Hobby Jogger Gets Serious for a Race (An Experiment of One Gone Wrong)

I think he just has no idea how to race and as soon as it started hurting, he backed off pace, not knowing that due to his increased fitness, he could have kept going hard through the pain. Don't forget racing is very mental, it's just like that old saying that hobbyjoggers have only one pace, they run the same pace for 5k that they do in a marathon. My neighbour is a 40 yr old female who runs marathon in 5:30/km and a 5k in 5:25/km and says she can't go any faster. I'm sure she can, but she doesn't know how to race.

You have to race to develop the skill of racing.

If he really followed a sensible 16-week training plan faithfully and stayed healthy, he likely saw fitness gains. This, however, doesn't always translate into faster racing right away.

Based off your description of his difficulty getting into race pace during workouts, I would guess that this guy has no idea how to race or what it should feel like. As a competitive runner, it's probably easy for you to take this for granted. He should keep it up, but add in a race every few weeks. He has to feel that pain and learn from mistakes (especially going out too fast and fading at least once).

5K is a very mental race. Maybe some kind of workout where you need to keep your target 5K pace but you don't know whether it's for quarter mile all the way up to 1.5 miles. Some people need to just be a bit mentally tougher, perhaps.

sfdasfdsfgsdfds wrote:

I think he just has no idea how to race and as soon as it started hurting, he backed off pace, not knowing that due to his increased fitness, he could have kept going hard through the pain. Don't forget racing is very mental, it's just like that old saying that hobbyjoggers have only one pace, they run the same pace for 5k that they do in a marathon. My neighbour is a 40 yr old female who runs marathon in 5:30/km and a 5k in 5:25/km and says she can't go any faster. I'm sure she can, but she doesn't know how to race.

This was my initial impression after the race. I ran it too and was waiting for him at the finish line. He just didn't look like a guy who had left it all out there. He looked tired, but he was walking pretty normal and didn't look like he was about to die or anything.

you want to get him to run much shorter efforts, much faster, so that he gets used to moving his legs faster and getting out of breath. but give him plenty of recovery so that he can hit each one hard.

cheers.

I regularly beat runners who are far more fit than I because I'm used to racing 5Ks and thread the needle a bit between blowing up around mile 1.5 and getting a solid 8/10 or 9/10 effort every darn time.

Example:

A 40-50 mpw runner that can do things like a 3:20 thon or whatever is possibly going to get beat by my 20 flat, it's a pace I'm familiar with and regularly run even if I suck terribly at my 15-20 mpw stuff.

I do dumb things like the oft-derided 10x400 on :90s, w/60s rest

and 3x1 mile or 5x1000 repeats at 5K current capability on 2 minutes /90s rest or so respectively

he's not on the keto diet by chance?

Cottonshirt wrote:

you want to get him to run much shorter efforts, much faster, so that he gets used to moving his legs faster and getting out of breath. but give him plenty of recovery so that he can hit each one hard.

cheers.

He did that every week on Thursdays. Typical workouts were 10-15 x 30 second sprints with 2-3 minute recoveries, short hill sprints and 6-8 x 60 second hills as fast as possible.The guy was actually a sprinter in high school. Said he ran like a 24 second 200. That was 15 years ago, but I did some strides with him a couple times and he has no issues with leg speed.

what he eat? wrote:

he's not on the keto diet by chance?

His diet is actually really good. Very well balanced and healthy. I envy his self control

I'd guess that he has some natural endurance, but really lacks speed. He's out there in a 5K and going about as hard as he can and it just doesn't get very fast. Some short sprints (100 meters) at the end of easy runs will help, focus on good form and fast turnover, and maybe making his Monday reps faster than 5K pace from time to time.

Not a Coach wrote:

Cottonshirt wrote:

you want to get him to run much shorter efforts, much faster, so that he gets used to moving his legs faster and getting out of breath. but give him plenty of recovery so that he can hit each one hard.

cheers.

He did that every week on Thursdays. Typical workouts were 10-15 x 30 second sprints with 2-3 minute recoveries, short hill sprints and 6-8 x 60 second hills as fast as possible.The guy was actually a sprinter in high school. Said he ran like a 24 second 200. That was 15 years ago, but I did some strides with him a couple times and he has no issues with leg speed.

Then he should have done more training at the threshold pace. Your schedule suggests he alternated tempo and VO2 max interval. He should have done tempo every week.

