whatever she focuses on (800 or 1500), she's going to have to run rounds. That's what she's getting ready for with these kinds of workouts. I guarantee others in her class have a similar focus. It's not about one race. It's about efficiency through 3 races in a short time span.
Cgfdsddf wrote:
She is coached by Joe Vigil who is notorious for giving rediculously hard workouts.
Interstestly, Flotrack filmed her doing a very similar workout a year or two ago. You can look it up, but I don't remember if she hit the splits or not.
Workout: May 30, 2013
8 x 1000m w/ 3 min rec
5:30 rest
400m all out
Target splits: 2:55 - 3:00
Actual splits:
2:57; 2:59; 2:58; 2:57; 2:52; 2:55; 2:57; 2:54
400: 56.5
DMX wrote:
First things first, I'm a big fan of Martinez
Who?
How much rest ?
DMX wrote:
First things first, I'm a big fan of Martinez. This post is not meant to criticize her. However I've noticed she seems to train at a much higher level than she races at. For example, yesterday she posted her scheduled workout on instagram, 6x1k @ 2:50 and then a 400 @ 56. This seems a lot harder than something a 15:25 5k runner could do. Does anyone know what the deal is here?
If anyone's read Joe Vigil's book, Road To The Top, will know this is a fairly typical workout. He suggests in that book to take 3min rest between intervals
Everything that I've seen from Martinez's training suggests that her training is still very similar to the workouts and season progression suggested in the book.
Vigil typically suggests running at a percentage of you mile pace while doing similar workouts throughout the season. At the beginning of the season the intervals are done at about 85% and progress to about 94%. For a 4:00 1500m runner, a 2:50km is about 94-95% of mile/1500m pace. So this workout isn't ridiculous. I am actually surprised that her volume of work is only ~4 miles for this workout instead of being ~5 miles (like her workout on flotrack)
Martinez has also said in interviews that her first year under Vigil she was all over the place with workouts. Very up and down because it was so taxing. She started getting used to it in the second year and that's when she had a breakthrough and became world class.
It seems like last year she started and ended strong but had a rough time in the middle. Don't know why (maybe health related or overtraining or something else), but it does not appear that she has been doing much wrong by sticking with Vigil
dsrunner wrote:
One of the big mistakes in reasoning here is that oxygen delivery is the only possible limit to endurance performance -- it isn't. Martinez is limited by speed in the 800 and her fiber qualities above 1500.
Vigil has routinely over-trained athletes in both volume and intensity for years and Martinez can pump away on this intermittent workouts which seem stellar and still run a disappointing 5000 -- that's because the workload is too high and she is not really designed for distance much beyond 4' duration.
which explains of course why Vigil routinely won D2 Nats year after year with teams of mediocre HS talent...
B Mart is a true 800/1500 runner she is getting ready for her 5k at Carlsbad which is having a WR attempt I think Vigil is getting her ready for a PR there. She has the potential to be a great 1500 girl in the future and she has aspirations to run marathons too
carry on lassies wrote:
Dave Moorecroft used to run his km repeats ( 7 minute recoveries, so a 1:~3 work:rest ratio) at an even greater intensity - ~94%, with a similar volume. He was a 5000m guy. Assuming she could run about a 2.33 1km, her specific intensity is at 90% (2.50). It has nothing to do with what she can run a 3000m in.
Sometimes we get too caught up in a session done at a specific pace, and assume everyone has to match that specific intensity - something I feel is wrong with the whole Daniels' shtick (not his fault really), that everyone follow his schedules without really understanding the purpose of them and that they are guidelines for the "average" person.
This is a world-class athlete who is attempting to train "outside the box". Similarly, Radcliffe did sessions that many would think nuts, but it was that intensity that led her beyond others at her level. Too many people do what is "safe" or conventional, and so do not rise above their mediocrity. It may be prudent but that is not how champions are made - just like AlSal and his after-race workouts. A number of world-class athletes did things others simply didn't think of - Zatopek and his 20x200+40x400, etc. Canova has his marathon guys do sessions which people even 20 years ago would have thought was nuts - 4 x 5k in 15 minutes, with 1km recoveries in 3.30/km. Kristiansen did 2 x 5km in 15 minutes each on a treadmill almost 30 years ago - she ran 30.13 for 10000m almost by herself. It is the "everybody must be the same and train the same way" mentality that really I find disturbing - and just reinforces mediocrity and speculation that consequently anyone who doesn't follow this "way" must be on drugs. This is HS/College thinking that is so destructive to developing truly world-class athletes - the predominance of the hobbyjogger/yasso 800's mentality - I can't do this, so nobody can.
7min recovery is way different than 2-3. I'm not saying that she shouldn't do that workout, I'm saying she is not physically capable of it unless, like Moorecroft, her recovery is very very long between repeats.
LEONARD SMALLS wrote:
dsrunner wrote:One of the big mistakes in reasoning here is that oxygen delivery is the only possible limit to endurance performance -- it isn't. Martinez is limited by speed in the 800 and her fiber qualities above 1500.
Vigil has routinely over-trained athletes in both volume and intensity for years and Martinez can pump away on this intermittent workouts which seem stellar and still run a disappointing 5000 -- that's because the workload is too high and she is not really designed for distance much beyond 4' duration.
which explains of course why Vigil routinely won D2 Nats year after year with teams of mediocre HS talent...
eggs at the wall, baby.
