I have run 2:31, am 27 years old, and have 22 weeks until my next marathon. In a way I don't want to use Daniels', but I've seen a lot of evidence of it working.
In all seriousness, why should someone in my situation not use a Daniels' approach.
Smoove seems to be killing it tho!
There's no reason not to. Go for it and see how it works. (it will work)
Ran 2:28 and 2:26 with Daniels theme.
I made some-slight tweaks but overall theme was very similar.
Care to share what tools builds for 2:26 and 2:28 looked like?
Canova style training is better.
I rest my case.
But is it though?
Honest question, how many people in the 2:18 - 2:30 range are using a Canova approach?
I've got the same question. My hunch is that there are little to no people using his approach start to finish like people do with Daniel's. Other than Canova's athletes is anyone following a plan that includes all of his structured phases? I think when people talk about using "canova" it basically means they did some continuous runs at close to MP in their specific period and maybe experimented with a specific block.
It's true. A lot of talk about Canova style training, but who can provide a testimonial for it in the sub-elite range? Several can for Daniels.
Daniels is simply easier to apply. There's much more of a framework to build your training plan around, lots of rules to follow, and full training plans for a starting point. Canova training is hard to decipher, with only his periodization and a few staple workouts as a framework. It takes some thinking on your part to apply it. So most people's Canova training is only canova-ish to varying degrees.
butisittho wrote:
But is it though?
Honest question, how many people in the 2:18 - 2:30 range are using a Canova approach?
I doubt there's enough data to answer which is better for that range. Folks don't typically switch entirely from one system to another, especially when they have success with one style of training.
I think both systems are sound. I'm using a Daniels-ish approach, but I'm sure I'd do well with Canova's system if I went that route. I don't think the 2 are so radically different as folks make them out to be.
I'll add that i used a canova-ish self made plan for a recent HM (1:09). I liked it better honestly. For instance I felt like a good amount of work at 10k pace would be good for me, and doing a few hard 10 milers at somewhere a bit faster than MP. "Direct Support" paces in Canova terms. A Daniels plan skips over both of those, mainly highlighting the "physiologically relevant" paces of AeT, LT , VO2, etc. But mainly it was just fun to try something new, having done Daniels style in college. You will likely do well with either.
These times are too fast for me, so no personal experience here. But I have geared my own training a bit around what coach David Roche is doing. He uses a lot of Canova concepts, which crop up occasionally in his articles, but you can see more if you follow his athletes on Strava. He coaches backpacker/ultra runner Andrew Skurka, and I liked following his training up to last year's Boston (2:31 maybe? in the heat) and this year's Houston (2:28).
There are a couple of the special block two-a-days in there, interesting blending of speed stuff and longer stuff that converges as race day approaches. From what I have read and listened to from Canova, it is NOT the same, but I think it is the closest conversion I've personally seen for non-elite athletes.
My feeling is that the first half of Canova may be fairly different than that of Daniels. I don't have a Daniel's book handy though. Is there a good resource online to see a template of a 16- or 20-week Daniel's plan? I'd love to make a rough week by week comparison of to see how the two systems line up.
Currently this is what I interpret as a Canova which is 20 weeks of training if you exclude the transition period, or 24 weeks with that period.
http://www.serranoatletismo.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Marathon-Training.pdf
As a more subtle point, I don't think it's a valid to compare which system so to speak is better for the reasons Jewbacca listed. On the one hand you have people in group A following very closely Daniel's plans that have been template-ized and commercialized for consumption. On the other hand you have people in group B trying to decipher the Canova system that is pieced together through a series of internet posts in a non-native language, 3rd party writings, and highly customized schedules for elite athletes. Furthermore the N in group A is far greater than the N in group B.
jewbacca wrote:
I think both systems are sound. I'm using a Daniels-ish approach, but I'm sure I'd do well with Canova's system if I went that route. I don't think the 2 are so radically different as folks make them out to be.
