keeping up with the lead pack? serious question

Remind us - what level are you at? Are you in HS? There was a day my freshman year of HS when I decided I was tired of dawdling along with the people who didn't care about improving, so I decided to start running with the faster runners. Maybe it would have been smarter to work my way up gradually, but at the time I needed to reset my training. Maybe you can't start doing all your runs with the fast guys - but starting to do part of some runs with them, and gradually increasing how much you do? Yeah, that might work.

Adding to the convo wrote:

Except you said to do it basically every hard workout, which is a recipe for disaster. Efforts where you push yourself to the brink of failure should be more rare.

Except I never said that. My exact post below:

"Racing wise, if they are close to your goal time, go for it - that's racing and you may even end up with a PR. You can always slow down if you need to, plus it's fun being in the leading pack.

Training, you can try for intervals and tempos, but I would never do that for a long run or easy run."

Racing is racing and you aren't bound by any measure of VDOT or some other formulaic nonsense when you're racing.

In training, I said he can try. One of the most important aspects of being a successful runner, and succeeding in life in general, is not to bind yourself to some pre-conceived sense of limitation. You can only achieve what you believe you are capable of achieving. And what does the OP have to lose by pushing himself a bit harder in his next workout? OK maybe he'll go too fast and will be shot for the rest of the workout. OK lesson learned, don't do that again, or don't push as hard next time. The important lesson is that he needs to try, and not be told by some stupid book what pace he should be running at.

I'm pretty sure the races lined up well for Brannen and Willis, who were bred on hammering themselves with interval sessions.

Distance running is a problem. Easy to blame intervals, but if there was an easy answer we wouldn't be here right now. We can point to differences in the way the Africans train and how someone like Goucher or maybe Ritz trained to gain some insight, but there really is no easy answer. All we know for sure is that our system isn't competitive in producing top-tier distance athletes.

formerD1 wrote:

Yes and I read his book and think it is helpful to the vast majority of runners out there.

But then I trained with/went to school with the most successful international runners to come out of the US college system in the past decade (excluding Rupp, I think you can guess you the others are) and ALL of our targets were based off of goal time and the pace of our competitors. We weren't always blitzing at goal/competitor pace but we did so often. And guess what? They went off to set national records and win medals.

I don't think malmo wrote a book, but he did run D1 just like you, except that he was an all-american a few times, and didn't quit running after college.

malmo wrote:

somebloke wrote:

This thread has awful advice. I just got cancer from it.

Agreed. A convention of idiots here.

OP, train at your level, not someone else's. You will never get better by hanging on faster runners as long as you can. You will only end up trashing yourself and wondering why you're not improving.

This. I don't know why anyone would post anything different.

My coach would only put up the pace (200/400/800 or whatever the repetitions were for the day) for the top guy (1:50 guy). I, not being dumb, would adjust those times to fit me. My teammates, 1:58 guys, would blast the first 3/4 reps and be trashed. You don't get better from being trashed. You get better from running within your level, recovering and doing it all over again.

I'm glad you're a fan of his. It was a while back, I read his training program somewhere back in the day, maybe it was on the internet I don't recall. If he didn't write a book but instead wrote his training program on the internet, then I stand corrected. It sounded like a good solid program that most HS athletes could benefit from. College and professional athletes obviously don't follow Malmo, and certainly the Africans do not.

The point I am making, is that African runners often run at goal pace (to prepare for world record runs), as have current national record holders like the ones I trained with. I tend to be biased towards believing the Africans are doing something right. They are dominating in everything from the 800m all the way to the marathon. Nobody even comes close. And like I said, they train at goal pace (did I say "always?" No).

And why this emphasis on "goal pace" as opposed to running with people faster than them? BECAUSE THERE IS NOBODY FASTER THAN THEM. So they have to run against a ghost in essence, which to them is goal pace. In abstract terms, what the Africans are doing is the same exact thing as what OP is proposing to do (running at goal pace, except in OP's case, there are actual people who are running at his goal pace).

