Hitomi Niiya's Complete Training Log Leading Up To 1:06:38

Thanks for sharing, this is essentially Tinman training.

Lots of work at CV pace ("8x1k", "5x2k"), tempos usually to around Tinman Tempo effort (not classic 20 min threshold Daniel's tempos!), 400s with 30s rest (also staple for Tinman, but he doesn't prescribe it as often as the Japanese coach) and high volume. Easy days very easy.

Coach knows what he is doing.

She’s also very talented.

Clean world record.

... and the coach has been around longer than Tinman and has no idea who Tinman is... let me know when Tinman coaches a female to 1:06 like Salazar did.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

Thanks for sharing, this is essentially Tinman training.

Lots of work at CV pace ("8x1k", "5x2k"), tempos usually to around Tinman Tempo effort (not classic 20 min threshold Daniel's tempos!), 400s with 30s rest (also staple for Tinman, but he doesn't prescribe it as often as the Japanese coach) and high volume. Easy days very easy.

Coach knows what he is doing.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

Thanks for sharing, this is essentially Tinman training.

Lots of work at CV pace ("8x1k", "5x2k"), tempos usually to around Tinman Tempo effort (not classic 20 min threshold Daniel's tempos!), 400s with 30s rest (also staple for Tinman, but he doesn't prescribe it as often as the Japanese coach) and high volume. Easy days very easy.

Coach knows what he is doing.

No, it’s not essentially Tinman training. Her workouts tend to have one layer. Tinman prescribes two or three layers of paces. I don’t see all the hills in her training that Tinman likes. She’s running 30km per day most days. Around 180km per week. Tinman does not prescribe mileage this high, and if he does it’s only for short periods.

Not every coach that does long tempos and threshold/CV/cruise intervals is “Tinman training.” Many coaches prescribed multiple paces in workouts before Tinman. Do some research. Educate yourself. Bill Bowerman and Arthur Lydiard are a good start. But even they weren’t the OGs. Far from it.

The amount of quality is pretty intense, obviously a lot of recovery is needed with all of those hard efforts interspersed. Lots of different paces incorporated, really thoughtful.

It'd be interesting to know what she does when she's not preparing for a specific race, this is basically a buildup.

No training will be 100% identical, but the basic principles are the same. You understand that Tinman based his own training on principles of Lydiard and Bowerman? He just fine-tuned a little bit, but essentially it's similar training.

What I wanted to say is not that Tinman invented something, but that the training of elite endurance athletes is often highly similar. Lots of moderate, good work, no hard taxing sessions and "keeping the ball rolling".

This is opposed to many HS programs or certain coaches, that prescribe all-out sprints, anaerobic capacity intervals and VO2MAX intervals in high amounts in addition to weekly races. Often, these runners then burn out and/or get injured.

This Japanese runner does tempos around the paces Tinman would recommend for such a runner (no hard short 20 min threshold runs like Daniels or most HS kids and some college kids are doing, no long VO2MAX reps - only running that pace in 400s, no sprints), long intervals at CV/threshold pace and plenty of easy mileage. That's the principle of "keep the ball rolling". Too often distance runners and coaches want to do more and more and focus on wrong things. Injury risk is high with doing all-out flying 60s on the track. Taxing sessions like 5x1k @3k pace are effective in short-term but will burn out in long term and cause the body to break down.

She often did 8x1k@CV pace (10k) with 60s rest, a staple in Tinman's program. Daniels has ZERO 10k paced running in his training program, because he doesn't understand that paces between threshold and VO2MAX can be highly effective while being less taxing than VO2MAX. He would have given her 6x1k @3k/5k pace and 5xMile at threshold, but nothing between.

markeroon wrote:

The amount of quality is pretty intense, obviously a lot of recovery is needed with all of those hard efforts interspersed. Lots of different paces incorporated, really thoughtful.

It'd be interesting to know what she does when she's not preparing for a specific race, this is basically a buildup.

List me one "superhero workout" or something that was overly taxing that she did outside of the tune-up races and HM itself. Everything was in control and appropriate for her distance level, the average HS kid trains harder than that (despite being a lot slower). The Japanese runner leaves these tempos and intervals INVIGORATED and could have done more reps or a longer tempo with ease, you need to put the times in relation to her performance level (1:06 half).

Where did I say she did a "superhero workout"?

From the 26-31 of October she does 4 sessions, a high frequency.

Hey loser ... let me know when AlSal coaches anyone with a $0.00 budget, without the needle.

markeroon wrote:

Where did I say she did a "superhero workout"?

From the 26-31 of October she does 4 sessions, a high frequency.

Oct. 26 (Sat.): 20 km

3:59.9 - 3:50.9 - 3:48.2 - 3:49.6 - 3:47.5 - 3:42.0 - 3:41.1

3:37.2 - 3:41.5 - 3:39.1 - 3:37.9 - 3:37.9 - 3:41.2 - 3:38.0

3:37.1 - 3:36.4 - 3:38.4 - 3:37.1 - 3:39.9 - 3:33.4

This is mostly a moderate run. Lots of elite coaches use efforts between easy and tempo, but this is still significantly slower than MP (her MP is ~3:20/k or faster). This is not really too taxing for a 1:06 marathoner.

