Anyone read Alberto Salazar’s Guide to Road Racing?

Leirbag wrote:

I have Mo Farah's full training from Steve Magness when he was publishing his blog.

Would be great if you could post it

Barrister III wrote:

The sessions are nothing ground breaking. The medium intervals are 6x800 or 5x1000 and the long ones are 4x1200, 3x1 mile, etc. for the 5k program. I can look up the exact details later when I have more time and get back to you on it. The problem I have with it is that the book doesn't provide a lot of guidance on how to structure the programs (when to run what workouts). For new or inexperienced runners, that can be a big problem. It does offer guidance on the numbers of reps to run (based on experience and fitness levels) but I don't recall their being a detailed plan, rather he discusses the types of training one would use for 5k, 10k, etc.

Thanks

What were the recovery intervals

The main mistake I did when training was doing reps with too long a recovery. Its that training from 30 years ago which is out of date unless you are doing all out speed work

ukathleticscoach wrote:

Horrible Horwill wrote:

Brits will never understand the moderate workouts of modern coaching. Horwill's schedules with 5 puking days a week don't work when you're not allowed to take the steroids that propelled Coe, Ovett and Cram into fame.

What like doing a workout after a race which burned out Rupp despite his testo boost every Tuesday!

Have you ever seen the session Geb and Bekele used to do

You're just as clueless as I expected.

Horrible Horwill wrote:

ukathleticscoach wrote:

What like doing a workout after a race which burned out Rupp despite his testo boost every Tuesday!

Have you ever seen the session Geb and Bekele used to do

You're just as clueless as I expected.

Try responding to the my actual comments not making lame insults

It's not worth wasting time on someone who thinks that running moderate workouts would exclude hard workouts. But that's the Horwill legacy. Run till you puke. Every time. And expect that you can push yourself even harder in races. Well, it doesn't work. And that's why Mo got the hell out of the UK and sticks with Al Sal whatever that incompetent UKA says.

Horrible Horwill wrote:

Brits will never understand the moderate workouts of modern coaching. Horwill's schedules with 5 puking days a week don't work when you're not allowed to take the steroids that propelled Coe, Ovett and Cram into fame.

Ovett's coach as a senior was Harry Wilson. Horwill had nothing to do with Ovett. Try again later.

Straight from the book: Medium intervals 4-8x600 meters, 3-6x800 meters, 10-15 sec per mile faster than 5k pace, 400 recovery on the 600s, 600 recovery on the 800s. Long intervals of 3-5x1000, 2-4x1200, and 2-3x1mile, pace is 2-5 seconds per mile faster than 5k pace, recovery is 600 on the 1000s and 1200s, and 800 meters on the miles.

I did reread it and he does provide some guidance on scheduling, such as no more then 2 speed workouts a week, staring with "easier" ones first (not slower), cutting a speed workout just before a race, doing an easier one as your first after a race, and basing speed work on your base mileage as well.

Barrister III wrote:

Straight from the book: Medium intervals 4-8x600 meters, 3-6x800 meters, 10-15 sec per mile faster than 5k pace, 400 recovery on the 600s, 600 recovery on the 800s. Long intervals of 3-5x1000, 2-4x1200, and 2-3x1mile, pace is 2-5 seconds per mile faster than 5k pace, recovery is 600 on the 1000s and 1200s, and 800 meters on the miles.

I did reread it and he does provide some guidance on scheduling, such as no more then 2 speed workouts a week, staring with "easier" ones first (not slower), cutting a speed workout just before a race, doing an easier one as your first after a race, and basing speed work on your base mileage as well.

Surely the recoveries are too long for senior athletes.

The constant mentioning of 5km pace is amateurish and gives inaccurate recoveries if you compare a 15 min 5km runner with a 25 minute runner. Why does he not mention mile pace 3km pace. It's because its aimed a sub club/college level athletes. Makes sense commercially as there are millions more of them I suppose

800m recovery on a mile. At jogging pace that's going to be 4-5 mins

I've trained with Ethiopian athletes. As an example they did 12 x 400m with 45 secs recovery. They would do some easier sessions like zig zags (mind you they did 40) but that would be on an easy day after a tougher training session the day before.

