why do Jack Daniels M pace workouts destroy me?

800 dude wrote:

The lack of race pace work is probably the biggest problem with a Daniels approach. No matter your distance, race pace is the most important training that you do. So it's probably not a coincidence that high school cross country runners tend to do well off of Daniels. His I-pace is pretty close to race pace for those athletes.

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I don't understand your observation here. Dr.Daniels specifically states that I pace should be based off of your VDOT value of your most recent 5k/10k race. If you have never raced or don't have a race to go by, then run a time trial so that a VDOT value can be established.

Your I pace should be based off of YOUR I PACE, and not his recommended I pace ( if it does not suit your effort). It' a recipe that you season to taste if the recommended seasoning does not meet your taste buds.

It appears that the consternation is with Dr. Daniel's values or recommended paces, as opposed to the actual workouts......Our energy levels are not universal, so our efforts will be dissimilar. Dr. Daniels has this understanding, so his values are not one dimensional numbers that should be exacted. But for some reason people look over the quality of the workouts, and get caught in an unnecessary web of confusion over the numbers ( which can be modified to the efforts and needs of the runner).

Also realize that Books like Daniel's are by necessity, "workout programming", not coaching. If you are struggling, you need the latter.

Why do you think I’m predominantly a sugar burner more so than other runners? Is that something that can be changed? One thing I’ve found is that morning runs are without a doubt always an epic disaster. I bonk a few miles from home, and then crawl back. I drink the latest coolest cardio sugar drinks beforehand and that mitigates it to a degree. I even try eating moments before bed the night before.AG Hero! Ha ha! No way! Maybe if it was a race that no one entered in because there was a cooler race going on. Getting crushed by kids takes getting used to? Well… I guess I got used to it a while ago!!! There are several HS women runners here who pass me while I’m doing T workouts, and they are chatting with one another while they do it.I hear you on connecting with innate physiology. Seems like a fancy way of saying why we run. I gravitate towards 5k-10k cuz I enjoy getting out for 45-75 minutes. The sweet spot for my mind. Maybe not for my times though. :(Do you care to elaborate? I’d be interested. References to literature or studies? I’m really all ears and take no offense at anything.

Gotta Gettit wrote:

You are a FT-dominant sugar burner who is trying to be a distance runner. You would be happier in a basic way if you focused on 400-1500 and drop M runs entirely. The tradeoff is that shorter stuff gets more technical (including drills, plyos, weights, etc.), and you can't be the AG 5K hero every weekend. Going from winning small local 5/10Ks to getting your butt handed to you by undertrained HS and college kids at track meets takes some getting used to. But there is no feeling better than finally connecting with your innate physiology.

One more point on this: Until the third edition, Daniels advocated mixing up your tempo efforts. Some T workouts should be straight 20 minute runs at T pace. Some should T efforts should be cruise intervals at T pace but with increased volume since you are getting short rest periods, and others should be done as continuous runs in excess of 20 minutes, with the pace depending on the duration. See Table 7.1 in the 2nd edition of his book. He also advocates progression runs as an alternative to straight tempo runs (although he doesn't push these much). Each of these would allow for training across a wide variety of paces - which negates one of the biggest criticisms.Again, as others have mentioned, this is a book written for mass consumption with the intention that it be easily applicable to as many people as possible.

well,. wrote:

What people seem to forget is that Daniel´s running formula is written for the masses, so therefore it will be simplified. When Daniels coached top runners like Jerry Lawson not even he himself followed those principles.

Like the poster above said: all successful coaches use a continuum of paces, but that concept would probably be to complicated for a HS coach or a serious non- elite runner without a coaching education.

Not opposed to coaching. I even know someone that used someone from Jack Daniels company. Can’t remember the name. I followed it with interest. Sounded like it was a “here’s a copy of these tables. Here are some workouts. Any questions?” He ended up doing the 5-10k program with paces based on his last road race. I didn’t see the benefit for me. He had a few pains, he got some drills to do to help. That said, their experience sounded the same as everyone else’s at other services. Sounded awesome if you were new to running. I’ve actually recommended it to friends doing couch to whatever.I’m not even sure what I’d tell a coach my goals are. Run through the woods real fast, and maybe hopefully someday, mid run drop down on all fours, transform into a wolf, join a pack and spend my days cavorting in the mountains until it gets cold and then I morph back into a human cuz I do like my morning coffee? Is there a coach or plan for that? I’d get started on that plan this afternoon. Until then, I’ll do plans based on my most common runs and distances…I’m aware that plans are a guide that need tweaked. I’m a bit of a fool when it comes to tweaking for my needs (injuries prove this). I figured asking for advice from anonymous posters on the internet was probably better than making stuff up. Good advice for life, really.

Gotta Gettit wrote:

Also realize that Books like Daniel's are by necessity, "workout programming", not coaching. If you are struggling, you need the latter.

As a side note, based on input here, I’m going to cut back on distance of M pace stuff and/or up my weekly mileage. It seems to be of some debate as to whether or not I should do them at all. I’ve had great luck with JD, so I’ll do them, but with said tweaks and the awareness that maybe I should drop them all together. Apparently the 2nd edition of his book supports this – I haven’t read it.Other than this issue, I feel like if I stick to his plans I do well and I don’t plateau. Probably because there is so much room for improvement!!!

scorpion_runner wrote:

800 dude wrote:The lack of race pace work is probably the biggest problem with a Daniels approach. No matter your distance, race pace is the most important training that you do. So it's probably not a coincidence that high school cross country runners tend to do well off of Daniels. His I-pace is pretty close to race pace for those athletes.

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I don't understand your observation here. Dr.Daniels specifically states that I pace should be based off of your VDOT value of your most recent 5k/10k race. If you have never raced or don't have a race to go by, then run a time trial so that a VDOT value can be established.

Yes, Daniels has workout paces (I, R, T, and M) that are based off of recent races. That's not the same thing as a race-pace workout, i.e., 4x1.5 miles at 10k pace, for a 10k runner.

Yep, your need for sugar confirmed. Been there, got the hypoglycemic T-shirt. The only viable long-term solution that I have found is low-carb/high-fat diet combined with intermittent fasting. Google those terms and your life may be changed. Mine certainly was. Painful a bit thte first month or so, but gets very easy once you get the carbs under control (under 100g/day for me) You will learn to eat whole, real food, not processed cereals and other glycemic nightmares.

It effects not just your performance on longer running, but mental clarity throughout the day, and all manner of issues relating to chronic inflammation, including injuries. My life is very different (better) today at 60 than at 30,40 or 50.

As far as finding your event, I came into masters as a former road guy, and did well (won my first road race, a small half marathon), but my progress quickly stalled and I ran poorly above a mile in the heat. I entered all-comers track meets and eventually found my place in the 400-1500 events (I continued road and cross, and did well, but not at the national AG level I had at the shorter events.

Again, I had to re-educate myself on training, as Daniel's wasn't that helpful at the shorter distances, and like I said, while I could beat all the other local guys in my AG, I was usually dusted by young guys who were mediocre college or HS runners. However I learned to love the feeling of speed. Even though I do a few summer ultras now, and run 50 miles/week year round, I still return to the track on a weekly basis to turn the wheels. Good luck on your journey, it will be fun as long as you prioritize health and fun.

One other thing to consider, Fastjogger. One could argue (and I would tend to) that M pace workouts are the toughest. This is not easy pace shuffling. You are running about a minute per mile faster than easy pace, and over a long distance.

This will work anyone's body.

I think M pace, or thereabouts, is very beneficial, and in an all-around sense...though it can be an acquired taste.

All the best...

My technical tip would be to get a HR monitor and go to Phil Maffetone's site for how to do your easy runs for REAL recovery and aerobic development. Build a big healthy base, then come back to Daniels et al and you should see a massive improvement, and freedom from aches and pains.

But there's actually no good evidence that running at exactly those paces will make you faster or that running at in between paces is a less effective way to train.

The VDOT tables assume a trained athlete. Otherwise there isn't a predictable relationship between all of the paces. And if you are decently trained, and your weight isn't fluctuating, then you will, in fact, be close to your VO2max at all times. The main bumps that trained athlete gets from VO2max training isn't from increased VO2max. It's from increased anaerobic buffering and neurological training that leads to greater economy.

In any event, I absolutely think Daniels is a great reference and starting point for high school coaches because it gives you a cookie-cutter approach that's easily adaptable to large groups, and it eliminates guesswork from prescribing workout paces. That said, I think most of us on this thread are talking about the best way to train, not a "pretty decent for a beginner" way to train.

Lactic acid absolutely increases over baseline easy running levels while you're running marathon pace. That's just a fact. It obviously doesn't progressively "build-up," because, by definition, that only happens beyond your lactate threshold (AnT, LT2, or whatever you call it). But a decent rule of thumb is that marathon pace is at "aerobic threshold," where blood lactate concentration is in the ballpark of 2 mmol. There's a lot of variation between individuals, where some can run marathons at much higher lactate concentrations without seeing any significant increases during the course of the event.

Marathon pace workouts are killing you because it is a PREDICTION of your actual marathon pace.

The VDOT tables should be used as a very rough guide since some athletes will fall away from predictive mean (33% of runners will vary greater than 2 +/- SD and 66% of runners will fall within the 1 +/-SD).

I imagine your actual marathon pace is much lower than prescribed/predicted by VDOT tables.

