Marathon training, how many days of faster work?

He can say it again after another but what he says will still NOT be true!

And what he's doing wrong when it comes to VO2MAX is to talk about running 3 k pace. That's too fast and demanding for most runners ! If you do that you will have the injuries,overtraining and burn-out you talk about.

Exact controlled individual pace will only lead to improvement!

Big picture, Tinman and Daniels 2Q are similar.

Both have you doing 2 long workouts per week with some quality mixed in. While the exact pace of the quality work will be different, that is probably not as important as the training structure as a whole.

I would bring up something like the Hanson's method as a comparison, which (I believe) favors more of the "2 workouts + long run" method.

I think it can be tough to look back on marathon training and know what is optimal, unless you have run a few and experienced differences in how training cycles go. It is a balance of getting in as much mileage as you can over several weeks, while also emphasizing long individual runs, while also emphasizing endurance work. When you feel run down, do you need to cut mileage or workouts? Or is it good to feel run down?

I think these questions can be tough to answer, so having some sort of plan/template is useful, even if it is only a guide for how much work you can handle in a week.

peekay wrote:

It is a balance of getting in as much mileage as you can over several weeks,.

It's more like getting in enough mileage and at the pace you need to reach your goal.

That's intense. My body might be able to maintain three weeks at that intensity before a meltdown.

So many workout plans get overzealous causing the runner to get injured.

My .02 is why not do something like this...

Monday-VO2

Tuesday-Easy

Wednesday-Easy with hill sprints or strides

Thursday-Rest

Friday Easy

Saturday-Long run (Every other week mix in a tempo)

Sunday-Rest

You're going to get burned out or hurt a lot of times doing 1 VO2 and 1 tempo along with a long run mixed with easy runs. Thats a lot of running for most people.

So now you get your vo2 in and 2 birds with 1 stone with the long run and tempo mixed in and staying fresh along with 2 runs technically where you exceed race pace.

I ran a sub 1:20 doing this.

I’m the best person here wrote:

Two hard workouts a week is optimal for most people. People here are arguing again Tinman versus Daniels 2Q. They are the same thing! Different workouts, but same general approaches.

I created a matrix: Tinman, 2Q, 4W, Daniels HM and Smooves Chicago Plan. I then color coded by workout type and the plans are all very similar!

All of the plans have 200’s and 400’s, tempos and hard long runs. The Tinman plan doesn’t have easy long runs. Even Daniels HM plan has heaps of M paced stuff and Tempo running.

People just need to understand training load and specificity.

I’m gonna disagree with you on this point. I think the two philosophies have some big differences. I’ve never trained with Daniels but I have studied it. I’ve used Higdon (4:33), Hansons (3:33), and Tinman/Hansons (3:06).

Biggest difference I’d say are the paces used for each workout and the phases throughout a cycle. With Daniels the focus changes every 6 weeks or so, but with Tinman you “keep the ball rolling,” meaning you’re working all systems (speed, threshold, and endurance) the whole time. CV workouts and tempos are always followed by 200s, 400s, or hill repeats no matter where you are in the cycle.

I think Tinman would say Daniels’ easy pace is way too fast. Same with his “speed” work. Tinman’s CV pace (10k pace) has a very specific purpose for building endurance and recruiting fast and slow twitch muscle fibers. Daniels’ doesn’t seem to have very much work at this pace if any.

Daniels does a lot of threshold work (~15k pace) on Tempo day, but for a local amateur runner like myself, Tinman prescribes a lot of work at marathon pace for tempo runs. Again, these paces work very different systems.

And for long runs, Tinman prescribes a much slower pace with big sections of marathon pace and/or repeats worked in.

Maybe these differences are minuscule but the purpose behind the paces of the workouts seem to be very different to me. Also, another caveat: What Tinman would prescribe to me (super slow twitch) might be different for others.

Saywhat2 wrote:

So many workout plans get overzealous causing the runner to get injured.

My .02 is why not do something like this...

Monday-VO2

Tuesday-Easy

Wednesday-Easy with hill sprints or strides

Thursday-Rest

Friday Easy

Saturday-Long run (Every other week mix in a tempo)

Sunday-Rest

You're going to get burned out or hurt a lot of times doing 1 VO2 and 1 tempo along with a long run mixed with easy runs. Thats a lot of running for most people.

So now you get your vo2 in and 2 birds with 1 stone with the long run and tempo mixed in and staying fresh along with 2 runs technically where you exceed race pace.

I ran a sub 1:20 doing this.

Have you ever wondered how much faster you could have been with a smarter schedule?

Kid B wrote:

I think Tinman would say Daniels’ easy pace is way too fast. Same with his “speed” work. Tinman’s CV pace (10k pace) has a very specific purpose for building endurance and recruiting fast and slow twitch muscle fibers. Daniels’ doesn’t seem to have very much work at this pace if any.

