Daniels' training with vdot discrepancy

You made the right call using the lower estimate from your 5k time. Workouts will be easy, for sure, but you definitely shouldn't be at risk for overtraining. If you tried to work out at the level of your 1500m best, you might run into trouble.

Remember that you want to train at your curent fitness VDOT, not your lifetime best VDOT. Get a few weeks of training in, hop in a race, and you should have an idea of where you're at.

Above post is sound advice

It means that you don't put in the miles that elite runners put In. If you upped your milage to 100 miles a week, your vdots would probably match across the chart, but since you (and most people) don't put in that kind of milage, you don't have the endurance that his chart predicts. Use your vdots numbers as guidelines. Its fine to use the higher vdots number but if you want to use the lower one that's fine too. They aren't that far off. Just do a few workouts and up the speed if it feels too slow

Thanks for the advice. I don't necessarily think this changes your argument, but just to be clear I'm not using my PRs for either estimate (for one thing my PRs are from 17 years ago...). Instead I'm using recent time-trial results for both the 1500m and 5000m.

As an example of why I'm confused about what to do, in one workout early on (before I started to learn a sense of interval pace) I accidentally ran a mile interval faster than my 5k vdot predicts I should be able to race a mile.

Seeker,

Test your level of fitness again. In the book Dr. Daniels gives a suggestion for how to run a time-trial on the track to find your current VDOT. It's been a while since I read the exact method but you're on a track because you want to measure to the nearest 100m.

It's early on in the book. Good luck.

Jimmy21 wrote:

It means that you don't put in the miles that elite runners put In. If you upped your milage to 100 miles a week, your vdots would probably match across the chart, but since you (and most people) don't put in that kind of milage, you don't have the endurance that his chart predicts. Use your vdots numbers as guidelines. Its fine to use the higher vdots number but if you want to use the lower one that's fine too. They aren't that far off. Just do a few workouts and up the speed if it feels too slow

Most elite 5k runners don´t run 100 mpw.

McAdvisor wrote:

Seeker,

Test your level of fitness again. In the book Dr. Daniels gives a suggestion for how to run a time-trial on the track to find your current VDOT. It's been a while since I read the exact method but you're on a track because you want to measure to the nearest 100m.

It's early on in the book. Good luck.

I haven't found mention of time trials but on pg 50 Jack Daniels gives an example of someone whose vdot increases with distance and recommends using the highest vdot. This is the opposite of my situation so I'm still a little worried about using the higher vdot from my 1500 when training for a 5k.

Jimmy21 wrote:

It means that you don't put in the miles that elite runners put In. If you upped your milage to 100 miles a week, your vdots would probably match across the chart, but since you (and most people) don't put in that kind of milage, you don't have the endurance that his chart predicts. Use your vdots numbers as guidelines. Its fine to use the higher vdots number but if you want to use the lower one that's fine too. They aren't that far off. Just do a few workouts and up the speed if it feels too slow

you can make your 1500/5000 line up with way way WAY less than 100mpw. try to keep up.

Daniels does say that it's normal to train at a higher VDOT after 6-8 weeks or so because of increased fitness. So if you're training for a 5K, use your recent time for the initial workouts (like you've done), and after a month or two, if the workouts feel easy, try bumping up to the next VDOT and see how that goes.

OP here. I did the Phase II workouts for 6 weeks and have moved up a vdot level. I'm now in Phase III which is generally two I-pace (VO2max) workouts and a tempo workout each week.

I've found the tempo workouts way more challenging than the interval workouts. In particular the long continuos tempos (e.g. 40min at T-pace plus 8sec/mile) really hurts. Also interval (I-pace) feels too easy and when I stop and take my pulse it's 10-15 beats/min below my max.

All of this is pointing again to threshold being my relative weakness. Knowing this, do I stay the course on the Daniels plan or do I customize it, maybe by doing more tempo work? My instinct is to replace one of the VO2max workouts each week with a T-pace workout like mile cruise intervals (I don't think I could handle a second long tempo every week). Has anyone been through something like this? Thoughts?

Have you raced the 5k at all recently? If not, sub in a local race for the interval session and see where you are. I am a big Daniels advocate, but theory is still theory and nothing tells you how your training is really going like a race. I am thinking that you probably have raced, based on the fact that you say your VDOT has improved by a level.

As to the relative challenge of tempo efforts compared to interval sessions, I think you are going to hear two things from the masses here:

First, that if the tempo efforts are so hard, that you are doing them too fast (or that you are not as fit as you think you are).

Second, that you can drop some of the vo2max workouts because you can maximize vo2max gains over a relatively short period of time (6-8 weeks).

Personally, I suffer the challenges that you do - while intervals and tempo efforts both challenge me, tempo efforts are much more challenging to me than I would expect them to be given the idea that they should feel "comfortably hard" when run at your VDOT dictated pace. While I would agree that this probably indicates that your lactate threshold is probably a relative weakness, I would not abandon the vo2max work. I think it is really important, not just for the physiological benefit, but for the mental benefit of learning what race pace feels like.