That's funny, I ran 1:50 and qualified for nationals in HS basically thrashing every interval workout with only goals for the reps. In my D1 program we had a generic baseline for the time we should be hitting for each rep. If we went faster, nobody said a word. If we went slower, then people would start asking questions. Or they would just tell you to sit out the next rep and try again.

Our progression had a method, but the individual reps were basically ad hoc, and we weren't beholden to any exact formula which we absolutely had to follow at all times (I.e., you MUST run x reps at y time with z rest). We improvised all the time, adding or taking away reps for individual runners, adjusting times and splits as needed. And as I said, our program created Olympians and national record holders and legitimate world class elite athletes. From my understanding, this is sort of like how the Africans train. They hop in and out of workouts, add stuff on the fly that they want to work on, all based on feeling and instinct. And guess what, it works.

Interesting anecdote:

Imagine having Willis, Sullivan, Brannen and Webb on the same track doing a workout together. Actually no, you don't need to imagine that because it actually happened.

When doing workouts, how do you think it plays out?

According to some:

"OK Sullie, you're a 3:31 guy, Nate you're 5 seconds slower, Nick you're slow as crap (comparatively he was in those days) and Webb same deal as Nate, so here are your VDOTs and your interval times based on your current ability level so let's do this right!"

What really happened:

All out racing every rep, even though someone like Nick Willis had no business running at Sullivan's pace. Guess what happened to Nick Willis?

I didn't go to Michigan, but I was lucky enough to do workouts with them at Michigan.

You're full of shit. If you actually went to this un-named fantasy college you'd have named it. You didn't.

Lol right, let me provide identifying information about myself to an internet forum full of randoms and nobodies.

I will say for sure, that if any of Willis, Brannen, Sullivan or Webb are on here, they would know exactly who I am based on the time frame and based on the fact that there was literally only one 1:50 800m HS student who ran with them during that time. I spent many a time at the house the distance guys shared off of Packard. I will forever remember the image of Webb sitting on the recliner drinking his Bud Lite comparing the caloric difference between a Budweiser and a Bud Lite with a big smile on his face. I was too young to drink then (I guess we all were) but I actually obeyed the law.

formerD1 wrote:

Lol right, let me provide identifying information about myself to an internet forum full of randoms and nobodies.

I will say for sure, that if any of Willis, Brannen, Sullivan or Webb are on here, they would know exactly who I am based on the time frame and based on the fact that there was literally only one 1:50 800m HS student who ran with them during that time. I spent many a time at the house the distance guys shared off of Packard. I will forever remember the image of Webb sitting on the recliner drinking his Bud Lite comparing the caloric difference between a Budweiser and a Bud Lite with a big smile on his face. I was too young to drink then (I guess we all were) but I actually obeyed the law.

Ellerton?

FormerD1 is so full of shit it's hilarious.

It's funny you mention the Africans, because Brother Colm and Renato both preach the exact opposite of what you're preaching here.

And if you need an even clearer picture:

You have Sage standing around in his jeans flirting with some girl on the women's team. Lamb is walking around trying to be nice to everyone - friendly guy. Greenless is sitting expressionless (like always) in front of the tv, not saying much. You have Brannen laughing with a big grin on his face. Seany Moore is just being a normal dude, maybe a bit too serious, some may say a bit of a d-bag, but whatever I thought he was cool. There was a black kid, more of a mid-distance guy, man he was either shy or very awkward. Can't remember the name. Rondell something I think.

The thing about all of these guys (barring maybe Sage, who was always trying to be the cool guy, even during meets) were stone serious in practice and really pushed themselves way past whatever pace the VDOT would have told them to go.

