Road Racing and Training Thread - Week Ending 11/11/2018

RunnersFix - Thnaks for the details, as they fillin the blanks, and congrats on your excellent performances—performances in difficult conditions. What Smoove had you do was textbook Daniels. It is just about identical to what my coach did with me back when I was being coached. I hated the approach, as I ended up focusing on (and agonizing about) the workouts, and then hated to have to run easy pace on all of the other days (very boring). This is not a cricism of Smoove or the system he employed, but I thought your post made for an intetesting comparison to what I went through. Glad it worked for you and glad you found Smoove. All the best with your Hanson’s training.

By the way...I am in agreement with Allen and Stone that I need to change my stimuli (as you did when you were coached by Smoove). I will likely apply Allen’s suggestions, but am open to others. I think I need to get my legs moving more. At this point, it is just a matter of how to go about doing it. I see winter as a good time for shorter, faster stuff anyway, as I tend to get cold out there...and there is less daylight available, too.

RunnersFix wrote:

I credit most of it to the speed sessions.

Not to take anything away from Smoove's coaching ( I respect what he does and how he thinks through things) or to suggest that you weren't possibly overtraining before you began working with him but you also need to know that high mileage gains take a while to consolidate. It's not uncommon for someone to come off high mileage, put in a block of speed work, and have a breakthrough performance. You were new to that kind of speedwork but you had the base to support that kind of work. That's Lydiard in a nutshell. You just never did the anaerobic phase.

To what Smoove wanted me to add...During my travel to Ottawa I had some issues. It’s a Sunday morning race and my gf and I had flights to Ottawa that Friday from Florida with a layover in Newark, NJ. We got to the airport in Orlando and tried to get our boarding passes. She had her passport and was good to go. I had a passport card thinking it would work but it didn’t. I had a ‘land, and sea travel’ only passport. They wouldn’t aceept it but luckily I was able to board my lay over flight to Newark. From there we had to drive the 9 hours to Ottawa in a rental. Got to the hotel late that night. Of course I had to drive the whole way lol. Mentally it was super draining. This was completely my fault and should’ve known better. It was a crazy experience.

Jeremy, RF had actually done a fair amount of work at close to threshold pace before we started working together - lots of hard efforts at just over 5:00 pace. So he had that covered to a certain extent coming in.

He also had a huge mileage base (although it included a bit of LT work as mentioned) as noted.

What I think was holding him back at that point was that on any given day, I had an outside shot at being on the same straightaway as him at the end of any 5k race. His 5k PR is only 14:50, and despite being in great shape, he ran only 15:10 or so during the early part of our time together (hot day and a solo effort make that a poor representation of his actual fitness, but it is what it is).

For a guy who wanted to be able to hold 5:10-5:15 for 26.2, I felt he really needed to get some work in at faster than 5:00 pace. Once he got over the shock of turnover from doing stride and some 200s as part of other workouts, and started getting in more fixed work at vo2max pace, he really got very competent at it, running in the low 4:40s by the end, if I recall.

So between allowing him to get fresher by throttling back the volume , and getting his top end speed to be a bit further away from his marathon and heshild paces, everything just became a ton easier for him and he flourished.

It was not an overt complex set of decisions for me to make. The toughest part - and the most enjoyable part - was managing the mental aspect of the process, getting a historical volume oriented guy to drop mileage some; getting a guy who thought he lacked basic speed to do some more work at 5k pace and some even shorter and faster stuff at times; to convince him to be patient when the new stimulus felt hard and must have caused some doubts.

The second most challenging part was managing the phases of the training cycle and trying to cause two cycles - Gasparilla (important to him because he was in a position to win some pretty good cash and because it was right in his backyard) and Ottowa while allowing for recovery between, all of which was compounded by those cycles being of a shorter period than would be typical. We had something like 10 weeks to be ready for Gasparilla. That part wasn't too bad because with his big base and his past workout at half marathon pace, it was pretty easy to decide to spend a few weeks on rep work and a bit over a month focusing on interval pace, complimenting it each week with LT maintenance work, before transitioning back to some race pace work to close things out. But then we had to build in some recovery time before building back up for the marathon. That really worked out pretty well, to be honest. He'd don't the classic vo2max phase and that left us with just about the right amount of time to make post-Gasparilla a total LT cycle, with a bit of vo2max maintenance built in. So the real challenge was having so few workouts that were in his wheelhouse going into Gasparilla. If he didn't have confidence in me, he might have lost confidence in himself. But we spent a lot of time talking about what we were going to do and why we were going to do it, and I think that along with my reputation as "the fast old guy" in Florida allows him to have confidence in what we were doing.

too hot 3 wrote:

Not to take anything away from Smoove's coaching ( I respect what he does and how he thinks through things) or to suggest that you weren't possibly overtraining before you began working with him but you also need to know that high mileage gains take a while to consolidate. It's not uncommon for someone to come off high mileage, put in a block of speed work, and have a breakthrough performance. You were new to that kind of speedwork but you had the base to support that kind of work. That's Lydiard in a nutshell. You just never did the anaerobic phase.

Lydiard and daniels have a lot in common anyway. Phases are structured similarly, Daniels is a tad more polarised and Arthur was a tad more linear. Daniels was more scientific while lydiard was more experience based. They share a lot more in common than they differ.

Myopic views of singular coaches is just about the most ignorant trait a coach can possess and I would be hesitant to run for any coach who takes all the views of one philosophy as gospel as it shows inflexibility and a lack of willingness to learn on their feet. In the coaching buisness, you gotta beg, borrow, steal and learn from all the great coaches and their wisdom as well as expermint with your own ideas. Otherwise, all you built is mighty fine box and got hyponitised by a cult like philosophy whether that is Lydiard, Daniels, Canova, Igloi, Coe, Horwill or whoever else. They were all succesful in their own right and there is a lot to learn from All of them just like they learned from those before them.

You think if all of them sat down at a coaches table to discuss training, it would end up in everyone disagreeing and arguing. I doubt it as what made them great coaches was approaching training with an open mind and interest in learning.

Hot too 3 4 wrote:

You think if all of them sat down at a coaches table to discuss training, it would end up in everyone disagreeing and arguing.

“The one time that I brought up Jack Daniels he just about threw me off the balcony. I remember that. He did not agree with Jack Daniels at all. He was real big on not getting that whole lactate thing started too early because you only have so many months before it’s counterproductive.”

- Coach Dave Van Sickle talking about a conversation he had with Lydiard in the early 2000s.

Bit late but it's not like people ever stop looking at the thread, so here goes.

Stone - Nice healthy week. The alternating tempo looked pretty solid.

TDR - Good looking week overall.

GFMAH - Solid alternating 1k's. Still think you're in shape to be very fit whenever you want to be.

RRR - Good volume week. 10 miler was still pretty solid and you can't go wrong with a fartlek

Slo - Nice week, hopefully the weather pans out for you Sunday although it's not looking great right now.

Coyote - Solid week for feeling beat up for most of it. I usually have a solid week after working through a week like that so I hope the same is true for you.

LancRunner - Looks like sub-17 fitness to me…

AJ - Good volume and a couple really strong workouts. You're starting to round into shape quite nicely.

Cocoon - Solid week of volume. If you're looking for hills I'm out around Pittsburgh for work again and I found a few. Over 1,000 ft. of elevation gained on a 10 miler last night.

Improving - Pretty good looking week there. Putting the work in on the hills might keep your runs from being as fast as you would like them to be but will benefit you in the long run.

RunnerSam - Thought you looked pretty dang solid Sunday. Race got pretty strung out from what I could see and trying to hold pace late in a marathon is hard enough, let alone doing it solo.

RunnersFix - Another strong week to say the least. I assume you're based in MI now?

JB - Bummer about the calf. Ever experiment with a calf sleeve or anything like that?

Bruin - Plenty of quality in there for a recovery week. Would be interested to see what you could run for a shorter distance with those HIIT workouts you've been doing.

I think I saw one or two people in the last few weeks ask what my plan is after Thursday / how it fits into my bigger picture. I honestly have pretty low expectations for a 5k right now. Overall volume has been okay the last few weeks but I haven't put in many really good quality workouts so I'm not sure holding something in the 4:45-4:50 pace range is going to be super realistic. I'm kind of okay with that though since my focus right now is to just keep building volume along with some good long tempo's and fartleks. I'll continue this decidedly unsexy training through January or mid-February, depending on how likely an indoor 3k or mile looks, and then transition to some harder track workouts in March weather permitting. The goal is to be in good enough shape to take a serious crack at a PR on the track early in the outdoor season and hopefully leverage that into some entries at some of the better meets in the area in April and early May. I'll probably hop in a local road race here and there to pick up some cash if I can (I hear there's this great xc 5k right after Thanksgiving...), but it won't be anything I target or train for and I'll probably find a way to build a workout around them much like I did last Saturday.

Seems a little more "threaty" than is necessary, if we are all just being honest here.

Smoove, RF, and SI and even the various too hots,

The last couple of pages have been really useful for me. Thanks for taking the time to share the thoughts and experiences. A few years ago, the subtleties of "which paces at what point during what kind of progression for specifically whom" would have been completely opaque to me. After the time spent on this thread, I think I now not only understand, but also have the competence to apply this stuff in my own training. Much appreciated!!

Stat - would be great to see you at the XC race. At this point, maybe there will be some slippy mud/snow on the ground to slow all of us down and we can hit a WR (worst record) for a 5k. At least it's "fun".

LancRunner wrote:

Stat - would be great to see you at the XC race. At this point, maybe there will be some slippy mud/snow on the ground to slow all of us down and we can hit a WR (worst record) for a 5k. At least it's "fun".

Only had to scroll through 2 years of your Strava profile to find it haha. Looks fun, but I'm not sure how I feel about 3 races in 3 days (Thinking about hopping in the West Chester Turkey Burner as well). We'll see I suppose. There is certainly something appealing about a cold snowy cross country race.

I know that you mentioned doing your workouts in flatter terrain, but since your goal race is Boston I would recommend that you find some hills that are a close analog to the hills in Boston and do one of your MP workouts on those hills. My last marathon had a nice bump in the middle with the back side of the hill being steeper than the climb. There was a ~1/4 mile section of the downhill where the grade was ~10%. I just wanted to have the experience coming down the hill at pace and knowing that keep it rolling without letting things get out of control and risk injury.

Thanks again, SI. Not necessarily as part of M runs, but every week I intend to have a least a day of coming down hill "with malice aforethought." In fact, my 3Q idea was one day in my hills per week going in the range of M-T heart rate uphill... and then E downhill, but high E so as to punish myself on the way down. I call them "mountain cruise intervals." Compared to my grades here in Taipei, Boston will seem comparatively flat. Still a work in progress...

I ran a double today. Just cuz I rock.

Coach Jeff ROC wrote:

Compared to my grades here in Taipei, Boston will seem comparatively flat. Still a work in progress...

It's been a while since I have run Boston, and only twice, but I really don't recall the descents as being much of a factor. Except as a chance to relax for a bit. Now, with my tender knees, maybe I would notice them more. At the Mohawk-Hudson marathon a few years ago, I actually had to brake going down a couple short, steep downhills. My knees screamed loudly. Ouch.

Coach - Given your local terrain and the plan you're considering using, I don't think you need to intentionally target hills or add a Q day for hills for something like Boston.

You do rock.

VAPORFLYS ARE IN STOCK IN NIKE.COM RIGHT NOW.

I'm not getting a pair, but I know you guys want them

speaking of shoes...

Runnersfix, are you getting the secret Desi shoes for CIM?

Gordon Tremeshko wrote:

Coach - Given your local terrain and the plan you're considering using, I don't think you need to intentionally target hills or add a Q day for hills for something like Boston.

You do rock.

+1

I don't see a problem with going down some hills aggressively once in a while, but I wouldn't make it a regular thing. Going harder up the hills regularly is less of a worry though as I just don't think your body will get as beat up going up hills somewhat hard as it would on most other kinds of quality days (unless you have an Achilles issue or some kind of muscle strain),

Smoove or RF,

What did the recovery after Gasparilla look like from a scheduling POV