Road Racing and Training Thread - Week Ending 2/16/20

Wow, it looks like Norm Green basically just ran steady and fast everyday. Excerpt from the post from a training week:

Mon - 10 miles @ 5:49

Tues - 10 miles @ 5:51

Wed - 7 miles @ 5:55

Thurs - 10 miles @ 5:57

Fri - 10 miles @ 5:58

Sat - 8 miles @ 5:38

Sun - 17 miles @ 5:58

Total - 72 miles

I wonder if runners at this level are:

A. Warming up for 10 minutes and not reporting it.

B. Including the warm up in the total. (e.g. Monday's first mile was 7:00 and the rest much faster than average).

C. Immediately running fast from the beginning

I am sure you know what I think of this type of training. Go Norm Green. I like that guy.

As per your multiple choice question, I would probably select "C." I LOVE getting after it right from my doorstep. Yesterday, I did this (to kind of test the waters)...

6.13 at 6:04.6 overall

6:39, 6:17, 6;03, 5:53, 5:51, 5:45, 0:46

Felt good...though my legs were a little heavy in my 14.5-miler in the wind this morning...

Some comments from this week:

RRR: Welcome back to running!

Highhoppingworm: Enjoy the taper and good luck at your marathon. Treadmill workouts aren't so bad once you get used to them...

JQ: Another solid week of high-mileage training.

SC: That is a really tough progression long run. Nice work.

OR: Strong set of progression runs as always. I think you are looking very strong for your next marathon. Norm Green seems like a good role model of a runner for you.

Sub-6: Hope your ankle feels better soon.

GFMAH: Your buildup is coming along nicely.

NiceGuy: I have yet to do a 21 miler on a treadmill even though I run a lot on the treadmill. I did do a 20 mile long run on the track a few weeks ago though.

LancRunner: Congratulations on the new weekly mileage PR. I consider 16+ miles as a long run and 11-15 miles is a medium long run. I can't remember where I read this.. Daniels or Pfitzinger?

moke: Great job with the 10K race.

RGM: Nice to see you building up your mileage again.

Pappy: Welcome back to running again.

AJ: You killed that 5K race.. sub-16 and big congrats! Awesome kick for the finish.. 4:18 pace is just sick. Really looking forward to see how big of a PR you can run at London.

GT: Nice 6 mile tempo and 21 mile long run. Looking good for Boston.

THOUGHTSLEADER: Hope you enjoyed your trip to Napa and still got some training in. Project FEARLESS sounds pretty cool.

pewow: Nice 12 mile MLR.

darkwave: Good luck in your marathon! Interesting to read comments on why you have shorter marathon training blocks but it seems to make sense and work for you.

drcrusher: Solid 20 mile long run at a moderate pace.

Tyler Runs Lifts: Great 10 mile progression tempo run and 22 mile long run. You recovered quickly from that half marathon and congratulations on the sub-70 half.

coffee dad: Congrats on the weekly mileage PR.

BHViking: Great job on that 12 mile long tempo run.

Still Improving: IMHO the 17.7 mile run was definitely a long run. 16 miles is the cutoff for long run for me (I am trying to do 1 long run a week during this training cycle)

statfanatic: An impressive week of training as always ("light" quality at 5:30 pace.. )

npurdy: Welcome back to the thread! Any insights on what you need to do to go sub-2:40 in a marathon? (that is my goal for 2020 London)

fnd: Solid volume for high school XC/track training.

GNR1: Great set of strength repeats.. 2 sets of 4.5 miles at 5K pace.. very impressive. You probably are just that fit and are primed to set another 5K PR.

HHH Runner: Good luck in the national XC championships this weekend. I hope the Virgin London Marathon goes on as planned. It was the hardest major for me to get into. Looking forward to hearing your reports about training in Iten, Kenya.

RunnerSam: Great week of training and good luck on your 5 mile race.

coccoon: Congratulations on the high mileage week and that tough trail long run. IMHO more mileage is good but you have to make sure you don't get injured increasing the mileage.

mikemike: Sorry about the Tokyo marathon being cancelled but you will be running Tokyo in 2021 right?

mdubs: Nice 25x200 workout.

Guy Broman: 16 miles is a long run in my book.

jewbacca: Still got some decent runs despite life getting in the way.

Powsloke: Another great week of relatively slow but high volume training.

DietBacon: Very strong alternating pace tempo.. hope your hamstring is back to 100% before the race.

cocoon - what worked really well for JQ is he simply experimented — outside of a goal race setting, outside of any preconceived fitness goals or end results — and he just ran for the sake of seeing what would happen. If you are in the middle of an actual training cycle, I would urge you to be more cautious and maybe wait to do this type of experimenting when there isn’t as much at stake.