Oct. 27 (Sun.): jog

Easy recovery

Oct. 28 (Mon.): 400x15, r30~45"

75.82 - 73.45 - 75.61 - 74.36 - 75.41

72.49 - 73.47 - 72.78 - 72.63 - 72.24

(r30" up to this point, r45" for last set of five reps)

71.56 - 70.08 - 71.02 - 70.59 - 69.83

400s, from 10k to 5k pace, for quick turnover, running form and VO2MAX benefits (short rest). The short rest makes this hard, but the pace does not get to 3k or faster so it is still well in control.

Oct. 29 (Tues.): 1000x8, r60"

3:09.61 - 3:08.54 - 3:08.55 - 3:08.34

3:07.22 - 3:08.17 - 3:07.25 - 3:04.58

8x1000@HM to 10k effort - highly aerobic workout

Oct. 30 (Wed.): jog

Easy

Oct. 31 (Thurs.): 12000 m build-up

3:46 - 3:41 - 3:29 - 3:26 - 3:23 - 3:22

3:19 - 3:18 - 3:17 - 3:16 - 3:14 - 3:08

8 mile progressive run, starting at moderate pace, then spending most of it around MP and finishing at HM effort. Another good effort, but doable.

This is a lot of work/volume around threshold, and very low intensity. The highest intensity used is 5k pace with short rest, which is appropriate for a HM specialist (train 2 race distances faster and 2 races distances slower). Not much different to the training of Tinman, or Ingebrigtsens, or many, many other good coaches out there. She is not being overworked, and they focus on the most important things for her and her target distance.

She does a LOT of sub LT running.

Most of those intervals are 10k pace or slower.

Even (Most of) the 400s aren’t that much faster than 10k pace.

180km is a lot, but it looks like the longest session she did in a “single” was 24 km. So not one session was overly taxing.

Good breakdown. Cumulatively it's a substantial but manageable workload for a person with a 1:06 HM PR.

LateRunnerPhil, I do want to call out that the Japanese program incurs the most injuries of any program on the planet. This has been covered in depth at JPN Running News just how many runners on any given high school and/or corporate teams (anywhere from 20-40% of the team at any given time!). Also to note is that Tinman's star pupil, Drew Hunter, has been chronically injured since turning professional and is not looking like he's going to have a long career. He got very lucky with the 2020 Olympics moving to 2021, as he would have had 0 % shot in 2020. quote]LateRunnerPhil wrote:

I'm interested, why do you think that is?

A friend who I've been coaching was doing a lot of really easy volume, the same way the Tinmen do, and he was getting injured repeatedly. I got him to pick up the pace of his easy runs and he's holding up ok thus far, and he's getting substantially fitter too.

My belief is that a lot of people's mechanics get really bad at slower paces; perhaps they're more likely to be overstriding with fewer steps per minute.

I agree with you 100%. You need to run the pace you are most efficient at, and a lot of the times, running too slowly causing more stress on joints/mechanics if posture is impacted.

AT THESWOOSH wrote:

LateRunnerPhil, I do want to call out that the Japanese program incurs the most injuries of any program on the planet. This has been covered in depth at JPN Running News just how many runners on any given high school and/or corporate teams (anywhere from 20-40% of the team at any given time!).

As far as I know Niiya's coach Masato Yokota - who mainly coaches middle distance runners being a former 800m Olympian himself - isn't really known to produce a lot of injuries. Also she probably runs very low mileage compared to "stereotypical" japanese training programs.

markeroon wrote:

My belief is that a lot of people's mechanics get really bad at slower paces; perhaps they're more likely to be overstriding with fewer steps per minute.

I remember an instagram video of Parker Stinson looking really forced trying to run slow, so yeah, there might be an influence in such cases. I however don't think that injuries of japanese runners (who aren't exactly known for overstriding) are generally caused by slow running.

AT THESWOOSH wrote:

Also to note is that Tinman's star pupil, Drew Hunter, has been chronically injured since turning professional and is not looking like he's going to have a long career. He got very lucky with the 2020 Olympics moving to 2021, as he would have had 0 % shot in 2020.

Every pro runner will be injured at one point or another. That's what happens when you push the limits either in training or races.

Hunter said in a podcast why he got injured.

1) He increased mileage by himself (did more than what coach Schwartz prescribed him). This might have had to do with it, now he is only running singles and max 75-80 mpw.

2) During the 5k at trials, he started a big kick like a lap out. That's when he got the injury. He finished the race, qualified for Doha but he knew during that moment that this is something he will have to deal with for a long time. He didn't heal in time for Doha, and had to spend many months cross-training and recovering.

He is incredibly strong mentally, and a very tough racer, so you can imagine what force he will be able to produce at the end of a 5k when his body is already broken down. With bad form starting a powerful kick, no wonder he got injured there. The training might not have prepared him for that exact moment, but training to prepare for that is dangerous in itself (basically sprinting when highly fatigued).

markeroon wrote:

I'm interested, why do you think that is?

A friend who I've been coaching was doing a lot of really easy volume, the same way the Tinmen do, and he was getting injured repeatedly. I got him to pick up the pace of his easy runs and he's holding up ok thus far, and he's getting substantially fitter too.

My belief is that a lot of people's mechanics get really bad at slower paces; perhaps they're more likely to be overstriding with fewer steps per minute.

Might have something to do with the fact that they hammer all their miles on the same hardball roads? Maybe? along with high mileage....