How often should you go to "the well" ?

In my opinion, never to maybe once (rarely) in xc. Never in indoor. Maybe once outdoor. Definitely once or twice if a middle distance runner outdoors.

I liked to work in about 6 month training cycles. One starting in mid to late June to peak in October/November for xc. Then another starting in December to peak at the end of May.

I called them Church Workouts. As in, I would tell the runners "not only should you see Jesus (or Allah or Buddha or the Flying Spaghetti Monster) at the end of this workout, but you should be conversing with him."

In cross country, maybe there would be one in the whole cycle. I felt the races would be enough of going to the well. I would prefer to do deception workout with a runner in order to get them to realize they could dig deeper. Like three sets of 4x400 at 5k pace with short rest, but add a fourth set after they went all out on the last 400 of the 3rd set.

In winter, probably never. I would probably have one in mid-March then another in late April. Usually it was geared to 800/1600 pace with tempo running mixed in. From what I recall, I got it out of Jack Daniels' book.

Never in training.

You want to leave training feeling that you could have given a little more. It's training, not a race. Save it for the race.

I go once every two weeks at least

Maybe that's why I'm still running 19:20

Then again 12 months ago I was running 24:40

This is a great issue to discuss and explore, but more importantly a very relevant question at the high school level. Especially for the boys who instinctively want to push/race every hard workout.

What do other HS coaches think? If you use such a workout, how do you structure it into your training?

How long do you think it takes for a serious HS distance runner to fully recover from a workout like this? What do you do in the following days/weeks to facilitate their recovery?

If you don't use a going-to-the-well workout, why not?

During workouts? Maybe never. That's what races are for aren't they?

You don't have to prove how tough you are in a workout.

I agree with those saying rarely, and save it for the races and those should be the big races. So maybe 3-4 times a year.

Interesting.

So you guys think Kenyans and Ethiopians go "to the well" less than a week, in single days, a year?

Interesting.

I think we've found the answer to American distance running.

Bob the Philosopher wrote:

Interesting.

So you guys think Kenyans and Ethiopians go "to the well" less than a week, in single days, a year?

Interesting.

I think we've found the answer to American distance running.

Their workouts look immensely hard to you, but they worked up to that level of fitness by doing lots of hard workouts, not killer workouts. They recover quickly in a day or two, three or four days during the specific race pace phase, with lots of mileage in between.

opinions differ wrote:

Bob the Philosopher wrote:

Interesting.

So you guys think Kenyans and Ethiopians go "to the well" less than a week, in single days, a year?

Interesting.

I think we've found the answer to American distance running.

Their workouts look immensely hard to you, but they worked up to that level of fitness by doing lots of hard workouts, not killer workouts. They recover quickly in a day or two, three or four days during the specific race pace phase, with lots of mileage in between.

Right.

Thanks for proving my point.

You have no idea what I might consider a difficult workout.

The reason I became curious about the subject is because I just read running with the buffaloes, and there was several times that Wetmore explicitly told his runner to get into debt, and to go to the well.

He has had tremendous success with his programs as well.

opinions differ wrote:

During workouts? Maybe never. That's what races are for aren't they?

You don't have to prove how tough you are in a workout.

The question isn't about using "well" workouts as a measure of toughness, but seeing if they're valuable towards running faster in races.

This thread says "save it for the races", implying there's some finite number of all-out efforts.

If that's true, the question would then be, do you get fitter if you go to "the well" more often than those who don't, but don't over shoot and burn out? THAT is what I'm curious about.

Personally, I do it probably once every 6-8 weeks when training seriously.

Bob the Philosopher wrote:

opinions differ wrote:

Their workouts look immensely hard to you, but they worked up to that level of fitness by doing lots of hard workouts, not killer workouts. They recover quickly in a day or two, three or four days during the specific race pace phase, with lots of mileage in between.

Right.

Thanks for proving my point.

You have no idea what I might consider a difficult workout.