One thing to consider is to use the cruise intervals that you suggested as an alternative to your regular tempo run. Cruise intervals typically allow you to increase the volume at T pace a little bit over what you would do if you ran a straight 20 minute tempo run at T pace. Maybe see if you can handle 4 or 5 cruise interval miles (thus increasing the overall volume of T work and adaptation).

Depending on your hardiness, you could also leave the vo2max session in place and work in a second tempo session per week - either on its own or as an integrated part of your long run (say a 12 miler with 20 minutes at tempo pace starting at around the 4 mile mark, or 5 x 5 minutes at T pace broken up with 1 minute at E pace in between).

But at the end of the day, I really have trouble getting away from keeping in the workouts at 5k pace when your goal is to run a fast 5k.

smooth, thanks for the detailed reply.

I haven't actually but since the original 5k time I was working off was a solo time-trial, I thought it was safe to move up a level after 6-weeks. Truth be told, I think under an ideal race on a track I could go race another 20sec faster than I'm training. So that may partially explain why the I-pace is relatively easy but it makes the tempo trouble even more concerning.

I'm leaning toward doing what you describe having a continuous tempo run, an interval session and a cruise interval session:

You mention long runs--that's the one thing I've been skimping on. I semi-regularly run one of my recovery runs to 80-90 min but it's mostly when I feel ok and have the opportunity as opposed to a weekly event. I can't imagine that's causing my tempo-run issues but thought I'd mention it in case it rings a bell in someone's head.

*Smoove

I think you are on to something - it would not surprise me at all to find out that you are doing your interval work too slow. Tempo runs suck for some of us (let the cavalcade of "that's because you are doing it too fast" begin); try switching over to more cruise intervals for a period of time (or the additional cruise interval session) and it might make it more manageable. I find that 5 x 1 mile at 5:20-5:25 w/1:00 is a lot easier than a continuous 20 minutes at 5:20-5:25, at least until about midway through the 4th cruise interval. I would do cruise intervals all of the time but for the fact that I think there are mental benefits to forcing yourself to focus on and maintain your pace through an extended painful stretch of running.

Not surprising to me that you are having difficulty keeping up with the VDOT numbers as you increase distance if you aren't running a long run. Sounds like you need to run more miles instead of focusing only on your workout days.

Mt. Runmore wrote:

Not surprising to me that you are having difficulty keeping up with the VDOT numbers as you increase distance if you aren't running a long run. Sounds like you need to run more miles instead of focusing only on your workout days.

That may be.... To give a little of my back story, I competed in HS and college and kept running/jogging afterwards but didn't do any workouts or any structured training. 13 years of this goes by. About a year ago I find myself with the time in my schedule to put in some base. So for about a year and a half I build my easy mileage back up as high as 80mpw (probably averaged 60+ for a year) and decided it was time to spend a season trying to peak for something. I chose 5k although I'd always been best at the mile.

So I am not emphasizing volume right now but I built something of a base. I'm running about 50mpw now but without a regularly scheduled long run. Is this a fatal flaw in the plan? Should I do what Smoove is recommending and combine a tempo day with the long run? That sounds difficult given that the tempo runs are the ones kicking my ass. Also, what is long? 20% of 50mpw is 10miles. I'm getting that on one of my easy days as it is. I could do more volume but I'd struggle to recover from the workouts. I thought the whole point of periodizing was to shift the focus back and forth between quantity and quality.

I have a PR of 16:09 5K 33:38 10K but have run a 2:39 1000. I have been club running but it looks like according to VDOT I am clearly a middle distance runner.

I would say that for a 5k runner running 50 miles a week, a 10 miler is adequate. I really wouldn't go longer than 12 or 13 at that mileage anyway.

I think most people will agree with your approach given the additional information that you have provided.

The tempo/long run combo does kind of suck, but it is also a great way to get in an extra quality session when you are already trying to balance a vo2max day, a tempo day and a long run and looking to get in another tempo session. I have really only done it in connection with marathon training, but I don't see why it wouldn't work just as well for you in this context.

well behaved wrote:

I have a PR of 16:09 5K 33:38 10K but have run a 2:39 1000. I have been club running but it looks like according to VDOT I am clearly a middle distance runner.

Am I to read that you are not a middle distance runner and the tables are wrong?

Here is something that's always bothered me about the tables. A guy in his prime who runs a 16min 5k will generally run a much faster 800m than a woman who runs 16min in her prime years, yet the vdot tables are the same for these two people. The stock answer to this paradox is that the female runner is more highly trained than the male. Ok fine, but if that's right then is it essentially a training mistake that makes you, me, the hypothetical male runner and a lot of other people covert poorly to longer distances. With the "right" training we should be able to run much faster 5ks than we do but is it true?