed Whitlock is a fine example of the efficacy of LSD training. Whitlock is quite fast for his age, so this means Coe was wrong.

I think running your mileage at 6 to 7 minute pace is a lot better than running it at 9 to 10 minute pace because it results in faster improvement. The bottom line is that all training is of some benefit. Some is simply more beneficial than others. When Coe advises a faster training pace, he is also correct. His error was in being flippant about a training practice he disagreed with.

Out.

take your easy days easy- take your hard days hard.

simple when you tink about it, no?

trackhead:

"For the first few months, all he did was run b/c that's all he could do when getting adjusted to such high volume. He found that, as the training progressed, his effort stayed the same but the pace would increase. One time he was just cruising his 20mi run and ended up running 2:02"

Yes, this is what is best, let the "tempo" come to you. Don't need to let a schedule in a book tell you what day to run "hard" forget about the numbers & listen to your body, listen to your body listen to your body listen... listen...

Steady and Slow training should form a major part of the winter programme for every long and middle distance athlete. I talked to Viren about this (and also if you look at his book) and you can see that the pace variations are huge during all phases of the year. There are a lot of 10k recovery runs at 48 mins for example, but these are inbetween relentless days of 25km runs at a faster tempo. Even these were not so fast but try doing them as the second session in a day on succesive days and they become quite difficult.

What Sebastian meant (and his father said the same) was that if you run PRIMARILY lots of slow mileage and only work the slow twitch fibres then you will teach yourself to run slowly efficiently and well.

I remember meeting a fat Wilson Waigwa at Heathrow in 1979 or so and then just over two weeks later saw a slim version run under 4 minutes for the mile. I asked him what he had done "Run lots slowly every day" he said. "After 2 weeks you are not running slowly any more" He said he was running close to 2 hours a day in two sessions.

How long you are is from genetics.

iloverunning wrote:

STL_Runner wrote:

Last year the fastest I could manage in practice was 2x400m in 64s or 3x300m in 45s. In a race I ran the 400 in 50.1. I know this isn't what you meant but I think it's funny.

that is impossible...

it's not. i have a kid on my team who runs similar times/practice splits. it befuddles me how that guy can't do shit in practce and still race as well has he does. but he does.

Coach Kilgore wrote:

Coe was a great runner, but he was full of shit on the LSD.

Coach Kilgore, you got it backwards. Coe didn't say run LSD. Coe said run FAST. He said running slow only makes you slow. That's Coe 101.

Average_Joe wrote:

Coach Kilgore, you got it backwards. .

On second thought, I think I read your post wrong. Nevermind.

But agree with him or not, I think it's safe to say Coe was not "full of shit"

am I the only one that doesn't see the quote that was linked?

Mt.Dweller wrote:

slow except when not:

You are about the same age, run the same times in the same events, and train in a similar fashion. Next, you will be telling me that you also have a quite fast girlfriend/wife = :-0

That makes 3 of us. My training/times/age are IDENTICAL to slow except when not. I may have even been spiked by one of you in a track meet. And I DO have a quite fast girlfriend, too. Pretty wierd! Have either of you competed at masters nationals?

Our 3 data points indicates the success one can have with the train slow/race fast method, at least when you are late 40's age.

In contrast, when I was coming off injury and doing just base, my slow pace sped up to 7:45 (down from 8:30 or so). THen when starting speed, the top end was GONE. I guess this reinforces the Coe stuff mentioned by others.

What is exactly is Long Slow distance to a world class athlete. 5,6,7,8,9 minute mile?

tracklover wrote:

Have either of you competed at masters nationals?

How about:

Mighty Micros 3:53.34 2

1) Bryan Burdo 46 2) Jeff Brower 44

3) Dave Albo 47 4) Jim Hershberger 47