Having said all that, I don’t think there’s any harm in carefully planning a 100 mile week that is reasonably controlled and the risk of injury is slight. Because you are right, coming back down to 70 to 80 miles a week after that is going to make that level of training seem relatively easier. Which, if you can then consistently stack 70 to 80 miles a week during this training cycle, that leads you to naturally build up to 100 miles a week more consistently down the road, as JQ has done so well over the past year.

Gordon Tremeshko wrote:

Tyler_Runs_Lifts wrote:

Does anybody train in the Hoka Rincon? If so, did you notice that it kind of "flattens out" after about 200 miles or so? I took mine out for a 10 mile aerobic run today and while still light and all, I have been noticing the firm ground much more these days.

I have had a similar experience with a shoe I believe to be similar, the Beacon. First 150 miles are great, next 150 are serviceable. Hard to pull off the light and cushioned experience without sacrificing some durability in the process.

I'm also shocked to learn that you can still by the Tracer on Hoka's website.

Tyler : Yes and yes. You must be reading my mind. In the last few days, my Rincons have been feeling somewhat slappy.

Bruin, et. al...on Norm Green...I have been eyeing his achievements and such for a while now. What a great runner. Would love to emulate him...though it seems I have been doing so unwittingly.

Would love to be able to do that week BHV posted...a week of all sub-sixes with 72 miles. About the only thing that I would add (given my style) would be to do it in six days, not seven. I like to avg. more like 11-13 per run in a week. The 72 in 7 is just over 10 per run...

Who is to say norm green wouldn’t have ran much faster w smarter training?

runrincerepeat wrote:

Who is to say norm green wouldn’t have ran much faster w smarter training?

Well....that's always a possible argument, isn't it.

I do think that argument works better with younger and/or newer runners - those who will likely see progress no matter which of a wide variety of approaches they take.

But, as you get older, your margin of error dwindles, and eventually disappears. I would generally assume that anyone who is running and competing well in their high 50s or beyond is doing the right training for them. Because if they weren't, they would not be competing well, or at all.

Catching up some:

HHW - good luck this weekend!

AJ - I agreed with every point you made a few pages back, especially those about macro versus mini cycles, I should be clear - by saying people can train too long for a marathon, I'm referring to doing marathon-specific training for too long. In one sense, I've done very long marathon training cycles, but that "marathon cycle" has included several weeks of racing road miles and 5Ks. As someone else noted, it's all semantics.

I also agree that talk is cheap, especially when discussing masters records. Bodies change over time, despite our best efforts, and they change in ways that we never anticipate or understand or respect until we get there.

So much of masters competition in those higher age groups involves simply getting to the start line.

Thanks again for all the good lucks. Final check in.

Weather looks to be as close to perfect as I could hope for. 43 up to 46 during race time with sunny weather a 8mph winds.

Just got back from a 3 mile shakeout and felt awesome. I am ready to go over here. Now I just need to run a 6:40 or slower first mile. Easier said than done.

I have said this before but I really do want to thank everyone for all of the advice and support on this thread. I know it sounds stupid to feel in some way beholden to a message board thread but I do. I look forward to writing up a race report for y’all tomorrow or Monday. Hopefully it is a happy one!

highhoppingworm wrote:

Thanks again for all the good lucks. Final check in.

Weather looks to be as close to perfect as I could hope for. 43 up to 46 during race time with sunny weather a 8mph winds.

Excellent - really looking forward to what you can do.

Also, a correction to my post above (I wish we could edit). It was StatFanatic that wrote the excellent post that I was referring to, not AngryJohnny. [Though AJ also writes excellent posts; hence my confusion]

highhoppingworm - Good luck in Hyannis. Hokas... I tried out two of the maximalist Hokas back when I was rebuilding after an injury. I had the Bondi and I still have a pair of Clifton 4s that I have yet to wear out. I paid full retail for those shoes so I am trying to get my money's worth out of them, but I really don't like to run in them. You might take my comments with a grain of salt since Hoka may have changed things up with more recent versions of those shoes. I find that the Cliftons feel really dead under my feet and I feel really slow in them. I have a minor issue with fit in the arch which is another reason why I don't care to run in them. I know you guys are big, but that is a lot of meat under your feet. I have no experience with the Rincon and it is certainly possible that you have killed the foam cushion. Another factor could be the cold temperatures. I find that my shoes feel different based upon the ambient temperatures and cold temperatures make the foam feel stiff and dead. For the past few years, my go to shoe has been the Kinvara. I found that it works for me so I really haven't ventured outside of that until recently. I went to the local Nike outlet and picked up a pair of Rival Flys for less than $50. In the past I have not really cared for Nike shoes but I found that I liked these more than I expected. I did try out some different shoes in the Saucony line in attempt to find a pair of shoes with the right amount of cushion so that my feet didn't feel beat up at the end of the longer long runs. I pretty much came to the conclusion that this is just the nature of things and after running that long my feet are just going to feel beat up. At least it is just a beat up and not injured and it passes somewhat quickly after the run. I know you guys might have a preference for the Hokas but you might want to experiment with other shoes.

darkwave wrote:

But, as you get older, your margin of error dwindles, and eventually disappears. I would generally assume that anyone who is running and competing well in their high 50s or beyond is doing the right training for them. Because if they weren't, they would not be competing well, or at all.

and

darkwave wrote:

I also agree that talk is cheap, especially when discussing masters records. Bodies change over time, despite our best efforts, and they change in ways that we never anticipate or understand or respect until we get there.

