Runners who don't respond to typical "peaking"

"Taper"

Tapping is a different matter. No need for taper.

CoachB:

Here is an observation Renato Canova made about Paula Radcliffe and an Italian woman that he coached:

Regarding long run and speed, I want to give you an example : Paula Radcliffe tried, for many years, to become faster in the last lap, working on her speed. In 5 or 6 years, she moved her PB in 3000m from 8:31 to 8:28, practically always the same situation. When finally, tired to be no. 4 in every race, she decided to move to full marathon, her first race after winning her first marathon in London in 2:18, less than 2 months later, was a 3000m. Final results : 8:22, improving her best of 6.0 !

Personally, I had a similar situation in 2000m, with my Italian athlete Maura Viceconte. We worked very hard for beating the Italian Record in Marathon. She ran, winning, Vienna in 2:23:47 (NR) in May. After this, she was able to increase her PB in 5000m from 15:45 to 15:18, and to beat the NR of 10000m running 31:05.54, improving her PB of 1 min from the past.

Read more:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=1363335&page=1#ixzz2UXSIZlVZ

So, CoachB, maybe some caution is in order regarding your plan to give this kid lots of reps at 1600 pace early on. If you train him Canova-style like a 10k guy with some short steep hill sprints thrown in, he may get that 9:20 after all.

You recover 8-15 min for reps of 400-600 @ 3200 pace? I've never heard of that. I've had an 800m runner utilize rests of 15-20 min when doing 800m reps at near race pace (2:13-2:14 for a 2:04 runner). What is the total volume of the workout where you utilize such long recoveries?

Incorrect. Sorry for the confusion.

When we do faster stuff similar to what you mention with your 800 guy, we take 15 minutes between. If we do 400s at 3200 pace the recovery is definitely not that long.

SlowFatMaster wrote:

CoachB:

So, CoachB, maybe some caution is in order regarding your plan to give this kid lots of reps at 1600 pace early on. If you train him Canova-style like a 10k guy with some short steep hill sprints thrown in, he may get that 9:20 after all.

Duly noted. I've thought about this a lot over the past few days. The plan is that this summer will look a lot like Cannova's "aerobic house" for him (and for all my team as well). The winter will be much the same. We'll run a road 10k at the beginning of Feb. and see where we are at. The high volume of mile paced stuff, if it occurs, will be at maximum a 6 week block running from after the road 10k to the middle of March. If we do it, it will be preceded by a big summer (with sprint mechanics included), a cross country season, and a solid winter. It would certainly not be specific preparation, rather prep that would allow the completion of better training during the meat of the season.

The reason why Radcliffe improved when she started marathon training was that she was introduced to a new training stimulus. A few years later, when she still was the best marathoner in world, she was no longer a factor on the track (WC Helsinki 2005).

The kind of peaking one runner might do depends upon 3 factors mainly:

1/His/her individual mental and physic reaction to peaking

2/what was been his training pattern

3/what run distance event he goes to compete

About point one. I deal with runners that when they start to reduce mileage and pace to peak, after 2 days with easy effort they start pain on legs. But it´s not such a wired unnatural abnormal as we might think at first glance. It´s something rational that if you reduce the muscular stimulus the muscles do try to adjust and sometimes ther´s some pain or just some muscle soreness.

In other cases the runner, knowing the responsibility and the task of the competition imagine that if he continues the process of hard training stuff also in the last few days before the run, he got the chance of some shape condition enhance at the last moment/minute, what is physically unproved but might be of some mental interest.

Other complexity is what´s the best type of peak for each individual ? We got a decrease from the first day of peaking to the last day of peaking. For example, one run on Saturday and he starts to peak at Tuesday. He does Tuesday – 40min easy, Wednesday – 35min easy, Thursday – 30min easy and Wednesday rest. Just an example. Well there are people that prefer the opposite, rest on Wednesday, and move to 30min easy on Thursday and Friday and 40min NOT SO EASY the day before the run. I did coach one runner that his best HM performances (1:04 HM pb) were done on Sunday morning, and the Friday (2 days before he did one day of rest and then the day before he loves to run 25k in about 1h30min what is not easy and not low volume !

