HADD'S Approach To Distance Running

I think your HM pr --actually, all of your PRs -- is much weaker than your 5k time.

sub16_5k,

I hope I'm not asking a redundant question but on the 5 2400M runs you do to test and see your fitness gains. He starts at 140 Hr and goes up by 10 bpm increments to 190. I"m assuming this is some percentage of the "193" max HR he talks about for his buddy. So i"m thinking figure out what percentage the 140 HR is of the max HR 193 ~ 72% and 190 HR ~ 93% of the max HR and apply those percentages to my max HR to find the heart rates I should be doing my test at? Does this make sense?

M.

I just read this whole thread. A couple of observations

1. You are very detail oriented. Meticulous detail on workouts.

2. You made great progress off of the "base" phase then kind of stagnated when you started going harder.

3. You recognize that sleep is critical.

My suggestions would be

1. Keep the training closer to what you are doing during base phase, even as you progress into your racing season. Maybe take one of those "work" sessions and convert it to some 5k pace sessions such as 6-8 x 1k @ current 5k pace.

2. Keep the strides and speed stuff minimal. You described feeling great off of mostly controlled running. The only ill effect I see from the lack of speed during the base phase was your description of feeling a "speed limit" during your races. I think that feeling a speed limit is better than blowing up during races, as you did when you were running more fast intervals and reps.

It was a long thread and I probably missed a bunch of details. I really enjoyed reading it and wish you luck this upcoming season.

So, training's been going extremely well lately! If I knew how effective this type of training was, I would've done it in Middle School!

Anyhow, my pace/HR relationship has just been DRAMATICALLY improving in the last few weeks. My work days are all sub-6 minute pace now. I have officially started this second phase 1 on Monday, January 26 to build up from what I did last year. I started at 40 MPW (instead of 20 like May last year) and built over these last 8 weeks to 60 MPW.

A typical week consists of 2 work days, 1 long run and easy runs in between. The work days are Tuesday and Friday, every week:

Mon: 75 Min Easy 140-150 PM

Tue: 45 Min Work Day 170-176 AM

Wed: 60 Min Easy 145-150 AM

Thu: 75 Min Easy 140-150 AM

Fri: 45 Min Work Day 170-176 AM

Sat: 120 Min Long run AM

Sun: Rest (Only every 2 weeks)

I have kept a log on Microsoft Word keeping track of just about every factor that affects HR/Pace. (Yes I have OCD!) Including Bedtime. I use a Garmin 610 with the plastic HR monitor, which works perfectly.

So far, as of this morning, I have completed 14 Work days! I know HADD originally said for them to be an hour but I feel 45 minutes works perfectly for me right now, maybe next year I could do 1 hour work days. (They're not very easy, hence why they're "work" days!)

Here's my progression over the last 8 weeks in my 14 Work Days:

(All 45 Min)

Work day #, Average Pace/Distance/Average Heart Rate/Date

Work Day 1: 6:33/mi, 6.88 mi, 172 bpm 1/27/15

Work Day 2: 6:22/mi, 7.08 mi, 171 bpm 1/30/15

Work Day 3: 6:21/mi, 7.10 mi, 173 bpm 2/3/15

Work Day 4: 6:15/mi, 7.20 mi, 172 bpm, 2/7/15

Work Day 5: 6:18/mi, 7.14 mi, 172 bpm, 2/10/15

Work Day 6: 6:05/mi, 7.40 mi, 173 bpm, 2/13/15 (Had an apparent breakthrough.)

-------Took a down week on the 4th week ----------

Work Day 7: 6:13/mi, 7.26 mi, 173 bpm, 2/24/15

Work Day 8: 6:04/mi, 7.42 mi, 173 bpm, 2/27/15

Work Day 9: 6:04/mi, 7.42 mi, 173 bpm, 3/3/15

Work Day 10: 5:56/mi, 7.58 mi, 173 bpm, 3/7/15

Work Day 11: 6:09/mi, 7.30 mi, 173 bpm, 3/10/15

Work Day 12: 6:03/mi, 7.44 mi, 173 bpm, 3/13/15

Work Day 13: 5:58/mi, 7.53 mi, 173 bpm, 3/17/15

Work Day 14: 5:54/mi, 7.63 mi, 172 bpm, 3/20/15 (Ran this today this morning)

Yes, 5:54/mi pace. I actually PR'ed in both the 5 mile and 10K in this run! Have I kept this pace up for 30 minutes or so, I could've ran a 1:17 half marathon! My goal is Sub 1:20! Perhaps time to adjust it to Sub 1:15?

I live down in South Florida (Naples) and I went to Orlando in Week 6, and a cold front came which is why, as you can see above, is why work day #10 is faster than the ones after. It was 50 degrees that day, while the ones were run in 65-70 degrees. Notice however, that I beat #10 this morning, under WORSE conditions. (67 degrees vs 53 degrees). I could probably do 5:4X pace in 50 degrees right now!

The 7th work day was run in the afternoon (at 5 PM), the rest were in the morning (6 AM). Notice the progression...in just 8 weeks I go from averaging 6:30/mi to 5:50/mi at the same HR!

No signs of injury/overtraining a mile away...

My morning/pre-run routine is to drink a lot of water over 30 minutes to hydrate, and take the lowest recorded HR while lying down. That'll be my resting HR which I put in my log. It always varies by 1-2 beats each day. My HR comes down a lot when I hydrate, since I always wake up dehydrated. Then I stand up straight and keep still and watch my HR drop until it can drop no more. That'll be my Standing HR in my log.

For example, I'm standing, my HR will be like: 51....50....49....50....49.......48.......47............46......47...48 bpm

46 is the HR I log since it was the lowest. Same with Resting. They will vary by 2-3 beats or 1-2 beats take or leave. Standing HR is ALWAYS higher than resting (lying down) HR.

Over the 8 week here's a bunch of stuff I noticed:

- My resting HR was around 43-44 first week, now I'm getting consistent 39-40s. This was only 2 weeks ago. Before I got 41-42s. I'll see 38 bpm real soon, either next week or the week after.

- The difference between my resting/standing HR has decreased. For example, on work day 1 I got 53 standing, 44 resting. (9 bpm diff) Monday this week I got 43/39. (4 bpm difference).

- My easy runs have dramatically improved, especially the pace at a given HR. Week 1 I averaged 7:40-7:50s at 145-150 bpm. This week I ran 7:00-7:10s at 140-147. The weather was much nicer at the beginning, with cold fronts bringing temps/dew points in the 50s. Now it's usually mid 60s in Naples FL. My paces/HR have improved, EVEN as conditions worsen in this event called summer!

- On this morning's work day where I ran 5:54 pace, I noticed I couldn't speed up at the end, hence why I averaged 172 bpm instead of 173 like usual. Main issue is, my legs couldn't go faster toward the end. I did a 5:47 on the 3rd mile but had a hard time getting under 5:50 pace at 6-7th mile. I noticed though that my HR isn't drifting at a consistent pace anymore. As HADD described: "Rock solid HR at consistent pace." Perhaps a sign my aerobic system is almost ready for 5K Training? Basically, I'm barely breathin' at a 5:50/mi pace, but I can feel deep burning/weakness and that makes it harder to go under 5:50. Perhaps I need more glycogen or just need to run more of these until my legs get more used to 5:40-5:50 pace?

This is my second 60 mile week. I will run my third 60 Mile week before taking a down week on week 10, to run my first 5K race. I'll will post my entire log up here in my next update for you all to see!

Forgot to add:

I run 200s all out once a week, or 5x200s controlled sprint with 8 minute standing/walking rest to help my speed.

Just by better understand what you are doing: to what intensity does your 172-173 correspond: to the intensity you are able to sustain during a Half-Mararthon race, to a Marathon race, or in between (~30k-25k race ?...)?

Wow. Thanks for the update. Super nice progression. Congratulations.

You have a goal time for your 5k? What are you running the 200s in?

This is interesting to read - thank you for taking the time to post.

BBen wrote:

Just by better understand what you are doing: to what intensity does your 172-173 correspond: to the intensity you are able to sustain during a Half-Mararthon race, to a Marathon race, or in between (~30k-25k race ?...)?

My max HR is 200-204 according to tests, so 170-176 has me around sub LT pace. It's a bit tough to run at 45 minutes, but it is just under HM race pace effort.

hantph96 wrote:

Wow. Thanks for the update. Super nice progression. Congratulations.

You have a goal time for your 5k? What are you running the 200s in?

Yes, break 16 and stop at nothing to do it. I'm trying to progress on the 200s to increase my speed. I started out running 30-31s now I'm doing 28-29s. Hoping to get down to 24-25s later on, since that speed will not only help my kick it will help me in all distances.

So how is it going with your summer training?

OP,

Thanks for the great thread. I am a big HADD fan, and have had success following his suggestions for a few years now. (got my sub 16 5k, using this approach).

I just read through this entire thread, and this post jumped out at me in a big way. I honestly can't believe nobody else commented about it, or suggested it might explain much of your disappointing 5k race results.

This is a lot of intensity crammed into one week. There is no way I would race well off it. My legs would be fried when it came time to race day. Based on your race description, it sounds like yours were too.

I mean, your 5k pace was somewhere around 5:25-5:30. In the quoted week, you are approaching or exceeding that pace on: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday (on a "long run", no less!!!). 5 out of your 6 running days! That is crazy, dude. (Not to mention another week you did a hard tempo in the AM, then intervals in the PM... probably too much for a young runner with limited base, and definitely if that runner is underperforming in races due to fried legs).

I would bet solid money that if you cut the number of quality days in that week in half, and kept the other days easy pace, you would have felt fresh on race day, and destroyed your 5k PR. Absolutely destroyed it.

Seriously, a solid week can consist of 1 interval day, 1 tempo/threshold day, and 1 long run (NOT approaching 5k pace though!).

Food for thought, for your 2015 5k cycle. Our aerobic progression paces looked very similar, but in my opinion you just blew the race prep phase with too much intensity. (and short sleep on top of that - I need 8-9 hours... 5-6 hours would destroy me).

bump

I'm interested in an update on this too...

Personally I started training using Hadd's principles at the end of last year. I was quite taken aback by how effective it was, although I was precisely the kind of runner he specifies - poorer over long distances owing to low mileage. What his method enables you to do I think is simply improve your mileage by keeping your speed in check.

I improved my average mileage from about 40mpw to 60mpw over the winter. Crucially I also managed to stay injury-free for a change. I saw the following improvements year on year:

5k: 16.18 to 16.00

10k: 34.42 to 33.13

HM: 81.12 to 74.42

The HM is the big one of course - I've spent years in the low-80s, convinced I just didn't have what it took over that distance. The 5k, which is more my forte, hardly improved by comparison. What Hadd training allowed me to do was bring my longer performances into line with shorter ones - I'm not sure quite how effective it would be in terms of improving your 5k or shorter times though. That said, the improvements you see there in the 5k and 10k came after a period of really, really limited 5k-pace training (I only did three or four sessions like that). The vast majority of this work was tempo and easy.

Hey bro where have you been? Any updates?

Ummm no wrote:

Hey bro where have you been? Any updates?

Don't worry, I'm still training! I started a new thread over here: