Is there any type of training philosophy where you do lots of workouts but rarely a full-blown workout?

You mischaracterize training plans when you say they consist of "2 days of full-blown workouts and 4-5 days of jogging". But good luck with your program and let us know how it works out.

Not quite what you described but are you familiar with Igloi's method?

Contrarily to athletes coached by Renato Canova who do quite hard (sometimes balls-bursting) workouts followed by 3-5 days of easy jogging, you can see that Eliud Kipchoge has had an approach to the Berlin marathon that was more like what you say. Like medium hard/easy/easy.

His training log is the following:

http://www.sweatelite.co/eliud-kipchoge-full-training-log-leading-marathon-world-record-attempt/

Can't vouch for the effectiveness of the Jack Farrell/Thousand Oaks program. However, towards the end of the article Farrell writes (of Kim Mortensen) "Kim stayed healthy..." which is not true:

http://articles.latimes.com/1998/aug/08/sports/sp-11330

Sorry, quote is actually "She stayed healthy..."

Dan Henderson

http://www.bunnhill.com/BobHodge/TrainingLogs/dhenderson83.htm

Kim Mortensen was healthy at Thousand Oaks High School.

It's when she went to UCLA and surrounded by doctors that she suddenly became unhealthy, which is typical, as they make a lot of money to abuse people that way.

I've been on the Mortensen type of diet for almost 50 years, healthy and active in my 70's. In fact I wouldn't eat the crap they suggest. I'm a healthy weight for my size, which most Americans aren't, plenty strong enough, and not skinny at all.

Did you read this part?

From competing at 115 pounds as a junior, the 5-foot-3 Mortensen withered to 95 pounds as a senior.

Eric Peterson, women's cross-country coach at UCLA, was so concerned about Mortensen's weight loss he asked her about it on a recruiting visit to the Mortensen home.

"I asked her what the biggest difference was between her junior year and her senior year," Peterson said. "There was a little silence and then she said, 'Well, I have lost a lot of weight.' I then said, 'Look, if there is something going on, let's get it out on the table.' "

Are you saying that the article is not accurate? Or are you saying that going from 115 to 95 was healthy for Mortensen?

Sempahore Slim wrote:

I'm wondrring if this is a thing or if I've invented a training methodology. Instead of a typical weekly training schedule of 2 days of full-blown workouts and 4-5 days of jogging, you do more like 4 days of 70% of the volume of full-blown workout (same intensity however) and 2-3 days of jogging. This adds 40% more volume each week in exchange for missing those last couple reps or last couple miles of what I'm terming a full-blown workout. My claim is that in the long term it doesn't matter so long as you're racing regularly.

It sounds to me like you are trying to do too much. My own training philosophy that I think is far superior to most when it comes to long term development and injury- and burnout-prevention is to train much EASIER than most people by doing only 2 moderate effort workouts per week and almost never any truly gut-busting workouts. Having several years worth of consistent training @70% effort is going to be much more beneficial than training balls out with periods of injury, overtraining, and mental fatigue. I actually think this sort of training is what ruins so many athletes.

People think they always need to do more, but I've known guys who took training light to extremes, like not doing any workouts at all other than some strides here and there and just letting their weekly races be their workouts, and these guys actually performed better than the ones who were busting their ass every week. I have personally experienced this also. I ran my best when I just ran by feel every day and made sure to do strides here and there and an occasional short threshold run (like once per week). I always ran my worst when my coaches tried to cram in as many workouts as possible.

Verheul Method

super L wrote:

Having several years worth of consistent training @70% effort

No, no, no. Not effort, but volume. That is an important point of my philosophy. For example, if you're training for the 1500/mile, a workout like 10 x 400 w/ 1:00 rest would be replaced by 6 x 400 w/ 1:30 rest and the following day you'd do something like 4 x 200 (@ 800 pace) + 5 x 400 with 2:00 rest.

Another thing I've been thinking of is that easy runs should be super-easy but should have 5-10 surges of 20-30 seconds thrown in.

Semaphore Slim wrote:

super L wrote:

Having several years worth of consistent training @70% effort

No, no, no. Not effort, but volume. That is an important point of my philosophy. For example, if you're training for the 1500/mile, a workout like 10 x 400 w/ 1:00 rest would be replaced by 6 x 400 w/ 1:30 rest and the following day you'd do something like 4 x 200 (@ 800 pace) + 5 x 400 with 2:00 rest.

Another thing I've been thinking of is that easy runs should be super-easy but should have 5-10 surges of 20-30 seconds thrown in.

See malmo's reference to Dan Henderson's training, then.

Look into the type of training pioneered by Pat Clohessy and made famous by Rob de Castella and other Australians after him. Pretty much 3 hard workouts per week, plus a long run and sometimes a medium-long run. Low volume of intensity, but done very consistently and supported by pretty high overall volume. Hope this helps

Half workouts can work on back to back days, but I think you need to go super slow and shorter two days per week. I would also encourage you to incorporate more slow moderate / tempo paces and not fail to include the very short sprints, too. Don't miss any pace.

I would think that hills would excellent to incorporate as well.

See http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4049979 for another view of your ideas.

Yoshihishi Hosaka:

In the interview with Brett Larner, shortly after he had set the M60+ world record in 2009, Hosaka provided a detailed account of his unvarying daily schedule. The morning session begins with a 1.5 mile jog through mountainous country from his home to a tree-lined riverbank path where he does five 1Km repetitions at a gradually increasing pace, starting at a relaxed 6:25 /mile (about 25 sec/mile slower than his marathon pace at that time) and increasing pace to 5:20 /mile, which is the estimated 10K pace for a 2:36:30 marathoner. In isolation, this would be quite an easy session, gently progressing from a relaxed initial pace to the fifth Km repetition at around 10K pace. He jogs home, and works in his own business from 8:30am to 5:00pm. After work, he drives to a park where he does some strength exercises and then a progressive 12Km warm-up starting at 9:30/mile and increasing pace up to 8 minutes mile. He then does another 5x1Km interval session on a long downhill stretch of a nearby road. He does the first 1Km at marathon pace and gradually increases to estimated 10 Km pace for the final repetition. He finishes with 5 x 100m accelerations on soft earth in the park, to help maintain his speed. In isolation, this session would also be fairly easy, though the day’s total of 32 Km is substantial, and the cumulative effect of repeating this day after day would be appreciable. He races quite frequently, and usually races at least two marathons per year