I had the same thing happen with a guy I was helping. The first race he went out and ran his usual 21:00, which was insane given the obvious improvement he had made over a few months. So we did another race two weeks later, and I paced him the first two miles, and just yelled at him the last mile. Like, just nonstop yelling, alternating between motivational stuff and questioning his manhood. And he ran 19:08.

Anyone who has just run easy for this many years has a bad, bad habit he'll need to break. It's all in his head.

He prolly did too much in the weeks leading up to the race. 10-15x30 seconds seems like overkill.

Possibly going all out in workouts during race week leaving his best racing in practice. Also no mention of his splits. Maybe he went out too hard.

Not a Coach wrote:

Cottonshirt wrote:

you want to get him to run much shorter efforts, much faster, so that he gets used to moving his legs faster and getting out of breath. but give him plenty of recovery so that he can hit each one hard.

cheers.

He did that every week on Thursdays. Typical workouts were 10-15 x 30 second sprints with 2-3 minute recoveries, short hill sprints and 6-8 x 60 second hills as fast as possible.The guy was actually a sprinter in high school. Said he ran like a 24 second 200. That was 15 years ago, but I did some strides with him a couple times and he has no issues with leg speed.

You had him do full effort 30 second SPRINTS with only 2 minute recoveries? And 10-15 of them at that??

What was the purpose of the workout?

You are all worried about a single race (where he actually PR'd)? Training isn't a formula where you input certain numbers and immediately spit out a big new PR. Learn a little patience. Have you ever coached before? You seem to have a poor constitution for it.

That said, he probably is a bit overcooked. The OCD (which you seem to share) is a red flag for overtraining. Try being a bit lazier and more spontaneous. I get huge improvements from people from all walks, because I teach them to truly listen to their body.

I did something similar with a hobby jogger friend in college. I designed a training plan for a friend who wanted to run a half marathon. I would even bring him along with me on long runs where i eventually got him down to 7:20 pace for 90 minutes. Then during his half marathon race he goes and runs 7:30 pace.

Jeremy R wrote:

Not a Coach wrote:

He did that every week on Thursdays. Typical workouts were 10-15 x 30 second sprints with 2-3 minute recoveries, short hill sprints and 6-8 x 60 second hills as fast as possible.The guy was actually a sprinter in high school. Said he ran like a 24 second 200. That was 15 years ago, but I did some strides with him a couple times and he has no issues with leg speed.

You had him do full effort 30 second SPRINTS with only 2 minute recoveries? And 10-15 of them at that??

What was the purpose of the workout?

Sprint is a relative term here. It doesn't refer to an all out sprint. It's a long stride. I'm using it in the same way McMillan uses it in his calculator.

He never got much faster than about 5:40/mile pace for any of these. The purpose of the workout is to run faster than race pace to work on mechanics. He didn't have access to a track so it'd be equivalent of what some people might call "rhythm 200's". This is an extremely common workout. Some people add this sort of thing to the end of other workouts. It's not draining at all.

Birdseye wrote:

You are all worried about a single race (where he actually PR'd)? Training isn't a formula where you input certain numbers and immediately spit out a big new PR. Learn a little patience. Have you ever coached before? You seem to have a poor constitution for it.

That said, he probably is a bit overcooked. The OCD (which you seem to share) is a red flag for overtraining. Try being a bit lazier and more spontaneous. I get huge improvements from people from all walks, because I teach them to truly listen to their body.

I am humbled by you sir. You are clearly a great man and a spectacular coach. I'm sorry to waste your time.

So you traded one redundant running routine with another. This was not a training a plan to prep a runner for a PR. Maybe they’re in better shape but not capable of running much faster.

15-20 mins of moderate tempo, lengthy hill repeats, and fartlek aren’t gonna get it done for a noob or run of the mill hobby jogger. You are def not a coach. No real intervals or mile repeats? A 5K is basically a sprint for a hobby jogger and they need to acclimate their body to the pain and suffering the 5K brings. Once every three to four weeks he should have done a TT at the goal race pace. Then add a quarter to half a mile to the next TT. He needed to experience extended hard efforts with no recovery so he knows what it feels like 2 miles into a 5K at PR pace. This works with ocd people because they get concrete feedback on their fitness in relation to a goal. Where were the goals in your plan? A buildup of strides may have been helpful to program him to run relaxed at a much quicker pace. He already had a “reasonable” level of fitness before starting your program. Was he doing his easy runs too quick? This is why coaching involves much more than just a plan and some remote communication. Many runners need instant feedback and a person to answer to if they’re off pace, unfocused, or have physically issues.