Another guy in the group mentioned he could keep up with the better runners on short reps to 400m but struggled on reps. He then went on to set this session of 6 x 400m with full lap jog recovery the week after!

If all you needed was that book Farah would have bought it and stayed in the UK. No way is he following that type of training

dippity don wrote:

Horrible Horwill wrote:

Brits will never understand the moderate workouts of modern coaching. Horwill's schedules with 5 puking days a week don't work when you're not allowed to take the steroids that propelled Coe, Ovett and Cram into fame.

Ovett's coach as a senior was Harry Wilson. Horwill had nothing to do with Ovett. Try again later.

Here is an article on Ovetts training from his former training partner. Note 'Our hill sessions were very intensive but

Steve revelled in this type of work. The long

interval session in the park was rotated each

week from the fairly flat course to the hilly

course. Some weeks we would run 8 x 1000m

but usually it was 6 reps. Our recovery ranged

from 30 secs to 60 secs but there was no set rule

- if we felt good we shortened the recovery. It

was a fast jog recovery. If I felt good I'd shorten

the recovery even more, to make sure that Steve

was working his body to its extremes. We

never worried about training too hard'

Maybe the best types of sessions to run are very much down to the individual athlete and how they respond and adapt to training. Maybe you have an exceptional an athlete who is some sort of superman and can train through very intense workouts over a long period of time but even among world-class athletes there are variations.

I am a huge fan of Ovett and all of his running achievements but if one looks at his career objectively he did seem to decline a lot after age 30. Maybe this was just natural (and of course it happens to a lot of runners) and it had nothing to do with his training.

However, if you look at someone like Lagat, who apparently trains more moderately without killing himself (if you believe the newpaper reports) he was still running extremely fast and winning world titles well into his 30s, and he is still low to mid 13 mins for 5k in his 40s. Also Farah (though I have not read details about his traning) he is now well into his 30s and still ran 3 mins 28 this season. Maybe there is a fine judgement involved in not training too intensely which allows progression over several years. The "macho" approach of training as hard as possible running faster reps, shorter recoveries etc may not be optimal from this point of view.

Some good points. Ovett was never the same after he ran into some railings in 1981. Then to my mind he compunded this by changing his training from running xc in winter to training and racing in Australia. He also was virtually world class from the age of 17 so actually had a long career in total.

However, I don't think his training was that extreme. He was doing those 1,000m on grass and I don't think he would have been going flat out on each session.

Lagat basically trained hard to get to the top then reduced his training as a maintainance program. If you are running 19 mins for 5km you need to put sone work in and long reps somewhere. One of the guys did 2 sub 3 marathons 1 week apart so there is where you need to cut back!

The problem I found with too long recoveries is you do the reps too fast and it bares no relation to races. 30 yrs ago we used to do a 4 x 1000m lap of marked route with full lap recovery. I was doing them at a my mile pace rather than 5km pace. Even with a 400m recovery I could do them a lot faster than 5km pace. You don't want to do all training workouts at race pace with shorter recoveries but you need to do some

Correct sir. Salazar notes in the book these workouts are aimed at recreational runners (the majority of the population) versus the Elite. The recovery runs are a bit on the long side but for Joe or Jane jogger, probably just right.

Barrister III wrote:

Correct sir. Salazar notes in the book these workouts are aimed at recreational runners (the majority of the population) versus the Elite. The recovery runs are a bit on the long side but for Joe or Jane jogger, probably just right.

From my experience leading a mixed group they don't push themselves that hard and usually ready to go after 2 mins.

ukathleticscoach wrote:

Leirbag wrote:

I have Mo Farah's full training from Steve Magness when he was publishing his blog.

