Why does Nick Symmonds train like this?

Question 1: Assuming the 1000m takes him more than 2 minutes, I'd say any recovery of less than 50% the time of the interval is not enough time to recover at all, especially for 8-10km volume worth of them. It makes more since to do 2/3 of the duration as recovery, which is sounds like he is doing. I do think having decent form is somewhat important to the workout. The 800m is a fairly fast event where you are only truly tired for the last little bit of it, so running comfortably fast for the majority of the race needs to stay paramount in training.

Question 2: Endurance and mechanics hold for several weeks with very little refreshing required once you're fit. Think of marathoners who might only do a really long run once every three weeks, because they retain the endurance without having to constantly push it to the limit in one supercompensating workout. You could keep doing 8x1000 every week and getting that benefit to diminishing returns or you could do 5x1200, 8x1000, and 12x400 to have all the benefits of them working in your favor, as the benefit of one is still there for weeks to come. It's just important to pick optimal workouts that balance well together; otherwise the variety may not actually be helping you.

Question 3: My guess is that he's doing plenty of speed for his mechanics, but it may not be worth logging. This can include strides of 100-200m or sprints of 40m-100m. You can do easy running and this type of short speed without really taxing the system, so it's good to do during the offseason. You do lose that hard tempo feeling if you abandon all harder workouts, though. That typically helps the body relax, but for middle distance in particular it's a delicate balancing act to keep that strength offseason without being under or over prepared when the season starts.

the bigger question at hand is whether Nick Symmonds runs the 800 on pure hate and whether he incorporates hate and self loathing into his training.

Shoebacca wrote:

Question 1: Assuming the 1000m takes him more than 2 minutes.

I think this is a pretty safe assumption unless Symmonds is really sandbagging his races.

But, why does it matter when the speed is so far from race speed anyway? Wether he runs 3.00 or 3.15 in his 1Ks, isnt the purpose simply to train his treshold/aerobic ability, and isn't the result the same wether they are a tad faster or not? Less rest = higher heart rate troughout the workout = more aerobic improvement?

Treshold training (I'm assuming he runs these at his lactate treshold) isn't really hard, and personally as one who have a bad LT I don't find it difficult to hold form trough 8x1Ks even with 60s rest.

I see. Picking the right workouts will be the challenge then.

Read "Better Training for Distance Runners."

You don't do short rest seven or eight or nine months before your peak.

jjjjjjjjj wrote:

You don't do short rest seven or eight or nine months before your peak.

You can if you want to. It is in no way detrimental to your fitness. In fact, you'd be dumb not to.

jsjs wrote:

You can if you want to. It is in no way detrimental to your fitness. In fact, you'd be dumb not to.

Thats what I'm trying to understand. If you run at treshold pace (not quite sure what his treshold pace is, but he runs a lot of his long intervals progressively so I assume he starts slower than treshold pace and finish faster(?), if he doesnt...I really dont understand the long recoveries. I've tried it myself and your heartrate drops considerably...so whats the advantage? Gotta be someone who know.

Oldsub4 still around?

Why rest at all between repeats?

* wrote:

Why rest at all between repeats?

You have the right of it. I just do all my runs at 43s/400m for a couple hours straight.

Long rest bewteen intervals is V02 max work...You're able to run the reps at a faster pace, which is the whole point.

LT training has its benefits also and I'm sure Symmonds does that at some point in the cycle.

^^^

The 800 forces you to push your aerobic component to an extreme level for a short time. Training should reflect that, with high, short-duration stress as close to race pace as practical. Too little recovery forces slower pace which is less beneficial.

Bad Wigins wrote:

^^^

The 800 forces you to push your aerobic component to an extreme level for a short time. Training should reflect that, with high, short-duration stress as close to race pace as practical. Too little recovery forces slower pace which is less beneficial.

Is it really that usual for 800m runners to do Vo2max sessions once every week most of the fall/winter when aiming for a peak in the summer?!

I've never met anyone who does that, from 1.46-2.00 runners.

Also, this doesn't seem like Vo2max workouts, doesn't seem to be running fast enough, example:

1) 8x1000m, 60s recovery in:

3:28 - 3:18 - 16 - 16 - 3:14 - 3:16 - 3:14 -3:11

He does mention that he is fairly out of shape at this point, and that many HS athletes can produce these results, and that it was a tough workout, but this cant be much more than a 'hard' treshold workout? That speed is slow for a sub 3.40 guy.

2) 5x1mi, 2min recovery:

5:13 - 5:07 - 5:00 - 5:00 - 4:54

(the same week he have a 4x400m +10x100m hill workout + a minutes workout with 3min recovery: 10min - 6min - 8min - 6min, and he couldnt possibly have TWO Vo2max workout the same week....in November??)

3) 2x(1K, 1mile, 1K) in 3:13 - 5:05 - 3:05 - 3:04 - 5:05 - 2:55 (90s rest + 2min between sets)

Is this a Vo2max workout? Doesn't seem hard enough?

What you say about pace wigins, isn't the pace on long intervals so far from 800m pace that it doesn't reall matter anyway?

1) Doing 45-60s rest on those long intervals is really hard assuming your doing them at @5k pace for most middle distance (and even distance runners). Sure you can probably do the workout (after all you can run 5k at that pace doing 8k with 7 mins of rest isn't crazy) but you risk crossing the line into being too stressful.2) It really doesn't matter much. The difference between 8x1000 and 5x1600 is small in terms of training effect. The plus of mixing them up is that you don't get bored AND don't get stuck in the rut of comparing week to week.3) You don't need to do a lot of speed. A little goes a long way for a middle distance runner particular when your not racing.

It's petty and stupid of me, but his running style really annoys me. He runs like he weighs 350lb and just sh*t himself.

Could be the nicest guy in the world. Great runner, etc, etc.

Please help me with this irrational sentiment.

'Regularly every week he have a day with long intervals, a total of 8-10km (5-6mi), but instead of having 60s rest he often have 90s or 2minutes.'

Because he's training for 800m not 5000m

Whatever he does it works

You didn't mention how slow he was going before. No, that's not max VO2, it's probably not even acid threshold. He's just cruising. I wouldn't think of them as training for him.

What I mean about pace is that the body adapts to how it is trained. If you train at a particular pace, your gains will be optimized for running at that pace and less effective the farther you are from it. So the fastest practical pace is best at any training distance.

I don't know who, but Joe Vigil quoted someone as saying "if you train slow, you will surely race slow."

EPOpian wrote:

the bigger question at hand is whether Nick Symmonds runs the 800 on pure hate and whether he incorporates hate and self loathing into his training.

lol-ed at this. +1 internets to you.

ukathleticscoach wrote:

'Regularly every week he have a day with long intervals, a total of 8-10km (5-6mi), but instead of having 60s rest he often have 90s or 2minutes.'

Because he's training for 800m not 5000m

Whatever he does it works

I don't really care for the "it works so whatever" attitude.

I'm more interested in why, as in, if I want to learn from this I want to know why does these intervals.

Isn't the purpose of the long intervals to get in a great aerobic workout? With rest between 45-60s your heartrate never really drops that much, increase it to 90s-2min your heartrate drops dramatically in your recoveries. Whats the point of that? You can run a little bit faster...but do you really get a better aerobic workout? Longer rest = lower average heartrate in the workout = less aerobic improvement....?