When I ran 15:26 for 5k I surely couldn't do that workout, my key workout before that race was 5 x 1k at 3:00, that was it, and before I ran 9:15 2 mile I did 4 x 1k at 2:55, then 4 x 200m at 30
Brenda's workouts are insane, I think the reason she doesn't race as well as her workouts is because of recovery, she doesn't recover well from her workouts, even if you look at her training runs, she's doing 10 mile runs at 6:00 to recover from a workout like this, she goes hard all the time, and you can't do that
It's gotten her to 1:58, 4:00, 15:2x but I know with more recovery she could definitely lower those PR's by a bit
NOP Skeptic wrote:
Brenda's workouts are insane, I think the reason she doesn't race as well as her workouts is because of recovery, ...
It's gotten her to 1:58, 4:00, 15:2x but I know with more recovery she could definitely lower those PR's by a bit
How do we know whether her race performances were in spite of or because of the tough workouts?
Xfit_guy_the_real_1 wrote:
DMX wrote:First things first, I'm a big fan of Martinez
Who?
If you do not know who Brenda is then get off of this thread. You are only showing your ignorance.
People like you make Brenda more famous.
sloinnorcal wrote:
NOP Skeptic wrote:Brenda's workouts are insane, I think the reason she doesn't race as well as her workouts is because of recovery, ...
It's gotten her to 1:58, 4:00, 15:2x but I know with more recovery she could definitely lower those PR's by a bit
How do we know whether her race performances were in spite of or because of the tough workouts?
Exactly.
Everyone responds differently. Brenda could be the type that benefits from extremely hard workouts. But, it is worth noting that some of her workouts aren't overly taxing. Like one of her speed workouts is 400-300-200-100 all out, or 10x150 in 19.8.
It's her longer sessions that are the tough ones. So I think its reasonable to have 1 extremely hard workout every week or 2 at certain points in the season if you can handle it and recovery well.
NOP Skeptic wrote:
When I ran 15:26 for 5k I surely couldn't do that workout, my key workout before that race was 5 x 1k at 3:00, that was it, and before I ran 9:15 2 mile I did 4 x 1k at 2:55, then 4 x 200m at 30
Brenda's workouts are insane, I think the reason she doesn't race as well as her workouts is because of recovery, she doesn't recover well from her workouts, even if you look at her training runs, she's doing 10 mile runs at 6:00 to recover from a workout like this, she goes hard all the time, and you can't do that
It's gotten her to 1:58, 4:00, 15:2x but I know with more recovery she could definitely lower those PR's by a bit
Flotrack doesn't cover "Recovery run Thursday". Doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Do you have specific knowledge about her entire training regimen including recovery?
agc5k wrote:
sloinnorcal wrote:How do we know whether her race performances were in spite of or because of the tough workouts?
Exactly.
Everyone responds differently. Brenda could be the type that benefits from extremely hard workouts. But, it is worth noting that some of her workouts aren't overly taxing. Like one of her speed workouts is 400-300-200-100 all out, or 10x150 in 19.8.
It's her longer sessions that are the tough ones. So I think its reasonable to have 1 extremely hard workout every week or 2 at certain points in the season if you can handle it and recovery well.
Exactly
I know many runners that respond well to long slow recovery runs, 1 workout per week, high mileage and some respond well to fast training runs, 3 hard workouts per week, low mileage
Brenda seems to be that later of the two
I was just wondering if Vigil has ever tried the first approach with Martinez, if he did, would she benefit more from it? Would her times get faster, slower? Obviously what she's doing right now is working well for her, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's what's optimal for her, she still does have room for improvement, and I just pointed out the fact that her very intense and volumetric training with fast training runs might be in return giving her a sub-optimal training focus
superawesomness wrote:
It seems like last year she started and ended strong but had a rough time in the middle. Don't know why (maybe health related or overtraining or something else), but it does not appear that she has been doing much wrong by sticking with Vigil
In the interview Brenda gave post-race after the 2014 5th Avenue mile, she stated the reason for her rough time during the middle of the season was a combination of a lot races overseas combined with all the travel in between. She went to Europe twice during the season and with the extra races and travel got really tired going into US nationals. Said it was good learning experience during an off-championship year.
Here's the link to the interview. The interviewer's question and her response on the rough middle to her season start around 0:26 into the interview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jERxFSJ-ddEBrenda is fat. It's pretty gross.
She is legit pretty chubby.
bobby ssss wrote:
Xfit_guy_the_real_1 wrote:Who?
If you do not know who Brenda is then get off of this thread. You are only showing your ignorance.
People like you make Brenda more famous.
Most of the people responding are runners, they understand that workout and are probably capable running the times Brenda has. That is a workout I would give to a 4:15 miler and/or sub-15 5ker. I would not be too shocked if Flanagan or Huddle posted that workout, but for an 800m runners that is definitely a man-sized workout. With that said, most people are always surprised when they see elite athletes workouts.
Vigil knows exactly what he is doing, in getting his athlete ready. He also monitors them to make sure they are physiologically absorbing the training he is prescribing and adjusts accordingly. If you want to medal you can't do it learning to run slowly
You have to be ready to run quality rounds and recover. The armchairs don't have nor will ever have a clue as to what Vigil is doing. I recommend to them to go to one of his lectures and learn. Because what you don't know is alot..
Say what you will, this is atypical for an 800 meter runner. Its like maybe she is still open to possible focusing on the 5000 if she pops a big one?