.

Do you know why Daniels don't have the so called CV pace ( 10 k pace) in his program? No?

It's because you don't need it!

High effective coaching wrote:

Saywhat2 wrote:

So many workout plans get overzealous causing the runner to get injured.

My .02 is why not do something like this...

Monday-VO2

Tuesday-Easy

Wednesday-Easy with hill sprints or strides

Thursday-Rest

Friday Easy

Saturday-Long run (Every other week mix in a tempo)

Sunday-Rest

You're going to get burned out or hurt a lot of times doing 1 VO2 and 1 tempo along with a long run mixed with easy runs. Thats a lot of running for most people.

So now you get your vo2 in and 2 birds with 1 stone with the long run and tempo mixed in and staying fresh along with 2 runs technically where you exceed race pace.

I ran a sub 1:20 doing this.

Have you ever wondered how much faster you could have been with a smarter schedule?

This is essentially the Pfitz ~80mpw plan. Tempos every or every other week and long runs with mp every other week. I have used Pfitz several times...and still don't quite get why he brings in the VO2 or 5K pace intervals near the end of the cycle, but I've done them his way anyway. Also, I'm in the masters cat, and 3 days between non-easy runs is just about right. Less than that would be suicidal, both physically and mentally. If there's a week without a tempo or intervals scheduled in the M-F portion, if I feel good, I'll throw in a progression, tempo, or steady state.

I think the two week cycle that Canova designed for Wilson Kipsang is a good one to take a look at. As Canova explains it, Kipsang felt that he had a commitment to his training group that made it difficult for him to do the kind of highly individualized training that Canova would usually prescribe. So, Canova came up with a way for Kipsang to increase the modulation of his training while still maintaining a consistent weekly routine. Breaking it down to the basics, the cycle looks like this:

Week 1:

More demanding track workout

Lighter fartlek workout

Long run fast (for Kipsang, 35k at 95-97% of MP)

Week 2:

Lighter track workout

More demanding fartlek workout

Long run easy (for Kipsang, 35-40k at 85% of MP, so potentially longer than week 1, but significantly less aggressive in terms of pace)

Other days easy running.

So, the basic pattern is that you alternate (a) workout and recovery days, (b) more and less demanding workouts, and (c) more and less demanding weeks.

Canova's explanation can be found in this thread:

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=6030845

Rod Johnson, Esq. wrote:

High effective coaching wrote:

Have you ever wondered how much faster you could have been with a smarter schedule?

This is essentially the Pfitz ~80mpw plan. Tempos every or every other week and long runs with mp every other week. I have used Pfitz several times...and still don't quite get why he brings in the VO2 or 5K pace intervals near the end of the cycle, but I've done them his way anyway. Also, I'm in the masters cat, and 3 days between non-easy runs is just about right. Less than that would be suicidal, both physically and mentally. If there's a week without a tempo or intervals scheduled in the M-F portion, if I feel good, I'll throw in a progression, tempo, or steady state.

Pfitz - 80 mpw?

I'm not impressed!

High effective coaching wrote:

Saywhat2 wrote:

So many workout plans get overzealous causing the runner to get injured.

My .02 is why not do something like this...

Monday-VO2

Tuesday-Easy

Wednesday-Easy with hill sprints or strides

Thursday-Rest

Friday Easy

Saturday-Long run (Every other week mix in a tempo)

Sunday-Rest

You're going to get burned out or hurt a lot of times doing 1 VO2 and 1 tempo along with a long run mixed with easy runs. Thats a lot of running for most people.

So now you get your vo2 in and 2 birds with 1 stone with the long run and tempo mixed in and staying fresh along with 2 runs technically where you exceed race pace.

I ran a sub 1:20 doing this.

Have you ever wondered how much faster you could have been with a smarter schedule?

Sure do, and I ended up on the training table and always hurt. So there is always that...

Its a fine line. More speed workouts doesnt always mean faster runner.

Coaching with perfection wrote:

Rod Johnson, Esq. wrote:

This is essentially the Pfitz ~80mpw plan. Tempos every or every other week and long runs with mp every other week. I have used Pfitz several times...and still don't quite get why he brings in the VO2 or 5K pace intervals near the end of the cycle, but I've done them his way anyway. Also, I'm in the masters cat, and 3 days between non-easy runs is just about right. Less than that would be suicidal, both physically and mentally. If there's a week without a tempo or intervals scheduled in the M-F portion, if I feel good, I'll throw in a progression, tempo, or steady state.

Pfitz - 80 mpw?

I'm not impressed!

I care why?

Here is the training log of a few elites:

For the marathon, workouts a lot of you think of are not as important as you think. Just need to run a lot and run at marathon pace every so often. Look at this to see what I mean: