First off sorry to; Antonio Cabral, Renato Canova, Joe Rubio and John Kellogg for dumbing down your training methods in this write up. I hope my very short interpritations are not too far off the mark but may be.
The 5000m distance is a very difficult distance to train for and race. The mental aspect of the distance can not be ignored. The question is recently the USA has been able to produce international class runners at 800, 1500, 10000 (by time not competition) and the marathon however the best 5000m times are in the 13:20 range for men and 15:00 range for women while the rest of the world is running 12:50 and 14:30. Why is there is 10sec / mile gap in these events? Because of my bias, I am going to slant this discussing towards women. The conclusions drawn can be applied to men with a coach’s personal touch if that is where interest lies.
The reason for this poor 5000m performance seems to be two fold. There are two mentalities in the US for training distance runners a) run as much as possible, at least 100mpw b) run a ton of high intensity track work (i.e. 12 x 400 all out with 400 jog or similar). Both of these are extremes. The first is a very bad miss interpretation of the Lydiard method and b) is somewhat of an anti-Lydiard quick fix all too common in American culture. A side affect seems to be marathon runners trying to run the 5000m or 800m/1500m runners trying to run the 5000. Neither of which will produce expected results.
The solution approach I am taking is to look at the training of those athletes successful at racing over 12.5 laps on the track. Inputs from coaches like Antonio Cabral and Renato Canova (coach of 3000m SC world record holder, and 12:48 5000m beating El G. who ran 12:50) have shown great differences in training approaches used commonly. Both men argue that science should not influence coaching. This has been met by much resistance by many people who believe science should be the key foundation for coaching. While we speak in terms like: Aerobic Threshold, Anaerobic Threshold, VO2 max, Lactic power, Coach Cabral speaks in terms of pace 1, pace 2, pace 3 and Coach Canova speaks in terms of specific endurance, race pace, specific speed. Our terms are based on physiological evidence due to measurable changes occurring in the body. Their terms are based on working around the race pace of the specific distance in question.
While we defend our fundamentals viciously the rest of the world continues to move ahead and we seem to even go backwards. In my own coaching experience (which being a long distance triathlete myself is biased toward aerobic “Lydiard” type training) I have seen disappointing results. I wouldn’t blame this on Lydiard as I don’t follow his training to the letter and never have thus I can not draw a fair conclusion (that may be the problem). My athletes were able to run marathon pace easily and had great aerobic capacity. I expected big results because of this. Workouts over rep distances up to a mile were very solid, but races never materialized. In 5000m events the first 1600m would be a walk in the park then while approaching 2000m a change was obvious. Maybe the pace was healed for another 800m at most but by 3000m the wheels came off so to speak. Now we know that the last 2000 of a 5000 are hell but I am approaching this from a physical preparation not mental preparation side.
With more information in mind I read through Joe Rubio’s mid distance manual again to get a better idea of what he is doing. He has had very solid results improving post collegiate runners by huge margins. I noticed an underlying theme. The introduction or RACE PACE running is introduced early. The rep distance increases month by month until a 1500m type male can complete very tough 800m reps at or below race pace. Again this is balanced by quality long runs and “AT” runs as is common in most coach’s ideas of how to train. However he stresses that long runs aren’t slog jogs.
Also to balance out I looked at the programs presented some time ago by John Kellogg. His most notable achievement is dropping Weldon Johnson from 30:XX to 28:0X in 10,000m. Low 10K time has been run twice. The training is based purely on science and the Lydiard method and has a result to back it up. However it seems that injury is a major and common hurtle that is hard to avoid even if the underlying method does/could work.
Thus I would like to discuss ideas for 5000m training. I am thinking about how to train my athletes this up coming season and need to have a plan to stick to not OK this workout looks good today approach. Any input is appreciated and helpful. And all "extreme" training theory people please post because I want to learn from you too.
Thanks
Purdue Grad