A good philosopher can explain things. Why don't you try Bob?

thedub wrote:

The reason I became curious about the subject is because I just read running with the buffaloes, and there was several times that Wetmore explicitly told his runner to get into debt, and to go to the well.

He has had tremendous success with his programs as well.

What does "go to the well" mean anyway? It's just a platitude.

A lot of people say never or rarely... what about digging deep and trying to go past the point of failure is bad for you? Are people saying that you can't recover from that kind of work out easily? Or somehow it implies injury?

I'm not being argumentative - I am genuinely interested in why a very hard workout is bad for you and what specifically about it makes it something you'd want to do very rarely.

The Dingo^3 wrote:

opinions differ wrote:

During workouts? Maybe never. That's what races are for aren't they?

You don't have to prove how tough you are in a workout.

The question isn't about using "well" workouts as a measure of toughness, but seeing if they're valuable towards running faster in races.

This thread says "save it for the races", implying there's some finite number of all-out efforts.

If that's true, the question would then be, do you get fitter if you go to "the well" more often than those who don't, but don't over shoot and burn out? THAT is what I'm curious about.

Personally, I do it probably once every 6-8 weeks when training seriously.

My point about "proving how tough you are" is that so many runners think they have to do this time after time. That's not a good philosophy. What we are aiming for is either running faster for the same effort, or holding the same pace for longer with the same effort. The effort itself is something that you judge you will recover from in a given amount of time, say two or three days or whatever.

va coach wrote:

This is a great issue to discuss and explore, but more importantly a very relevant question at the high school level. Especially for the boys who instinctively want to push/race every hard workout.

What do other HS coaches think? If you use such a workout, how do you structure it into your training?

How long do you think it takes for a serious HS distance runner to fully recover from a workout like this? What do you do in the following days/weeks to facilitate their recovery?

If you don't use a going-to-the-well workout, why not?

I used to buy into the "train, don't strain" philosophy. Be consistent and you will have fitness gains that improve your times.

However, what I learned from coaching high school kids, there is a subtle, but distinct difference between improving your race times and racing optimally.

A kid may be able to execute 6-7 x 800 workout with repeats in 2:40, but can't break 17:00, let alone run 16:45. And I always wondered why the disconnect? And doing 800s in 2:30 or 2:35 isn't the answer either.

Daniels had a point in his books that when you intervals and you have rest, it takes a certain amount of time to get back to the level of exertion for your HR or VO2 max. So if you do 12x400 in 1:15, you might be hitting the optimum HR or VO2 max for only 15 seconds per repeat. So you do 15 minutes of hard running, but only 3 minutes at your VO2 max.

So you either have to lengthen the repeats or shorten the rest.

But even then, unless you are doing more than 3 miles worth of work, you are not going to have a training session that truly approximates what a race should feel like.

So I wonder, "How do you teach someone to push this pain threshold in a race if they never come across it in practice?".

Thus, I figured that there was a place for such go to the well workouts.

It simply may be 7 x 800 at 5k pace with 0:45 rest (or 4x1200 or 3 x 1600) on a track. If it wasn't a deception workout, I would also do the Oregon 30/40 drill.

As a side note, I liked many of the workouts that were described in High Performance Training by Bill Bowerman. There were many workouts that were designed as race simulations; from a psychological point of view, it seemed like my runners learned more about race situations and surging in a race from some of these workouts. These aren't to the well, but they are appropriately hard for high school runners.

why is it bad wrote:

A lot of people say never or rarely... what about digging deep and trying to go past the point of failure is bad for you? Are people saying that you can't recover from that kind of work out easily? Or somehow it implies injury?

I'm not being argumentative - I am genuinely interested in why a very hard workout is bad for you and what specifically about it makes it something you'd want to do very rarely.

You should build fitness gradually until you are ready to race, then train cautiously between races. Races should usually be the hardest workouts. Think of them as the ultimate training.