I actually had a conversation with another "famous" internet coach, and asked why elites don't follow his program. He straight up admitted, his method and the others you see on the internet (Jack Daniels cough cough) are meant for hobby joggers only. Elites and D1 athletes' bodies are so much better conditioned for punishment that all the formulas go out the window and you can push them harder with lower risk of injury than you can the average hobby jogger. For elites, the emphasis is on RACING, not setting PRs or trying to gradually improve your time. It is about knowing how to run fast, how to handle pain and how to go for guts or glory.

These are all jumbles of memories from over a decade ago, when I was being recruited by Michigan and other schools and had the chance to run with some great runners. We kept in touch even though we went our separate ways and whenever we were in each others' neck of the woods we tried to get together to train together. Anyone who personally knows any of those guys knows I got the essence of their personalities down.

Uh huh:

Renato:

"But there were no secrets, in any case. So when we met each time, for example, one could tell, ‘I use this system.’ And in the minds of the others was, ‘This is a stupid system!’ But after three days somebody tried to use the same system with some modification. And next month there was a report of what happened, and this was the system for growing all together."

"Canova used trial and error to learn, in the process discovering the distinction between durably successful and ephemerally unsuccessful methodologies"

Translation: THERE IS NO FING SYSTEM

"What all of this means, according to Canova, is that more often than not self-limitations are the inhibiting factors to achievement"

""Listen, this is in two years the final type of training that you have to do. 250 kilometers every week; this is the type of intensity, blah, blah, blah..’ He looks at this and says, ‘No, no, I cannot try, because it is not possible to recover.’ And in their mind, they suppose it is not possible to recover, O.K.?

before you did not have the courage to try to do this. You become very much stronger because maybe you are able to increase your training by 50 percent. If I am able mentally, working on the psychology of the athletes, to bring them in any case to increasing 50 percent—because it’s not true that you can’t not recover. It’s not true! This is the problem. So, it is not a direct effect, but is a placebo effect of the minds of the athletes that allowed him to train more."

Translation: THERE ARE NO LIMITS TO YOUR TRAINING OTHER THAN MENTAL

COLM

"People come to find the secret, but you know what the secret is? That you think there's a secret. There is no secret."

Translation: THERE IS NO FING SECRET FORMULA

None of the Africans have a clue what VDOT is. They all run on feel. If they want to push it they push it. If they are burnt out they take it easy.

Jack Daniels is that you? You worried that I'm going to expose your system for the glorified hobby jogging training program that it is?

No elites use your program or has even heard of it. You can't replace feel, instinct and good coaching with an internet formula.

Oh my goodness you're mentally unstable. I don't even know what a VDOT is. You are conflating entirely different concepts. There is no sense trying to reason with someone so scatterbrained and paranoid.

Good bye and good luck 'racing every interval of every workout' like I'm sure Nick Willis totally did. Tell him I said hi.

Here we have yet another internet psychologist who has absolutely no clue what he is talking about.

Wow, are people actually suggesting to OP that he should run all of his workouts based off his current race pace? That's completely backwards thinking. We use the times from our workouts to get a rough idea of what we can run in a race and that's why we push as hard we can during our interval sessions so that our race times go down, not the other way around.

To OP,

The most important lesson is that you are not the sum of your race performances. You are the sum of your workouts. If you feel good enough to push and run with the faster guys then give it a shot. Don't do it all the time, only when it feels right and you feel up for the challenge. If you crash don't freak out just ease it back and then give it another go later when you feel good again.

I am with Malmo on this one.

That is not to say that you should absolutely never hang on the back of a pack in a track or tempo session, but you need to pick your spots.

If the pace of the guys in front of you is just a little bit faster than your pace based on current fitness, you will be fine hanging on to them, in part because it is easier to draft off of someone than to run solo (both physically and mentally). It might also open your mind up to the idea that you are capable of running faster times than you have.

But, were you to runner faster than you are otherwise physically fit to run on a consistent basis, the outcome will be one of two things: either you are going to blow up before the end of your workout and not get the benefit of the workout, or you are going to beat your body up more than you need to in order to get the benefit of the workout.