Also training response and recovery vary as well from prescribed coaching methods and you will have to adjust your training accordingly. The best way to is track your progress over a season and tinker with it to optimize your performance.

If nothing else, we can certainly agree that you are much, much better at quoting and breaking up posts on this site.

wow! that's interesting. where did you get those numbers? is there an online article?thanks for the info.

run free & learn wrote:

The VDOT tables should be used as a very rough guide since some athletes will fall away from predictive mean (33% of runners will vary greater than 2 +/- SD and 66% of runners will fall within the 1 +/-SD).

Smoove wrote:

If nothing else, we can certainly agree that you are much, much better at quoting and breaking up posts on this site.

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(qualifier: not sure how much of that works...I'm not a coder)

My main issue with M pace is that for a lot of people it's the most variable training pace, as in, at the beginning of a cycle or if you're not doing high mileage in general, your real M pace is probably quite a bit slower than what you're getting from a pace chart. Some marathon training programs handle this by not having you do any M pace running until much later, some handle it by having you do very short M pace runs in the beginning.

Instead of either of those things, I'd suggest learning how to do long-ish progression runs by feel, instead of a strict M pace run based on some number in a book. Start off easy, gradually get into it, look for a cruising speed in the middle miles, and if you haven't gone too hard in the middle, you'll enjoy cranking the last mile or two.

Use your GPS but don't look at mile splits until you're done. It's not a race, it's training and feedback.

The benefit of this is that you get a good workout while also learning how to read your body's cues, which it sounds like you could use. Also, since it's based on feel, if you're feeling a little blown out from a previous workout or race or life or whatever, you'll just run a little slower, rather than trying to force yourself to hit an arbitrary pace goal. As long as you don't cheat by looking at your watch and forcing the pace, of course.

Magness doesn't push distances much further than 200m because he does a good job of mixing it into other things and doesn't need to spend a dedicated workout on it. He has guys do pick ups at the ends of runs sometimes (I do this) and also does hill circuits where you blend track stuff and short alactic sprints (I also do this). It is hard for me to do the hill circuits with my Divsion 1 team I coach because we don't have the benefit of having hills in such close proximity to the track. From personal experience, it gets you fit very fast. Also, one of the other coaches in my conference employs that and has great success (has people going to Eugene for Nationals next week).

I do think adding the specific work makes it totally more suitable to the event you wish to train for. Also, I would probably lightly introduce it a little earlier to aid in a smoother transition. For what it is worth, Daniels got a lot right. His tempo work and R-pace stuff does a great job of supporting the athlete to better handle training at the specific speed. He just doesn't do enough for that specific speed and also neglects some of the other ways to better support the athlete.

The Daniels philosophy is sound. However, his program lacks things that other training programs have brought to the forefront of the sport. For someone serious about coaching or taking themselves to the next level, I question the wisdom of buying his book JUST for the sake of having a training program you can plug yourself into. I recommend reading the actual book and not only look at the charts for the answer. A big reason why Daniels was popular was also because he wrote in a way that made sense. The PRINCIPLES he preaches are very good and really help with understanding other programs that do a better job with the complexities and nuances of competitive training.

I rode Daniels' principles to a 14:19 5000 in college (as a walk on with no running experience before college), and have applied them in my come back as a masters runner, achieving roughly similar success when you each grade my masters performances (including a masters title at a major marathon).

I guess you could argue that it worked for me in college because I was relatively untrained when I started applying his principles to my training (via my coach)., But that doesn't explain why I had so much success as a more experienced runner appliance principles. Again, I would note that I've applied his principles, and not simply follow the program (although with my marathon training I followed his program pretty damn closely).

I guess we could also argue that his training just meshes well with my natural strengths and weaknesses. I can't argue that one, but I will say that as a coach I have empliyed his principles with a fair degree of success as well.

At the end of day, you (as a coach or athlete) have to recognize that not all runners are the same, but that the underlying philosophy that Daniels advocates makes a lot of sense. Take that and you apply it to the particular facts and circumstances of your athletes - that's what Daniels would advocate (and not the blind application of a plan at the back of a book).

The rationale I gave for the predictive VDOT tables is based on statistics and understanding of how to interpret the predictions with regard to individual responses. If you go to the original studies which is VDOT is based on you will see how much variation was within the original runners tested and how it influenced the prediction model (VDOT tables). You can look at the SD or 95%CI...this will give you an idea of how much variability there was with respect to VDOT.

If you look at any studies of exercise performance and running ability there is significant variation (SD or 95% CI) even if a study shows 3-4% mean improvement or is strongly correlated with improved performance.

I implore everyone on letsrun.com to take a statistics course. It will help you understand how to interpret data and results from research studies.