Would be great if you could post it

So is this guy going to post it?

ukathleticscoach wrote:

Some runners at my club are training for 5km. They are experienced runners and their level is from 17 flat – 20 mins 5km and 2:48 – 3:10 marathon

Assess the following workout as training for the 5km:

6 x 400m full lap jog recovery

5km Pace less 25 secs per mile. So 17:25 5km = 76 secs per lap

They are regularly doing this session as training for 5km races on the basis that ‘its in Salazar’s book’.

Classic Alberto strategy says that you should stick a syringe in your ass for best performance. If you can't find a syringe, take a dick. Either-way it improves performance.

ukathleticscoach wrote:

If you are running 19 mins for 5km you need to put sone work in and long reps somewhere. One of the guys did 2 sub 3 marathons 1 week apart so there is where you need to cut back!

The problem I found with too long recoveries is you do the reps too fast and it bares no relation to races. 30 yrs ago we used to do a 4 x 1000m lap of marked route with full lap recovery. I was doing them at a my mile pace rather than 5km pace. Even with a 400m recovery I could do them a lot faster than 5km pace. You don't want to do all training workouts at race pace with shorter recoveries but you need to do some

Don't get me wrong, it does seem ridiculous of me to try and fault the running career of someone like Ovett!

For the group of runners you are coaching and what you write about them I agree with you in that it does look like they would benefit from some longer reps with sustained running at something like 5k or even 10k pace with either a shorter or a more active recovery (eg instead of a 400m jog or 1km jog do the recovery at something like an easy or steady run pace). Then you have to evaluate how they respond - not easy when you have so many runners to coach. Also if your runners race stuff like cross country and 10ks frequently you may have to reduce the frequency and/or intensity of their hard training sessions.

I see your point about taking too long for the recoveries (and therefore running them too fast) on your longer rep session that you used to do. But it is tricky to look at just that session in isolation from all of the other training you did and say that workout was not right for you. As you say you need a bit of variety in the hard sessions that you try. But I still think there can be quite a lot of individual variation on the best recovery/intensity for certain sessions which is difficult to get right. Using myself as an example, I seemed to benefit a lot from taking a longer recovery from my longer reps workouts (eg instead of taking 1 min to 90 secs after a 5 min rep, I took 3 to 4 mins) after many years of trying the "classical" short recovery approach. I just seemed to be able to relax a bit more in the longer reps (I did not really run them too much faster than with the shorter recoveries) which helped me somehow. Again you must look at the overall context of the training: I was not really a "fast" guy in terms of sprinting speed but my steady runnning days were probably fairly quick compared with others. Also as you said with Ovett, maybe a better approach would be to start with longer recoveries and then gradually reduce the recoveries naturally without forcing too much.

I guess there are others reading this thread who are better qualified coaches or runners than myself who could also chime in. It would be great to have some decent training threads going again. If not you could try looking at Keith Livingstone's book on Lydiard training. Towards the end he gives some examples of athletes he has coached and how they decided on the best mix of intensity and recovery for their reps sessions to suit the individual.

Good post, thanks

Leirbag wrote:

I have Mo Farah's full training from Steve Magness when he was publishing his blog.

Man, if you have Farah's training schedule, can you post it for the rest of us? Thanks!

Evan "All" Day wrote:

ukathleticscoach wrote:

Some runners at my club are training for 5km. They are experienced runners and their level is from 17 flat – 20 mins 5km and 2:48 – 3:10 marathon

Assess the following workout as training for the 5km:

6 x 400m full lap jog recovery

5km Pace less 25 secs per mile. So 17:25 5km = 76 secs per lap

They are regularly doing this session as training for 5km races on the basis that ‘its in Salazar’s book’.

Classic Alberto strategy says that you should stick a syringe in your ass for best performance. If you can't find a syringe, take a dick. Either-way it improves performance.

Sounds like you've tried it. What kind of times did you run?