About point 2. If you are doing 3-4 hard sessions a week or very hard/fast training with high frequency you need a different peaking kind eventually that one runner that does just 2 specific workout runs per week year round. The portuguese runners, Lopes, Mamede, Pinto, Castros, Guerra, Fernanda Ribeiro, Rosa Mota, if the run it´s not one marathon they do the last hard workouts till the 3 to 4 days prior the the run day and they only think about peak just 3 days before the run, be an Olympic run or the world cross country run.

About point 3. Of course that one marathon might require a different peak that one cross country or one track 1500m

Finally. Once again we got near the same conclusion. Ther´s some principles, but the peaking approach is as the training approach. Ther´s not a definitive and a single way that fits all kind of athletes. Therefore the peaking individualization is necessary.

Ps – by the information I got – that is limited of course – but I guess that US runners tend to use longer peak periods that is necessary. One marathon requires 1 week peaking and taper and all the rest 3 to 4 days. The pertinent question is how to do that peaking, not the need to more peaking days.

Thanks for all the replies. After thinking about this for a couple of days now, I have a pretty good idea of what I'll do with my team for cross this season as we get into championship season.

Regarding the next track season for the one specific athlete in question, I'll be in a wait and see mode until after we do our winter base period following cross country. We'll have to look at how his sprint speed has progressed during the next 7 months.

I just watched the WOW with Ben Saarel. One of the things that struck me when he was talking about his kick (54 seconds at the end of a 3200) was his comment that he's mostly been doing stuff that made him more comfortable for the 7 laps preceding the kick. I've always been a strong believer that strength throughout the race will lead to a bigger kick....It's just that with the guy we're talking about, his best recorded 400 is 62.9 at the end of a workout this spring. So, there's got to be some focus on speed work. When to bring it in and how to taper will be the big question for him next year.

I had a HS runner who ran 8:50. He would have a huge peak race when I gave him a week of low mileage and no quality work. He was otherwise a higher-mileage runner and didn't recover well from fast speedwork. You wouldn't think that kind of peak would work, but it always did.

lol lol lol lol wrote:

Remember the obvious--fast twitch (speed) athletes generally respond well to longer, steeper tapers and faster, more intense interval sessions, with a greater discrepancy between hard and easy workouts. Slow twitch (strength) athletes generally respond better to shorter, less drastic tapers, higher volume, slower interval sessions, and fewer genuinely "easy" days.

What if a kid has great speed, but responds poorly to anerobic workouts and thrives on aerobic work?

What if an elite HS 3200 runner is way better at longer races but can run a low-51 sec 400? Does that automatically make him fast twitch? Even if he responds to MaxVo2 work far better than anaerobic work?

TruckerDan wrote:

lol lol lol lol wrote:

Remember the obvious--fast twitch (speed) athletes generally respond well to longer, steeper tapers and faster, more intense interval sessions, with a greater discrepancy between hard and easy workouts. Slow twitch (strength) athletes generally respond better to shorter, less drastic tapers, higher volume, slower interval sessions, and fewer genuinely "easy" days.

What if a kid has great speed, but responds poorly to anerobic workouts and thrives on aerobic work?

What if an elite HS 3200 runner is way better at longer races but can run a low-51 sec 400? Does that automatically make him fast twitch? Even if he responds to MaxVo2 work far better than anaerobic work?

bump

i'm interested in this as well. I am naturally better at 400-1600m compared to xc/3200m(hs) and seem to lack strength. Later in the season, after we've tapered a bit, dropped some mileage and do more fast track workouts, I can't seem to race as well and get stale. Any advice? Thanks

sub2:00 wrote:

TruckerDan wrote:

What if a kid has great speed, but responds poorly to anerobic workouts and thrives on aerobic work?

What if an elite HS 3200 runner is way better at longer races but can run a low-51 sec 400? Does that automatically make him fast twitch? Even if he responds to MaxVo2 work far better than anaerobic work?

bump

i'm interested in this as well. I am naturally better at 400-1600m compared to xc/3200m(hs) and seem to lack strength. Later in the season, after we've tapered a bit, dropped some mileage and do more fast track workouts, I can't seem to race as well and get stale. Any advice? Thanks

Peaking doesn't have to involve completely changing your training and losing all your volume.

To peak for a race at your age just simply do easy miles for a week leading up to the race. Do some race pace strides with lots of rest between two days before (such as 6 x 200m at 1600 pace)

Don't start hammering 'peaking sessions'.