So much of masters competition in those higher age groups involves simply getting to the start line.

A big +1 here. Note that I am very much humbled after looking at that week of Norm Green's training. It would take some effort from me to run 1 mile at a sub 6 pace.

Smart training is the kind of training that keeps one running.

Best of success to you, hhh, in Hyannis tomorrow. I knew the weather would be better than Boston weather. That race has the stupidest weather on earth.

I can definitely see OR successfully emulating Norman Green's training. The one day experiment proves that you can at least start building toward it. Who knows how that will translate into race performance? Most likely better especially if you are excited about it. From the thread, I got the feeling that Norman may have been motivated to crank up the training due believing his days could be numbered due to health or he simply just loved to train hard and trained to train. Apparently that wasn't that uncommon.

At the end of the day, who cares if it's better or worse training? Unless you're a paid professional, you're doing this for fun and the pure enjoyment of running.

BHViking wrote:

I can definitely see OR successfully emulating Norman Green's training. The one day experiment proves that you can at least start building toward it. Who knows how that will translate into race performance? Most likely better especially if you are excited about it. From the thread, I got the feeling that Norman may have been motivated to crank up the training due believing his days could be numbered due to health or he simply just loved to train hard and trained to train. Apparently that wasn't that uncommon.

At the end of the day, who cares if it's better or worse training? Unless you're a paid professional, you're doing this for fun and the pure enjoyment of running.

Could not agree more, BHV. A beautiful post.

Go HHW!

and +another to dark wave's post.

I find it interesting that a number of outstanding older runners were pretty unconventional in their training methods. More specifically, there are a number of prominent examples of people who had great success at 50 and up with training that was mostly unstructured, minimally periodized, maniacally repetitive, or just kind of weird in one way or another. (Just to be clear, I say this with love.)

In addition to Norm Green, I'm thinking, for example, of Ed Whitlock (endless loops around the cemetery), Yoshihisa Hosaka (same combo of AM/PM workouts every day), Derek Turnbull (run for fun doing what you feel like doing on the day/at the moment), Jack Foster (strong but not very structured running plus a lot of biking). Even Gene Dykes, whose training sounds like it is more conventional in some ways, is pretty unusual in the way that he incorporates long-but-low-key ultras.

Of course, these kinds of athletes are genetic outliers. In addition, it's possible that the people with unusual training approaches stand out partly just because they're unusual, and it may be that their unconventional training didn't determine their success so much as it correlated with some other factor or quality that did. (Like, say, sheer cussedness?) In addition, while there are some family resemblances, each of the athletes I've mentioned was unconventional in his own particular way, making it harder to put together any Grand Unified Theory of veteran endurance training from their disparate approaches.

That being said, it does seem like there is a common theme of athletes who were very self-directed in their training, found something that worked for them, and stuck with it.

DW - you can confuse me for a 4:0x guy anytime. Just don’t mistake stat for a marathoner.

It would not surprise me if Norm Greens fast easy pace was around 5:55-6:00/mile. It would also not surprise me if he did all of his training in the 5:35-5:55 pace for each day. It would surprise me if he actually only ran those paces as steady state runs everyday. He probably wrote down his average pace for the day and did not list any modulation he did.

I started running mid-80's but was around the sport from the mid-70's. Times now are a lot different than then. Today we are in the information age. People share their training honestly. Plus, it is very easy to look up what some better runners are actually doing. Quality training programs are unbelievably accessible to anyone that wants them now.

Back then, a lot of good runners did not necessarily share their training very honestly. They didn't flat out lie, they just didn't share the whole truth with everyone. Good training information was a lot less accessible. You could wait a month or so and maybe pick up a magazine or a paper with an excerpt of a good/great runners training but even that wouldn't tell you everything. I knew a guy in the 80's who did a workout with a 2:20 half a 1:30 float 1/4 for dang near 40 laps. When asked about the workout he said he got in around 10 around 5:10-5:15 pace. Not a lie, not really the truth. People from that era really seemed to be more guarded with their training. So, I'm not going to look at Norm Green's training and think he just ran steady state for everything.

Thanks Stone and also RunnerSam from earlier. The gist that I got from you both is that there might not be much benefit to throw in a random 100 mile week other than the mental benefits. Decided not to force the 100 this week; will probably land at 90+ though.

Early summer after Boston might be a good time to think about this experiment again.

+1. No telling what the guy actually did.