+1
We recently looked at this a little bit on the weekly training thread. Someone posted 10-14- key Canova workouts. I compared them to my typical Daniels-style workouts and found that I did something reasonably similar for something like 70-80% of the workouts. Some of that is because when I do my Daniels cruise intervals, I usually end up a few seconds faster than Daniels' T pace, so I may cover a bit more range than those who were to strictly stick to the book (although I don't think many people do in practice - different days tend to yield different results). The things that were most obviously missing were the long runs at a steady, medium hard effort and a couple of the true alternation workouts.
It seems that in all things these days, we polarize and are all in or against something. The reality is that there are lots of different ways to get to the same place, and it isn't necessary for one person to be wrong so that the other person can be right.
Below is a log of my training for the last 12 weeks of my training cycle before Chicago 2015. It is based on a Daniels plan, with modifications made to accommodate my racing calendar, some off days, scheduling issues and the need for a bigger taper after I almost fell apart from overtraining (volume increases beyond what I was prepared for - my doing, not part of the Daniels plan). So there are some deviations from the stock Daniels plan with races subbed in for workouts, but it is pretty close.
It omits the firs 12 weeks of the Daniels plan, but those blanks are easy enough to fill in. The first 6 weeks is pure easy distance/volume. The weeks from 18 weeks out until 12 weeks are essentially just weeks of a weekly vo2max workout (intervals at roughly 5k pace with a 1:1 or slightly higher work to rest ratio), and some threshold work mixed in. Nothing exotic, just straight up intervals to increase fitness and to make all of the tempo work that is to come feel more manageable. If you want to see it in spreadsheet format, email me.
13 20-Jul
12.25 miles easy
AM: 10 miles easy; PM: 6 miles easy
10 miles easy
2 miles up; 4 x 2 miles tempo - 10:48 (LD)(2:02); 10:53 (G)(2:20); 11:10 (G)(2:57); 11:12 (LD); 2 miles down
10.25 miles easy
21 miles easy
10 miles easy
14 27-Jul
10.25 miles easy
10.5 miles easy
2 mi up; 4 x 1 mile (5:15, 5:08, 5:13, 5:12) w/1:00 rest; 5:00 rest; 3 x 1 mile (5:14, 5:14, 5:14) w/1:00 rest; 2 mi down
10 miles easy
10 miles easy
2 mi up; 4 x 1 mile (5:24, 5:04, 5:13, 5:07) w/:60-:80 rest; 8 mi easy; 20 min tempo (5:25); 2.3 down
10.25 miles easy
15 3-Aug
7 miles easy
10.25 miles easy
2 mi up; 3 mi tempo (5:11, 5:26, 5:26); 3:00 rest; 3 mi tempo (5:12, 5:19, 5:42); 3:00 rest; 1 mi tempo (5:29); 1:30 rest; 1 mi tempo (5:25)
10.5 miles easy
8.5 miles easy
ABORTED MARATHON PACED RUN: 2 mile warm up; 6 miles @ marathon pace (5:35) (supposed to be 12-13); 6 miles easy
8 miles easy 0.
16 10-Aug
9 miles easy
AM: 10 miles easy; PM: 6 miles easy
2.5 mi up; 5 x 1000 (3:04.4 avg); 6 mi down
6 miles easy
6.5 miles easy
Celebration of Running 5k (15:28.5)
20.25 miles easy
17 17-Aug
9 miles easy
10.25 miles easy
2 mi up; 7 x 1 mile at tempo (5:26, 5:23, 5:23, 5:25, 5:25, 5:27, 5:25, 5:33) (5:26 avg) w/1:00 rest; 3.75 down
10 miles easy
6.25 miles easy
2 mile warm up; 2 x 2 mi tempo w/2:00 rest (10:27.8, 10:42.7);
10.25 easy (Waterwitch Loop); 2 mi tempo (11:03); 3.75 easy
10 miles easy
18 24-Aug
7 miles easy
10 miles easy
2 mi up; 3 x 2 mile tempo [(10:53.5), (11:02.2), (11:06)] w/2:00 rest, 2 x 1 mile tempo (5:32.4, 5:28.3) w/1:00 rest; 2 mi down
25 miles easy
6.25 miles easy
2 mi up; 9 mi @ mp (5:42); 3:00 rest; 2mi @ mp (5:40); 2:00 rest; 1 mi @ mp (5:46?); 2 mi down
6 miles easy
19 31-Aug
12 miles easy
12 miles easy
Aborted tempo - 8 miles easy
22 miles easy
10 miles easy
AM: 16 miles easy; PM: 5 miles easy
15 miles easy
20 7-Sep
6 miles easy
8.75 mi up; 6 x 1 mi [5:22, (1:00), 5:19 (1:00), 5:24 (1:00), 5:31 (3:00), 5:25 (2:00), 5:28]; 1.25 down
6 miles easy
6 miles easy
6 miles easy
Rock 'N' Run 5k (16:09)
22 miles easy
21 14-Sep
6 miles easy
6 miles easy
11 miles with modest pick ups
6 miles easy
6 miles easy
13.1 miles @ marathon pace (1:15:35)
8 miles easy
22 21-Sep
6 miles easy
6 miles easy
6.25 miles easy
3 miles easy, 2 miles tempo (5:20, 5:28 - was supposed to be 3), 2 miles easy, 1 mile tempo (was supposed to be 3 - 5:33 was 5k race pace), 5 miles easy
Off
22 miles easy
6 miles easy
23 28-Sep
6 miles easy
1.5 up; 3 x 1 mile tempo (5:22 (1:00), 5:28 (:90), 5:33 (:90) .5 uphill at 5:40); .75 down
Off
7 miles easy
Off
8 miles easy
Accelerating pace run (6:45, 6:31, 6:15, 5:50, 5:36, 5:29, 6:51, 6:53, 6:59, 7:12)
24 5-Oct
6 miles easy
2.25 mi up; 4 x 1200 @ tempo pace (3:57, 3:52, 3:57, 3:55) w/2:00 rest; 1 mi down
6 miles easy
Off
4 miles easy
3 miles easy
Chicago Marathon (2:30:52)
canova-ish wrote:
These times are too fast for me, so no personal experience here. But I have geared my own training a bit around what coach David Roche is doing. He uses a lot of Canova concepts, which crop up occasionally in his articles, but you can see more if you follow his athletes on Strava. He coaches backpacker/ultra runner Andrew Skurka, and I liked following his training up to last year's Boston (2:31 maybe? in the heat) and this year's Houston (2:28).
There are a couple of the special block two-a-days in there, interesting blending of speed stuff and longer stuff that converges as race day approaches. From what I have read and listened to from Canova, it is NOT the same, but I think it is the closest conversion I've personally seen for non-elite athletes.
I have closely monitored a few Roche athletes as well, and I think he has a steady blend of Daniel's in his plans too. Very much so with a lot of the Running Efficiency stuff at the beginning. He moves from short fast, to vVO2, to LT, then to AT.
I'd argue his approach is more of a modified Daniels' approach than a straight Canova approach. Special blocks don't make an approach "Canova-ish"
It sort of seems from how your post reads that you actually want people to tell you why you should use Daniels. But if you are actually looking for a reason not to I'd say simply that almost anything will work if you do enough of it, believe in it, and do it consistently, which is probably not too different from doing enough of it. The US generally had more sub 2:20 and 2:30 guys per year in the ten or so years before Daniels' book came out (I'm not really sure when that was) than we've had since. If you like Daniels' approach use it. If not find something that you do like.
@Dril - Thanks a bunch for those slides, that is awesome.
Always remember coaches are always looking to justify themselves. Even for elites, such specificity is way, way overthinking it. This is for nerds only. Far more important is that you do the volume in a way that fits your situation, while being wary of burnout and injury.
These 'systems' are really for entertainment, fantasy, and barroom conversation (like LR).
digapony wrote:
Always remember coaches are always looking to justify themselves. Even for elites, such specificity is way, way overthinking it. This is for nerds only. Far more important is that you do the volume in a way that fits your situation, while being wary of burnout and injury.
These 'systems' are really for entertainment, fantasy, and barroom conversation (like LR).
Absolutely a great post!