I have difficulty recovering from interval workouts

Only do a hard workout (5k and faster) once every two weeks. That includes any race done.

The best part is you can do this all year round. One only needs to do 24-28 Anaerobic sessions a year to develop that system. In contrast aerobic (tempo-jogging) has a much bigger bucket to fill.

Miles of Trials so Smile wrote:

Only do a hard workout (5k and faster) once every two weeks. That includes any race done.

The best part is you can do this all year round. One only needs to do 24-28 Anaerobic sessions a year to develop that system. In contrast aerobic (tempo-jogging) has a much bigger bucket to fill.

So, I am hearing more and more about limiting the vo2max workouts. I have often wondered if doing a weekly vo2max, along with a 3k or 5k race was detrimental, but all the older plans seemed to have a fair amount of race pace workouts, even if racing frequently. Are training ideas changing? I'm thinking of switching up my training to include tempos and thresholds, with only small amounts of faster stuff after the threshold, as my main workout for the week. Then have a day with some small amounts of speed/short hills. I guess, if racing weekly or biweekly, there is no need for the 3k/5k killer workout. I'd love to know what successful programs follow this kind of philosophy.

See this thread.

proof it works? wrote:

... I am hearing more and more about limiting the vo2max workouts. I have often wondered if doing a weekly vo2max, along with a 3k or 5k race was detrimental, but all the older plans seemed to have a fair amount of race pace workouts, even if racing frequently. Are training ideas changing? ...

OP here.

I suspect that if you have legs that can handle lots of the vo2max style workouts, then this is a very effective training approach. But for me it feels like I'm about to tear my soleus off the bone or split my calves if I do these every week. People who did this type of training from a young age must be more resilient to it. It is frustrating though, because I find the workouts themselves quite achievable (and even enjoyable) but it takes too many days for the legs to convalesce.

I once heard of traditional training methods described as being like coaches throwing a carton of eggs against the wall one by one waiting for the One that bounces. Their focus is on the One that can take it and be developed into a champ, they don't sweat the other 11 that smash.

I guess I'm not a bouncing egg, so I think the idea floated above of restricting to every second week is worth trying.

I'm even older at 58 and I experienced something similar to you. I did run competitively a long time ago but discovered that during my 'comeback' last fall I couldn't handle very much longer VO2 max interval type stuff for a while. My legs would be dead a long time.

Here is what I did: I dropped the weekly workout and instead did 8x100m strides 3x /week. Not all out of course but at around what felt like mile pace. This was light enough to not place a huge demand but often enough to keep building on muscle memory so my legs could adapt to the paces. This is similar to how weightlifter people initially get their muscles used to the demands of harder weightlifting.

After 4 weeks I dropped to strides 2x/week and added a weekly "workout". But at first I limited it to 4x400m reps with equal recovery at roughly mile pace or some longer Tempo pace stuff. I slowly built that up a bit and now every other week, I alternate between a VO2 workout or the R/T stuff. I still do strides 2x/week. I am no longer very trashed after my workouts and my times are coming down.

This is similar to how Daniels does it in his schedules, if I recall correctly. In his phase2 he starts people on R paced stuff and T stuff for many weeks before doing the VO2 stuff which he says is the most demanding. But I still don't believe in doing the VO2 stuff every week.

evenolder wrote:

... Here is what I did: I dropped the weekly workout and instead did 8x100m strides 3x /week. Not all out of course but at around what felt like mile pace. This was light enough to not place a huge demand but often enough to keep building on muscle memory so my legs could adapt to the paces...

I've always been a bit inconsistent with strides, sometimes forgetting them for a few weeks. This might be something for me to keep in mind.

I suppose I can also do more of the tempo pace stuff given that I recover from that pretty quickly.

I think there are a lot of younger runners who also become overly fatigued from a lot of VO2max, but are in a program that has an aggressive approach and does a lot of hard vo2max workouts on a very regular basis. My son's program races weekly and has a weekly vo2max workout (ex. 6x800 at 3200 pace), along with another threshold workout. Half way through the season, his legs are heavy and his times slow. His fastest times are always coming off base, when doing thresholds and tempos with just a little bit of speed.

you're probably running your easy/recovery days too fast...or too long

posters above nailed it. you have to back off and introduce that type of work slowly. i also experienced this and i never ran when i was young. start with once per week and not all out and slowly build. your body will adapt

Do you ever do mile-paced workouts? Like 200m or 400m repetitions at mile pace with equal rest? My guess is that I 5k pace intervals beat your legs up because that's the fastest pace you ever train at and your form breaks down as you tire.

The OP is training too hard. Train don't strain.

KyleS wrote:

you're probably running your easy/recovery days too fast...or too long

This was my initial thought, too. I think it’s worth thinking about. As an 18:30 guy, if you are going any faster than 8s you are going too fast, and I even think 8:30 would be more appropriate.

I do also like the suggestion to build into it slowly with strides ... I suppose it’s possible that there’s some inadequate conditioning of your legs leading to them being so trashed. Another option to look at would be some Brad Hudson-style hill sprints in place of strides.

Based upon symptoms there is a slight chance you have the genetic defect I was born with:

https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/adenosine-monophosphate-deaminase-deficiency#synonyms

trained many different ways and would always crap out on the peak which was pretty frustrating and painful I would do the fing workouts and be in constant pain . Did the 23andme genetic sequencing downloaded and ran a report called promethease and viola the answer to my issues since then I have switched to just running easy with a little speedwork and race better! Also am taking a b complex supplement that replaces b2 which restores depleted d ribose.

Anyhow this C34T variant occurs in 2.4 percent of european ancestory so pretty common

Interval workout if you follow Daniels' training pace can be a little fast.

Yes is about 5 k pace, so it shouldn't be too much difficult doing 5X1000 at 5 k pace. But sometimes in training is not so easy

and can be hard. One can say ok if you are able to run 5k at 3'42"/km so you can run 5x 1000 at the same pace with recovery, this can be true but also if you are able to run a 10 k at 3'52"/km can be very demanding to do a 4x2000 at the same pace or even a 5 x2000 can be harder than the race itself.

If you are so tired after the interval training you can slow the pace of few seconds /km,

Or you can train V02max using 400 metres at 3k pace with 45 " recover.

Is it true that you need 2 ' to reach the V02max (so 800/1000 can be a better option) but if you keep the rest no more than 45" also with a workout like 10X400 or 12 x400 with 45" rest after the first 3 or 4 repetitions you are going to stimulate your V02 max.

Is another type of workout and personally I find it easier to recover than 5x1000 at 5k pace

To OP:

I have similar issues.

So I do an easy run, a tempo run and a long run.

The tempo run is done between HM an M pace, and contributes a lot to my race fitness.

Occasionally, I incorporate some 30:30 strides in my easy run, i.e. 30 sec 90% of Vmax, 30 sec jog. This is great for fitness and for improving running form.

How long is it until you eat and drink after your interval sessions?

Are they on a track or a different surface to your long runs?

Are you wearing different shoes?

I'd experiment, take some chocolate milk or something and have that directly after. I always found eating and drinking as soon as possible afterwards made a difference, instead of doing a cool down, hanging around chatting, travelling home, THEN eating and drinking. Especially if you stand around getting cold.

Stay hydrated through the whole thing. IDK, some things are just tough to recover from. I remember going to a track meet and doing five events. I went home and slept and woke up 14 hours later.

Maybe the solution is just to do those workouts at 10k pace or do tempos at 10k-1hr pace.

Are you doing the right stretching, foam rolling, and/or deep tissue massage? That can accelerate recovery from hard efforts.

General Suggestions:

1. Like others are saying above, you may be training too hard on your "easy" days. Save the fast stuff for your key interval workouts. You can't run your easy days as tempo runs and not expect it to catch up to you in the form of training plateaus or, worse, overtraining. Consider using something to measure your effort so that you can keep a ceiling on your training ambitions. A heart rate monitor is great, affordable choice for this. You can get a chest strap for $50 and connect it to your smartphone or fitness watch. Next level would be a power meter like Stryd. If you can afford it that would be my choice because it can give you a more accurate assessment of effort based on your Critical Power variable amoung other metrics that can really help you with a deeper analysis of your running which can help you with really precise race effort estimates. You are probably gonna find out that you aerobic development is lacking and that the runs are way slower than you expect. Give yourself a few months to adapt. Believe it or not this is where you actually get faster because you are giving yourself a change to regenerate after breaking down the muscles from the hard efforts.

2. Build your strength with shorter rep distances before taking on longer rep distances. 5k pace is aerobic capacity work focusing on your VO2max development. In order to stimulate that you would need 90 sec to 2 minutes to reach that point and stay there for a period of time. This is why the reps are longer. However if your legs aren't strong enough to handle that stress you are going to break down more severely and it will take you longer to recover. I suspect that this along with you not actually recovering from the efforts is what's delaying your recovery.

I'd start with hill reps of 100m up to 300m then go to the track or roads for the 400m reps. Start with a volume of 1/2 the target race distance and work toward 1 1/2 the race distance. So for a 5k that would be 2500m of total volume working toward 7500m. Spend 3 weeks at each progression before moving on. It could look something like this.

3. Start lifting heavy. Heavy weight training (1-5 rep range @ 85% 1RM or heavier) will not only make you stronger but will stimulate your natural growth hormone production. It will also stimulate mitochondrial biogenesis. This hormonal release will aid in recovering quicker. Lift heavy after your Interval work.

4. Schedule complete rest days or incorporate cross training. Strategically placing rest days or doing cross-training instead of running may provide the respite your body needs. You don't have to be a strict 7 days per week runner to get faster. Lot of top runners do this to supplement their training or just to give their bodies a break from the hard training. This could be in the form of water running, rowing machine, elliptical, cycling. Using a heart monitor you can make sure you efforts are aerobic enough.