LateRunnerPhil - Tinman Training Through Summer to 5k PR in Sep (Goal ~15:30)

webby wrote:

Nice work. It's not easy running fast alone.

I think you are probably right about what this tells you about training paces, but agree with BZ that you should add time for the shoes. And add more for the terrain on your tempos. And maybe add some for the 40 seconds that you are guessing you can cut from your time. Or perhaps just stick to the slow end of the ranges.

Stay healthy!

You can't fake a 10k or a 10k TT. I've definitely faked and overestimated my fitness from mile, 5k races and workouts, where I used a lot of anaerobic energy and high lactate levels to get through them and tell myself I'm fast.

This performance was unexpectedly good.

2/1 - 8k progressive Tempo on track. Splits: 3:51-3:52-3:47-3:47-3:42-3:42-3:38-3:33

3/14 - 7k progressive Tempo on track. Splits: 3:42-3:42-3:41-3:35-3:34-3:36-3:31 Plan was 10k, but heavy side stitches and had to quit

3/28 - 10k TT on road. 3:38/k

5/16 - 10k TT on track, 3:25/k. Comfortable/controlled/relaxed

Had a good training camp in Portugal and some very high mileage weeks. Workouts have been controlled CV/threshold/tempos and some short Fartleks with short rests. Lots of strides and hill sprints. Also some longer hill workouts. My leg strength is crazy right now, and I'm also good aerobically. I'm not in race shape/sharpened, but that will make me even faster.

Things look good for this year.

siehst wrote:

Great job! That’s a terrific time.

But I think it’s a mistake to claim your CV pace is 3:20 when you ran 3:25— it’s always easier to think too could do a lot more after the fact, and 5s/k is quite a big difference. Stick with what you proved. Plus, a track gives you a lot more energy return than the road, so you’re paces are already a little inflated.

Tinman wants to use what we could have raced in a race. In a 10k TT, I'm not risking at any point. I run a strong pace that I believe I can hold until the end.

In a race, I might be starting out with a pack in 3:27/k, but after 5k someone drops the hammer and runs 3:20/k. I would be forced to follow. Also if I get passed by an accelerating runner. It's gonna make it hurt a lot more than a TT, but will also improve the time.

Tinman said racing TT's is stupid, not just because it's very hard mentally to really go all-out and push your body to the absolute limits by yourself, but also because recovery would take much longer. Now, I'll be fresh Monday for a long run and Wednesday for the key workout. A 100% effort with massive kick at the end (I only increased during the last k, which was a 3:10 with a 69 400 and 31 200, a massive kick would be a 2:55 or a 3:00 with a 62) would take me 5 days to recover.

All that taken into consideration, a race would easily be 33:30, which gives the CV range of 3:24-3:20. I know how I felt during the TT today and I know how I felt during 5x1k@5k pace. So if I do a CV session, I will know if I'm running too fast or not.

Where does Tinman say run a TT and then subtract about a minute if you think you could have gone faster? Also, a 10k race would probably be on the road and would easily compensate for whatever you held back.

Yeah just observing from afar Phil...things are going great so I’m not sure why you’re looking for reasons to overtrain especially since your inspiration is a guy famous for having runners undertrain if anything for the sake of staying healthy?

THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:

Yeah just observing from afar Phil...things are going great so I’m not sure why you’re looking for reasons to overtrain especially since your inspiration is a guy famous for having runners undertrain if anything for the sake of staying healthy?

Yea I guess you guys are right. If my range is 3:20-3:25 for CV, I will try to start a workout at the slow end (3:25) and then maybe get faster after I warm-up but only if I feel good. Same with Threshold reps. I was also mini-tapered for the 10k TT, that I won't be on a normal workout day, and shoes won't be as good as the Next%. Weather might also get hotter soon.

In 2 weeks I got a 60 min TT to test my real endurance (and not stamina), and in 4 weeks another 10k TT. Goals are 3:35 (on the roads) and 3:23/k (on track).

Then 2 weeks later a 2k TT to test VO2MAX, I should be able to break 6 there without too much trouble.

I’m a high schooler, and was wondering what your opinion was on doing a time trial once every 6 weeks or so during this long base cycle at around 95-97% just to keep in touch with racing and that true race effort. I felt stale after doing a long winter base my first couple of races. I’ve read that some people do 2k time trials, but is there any distance you recommend for someone like me at 70-80 MPW, and if you think it’s a good idea at all. Thanks!

coleiolio wrote:

I’m a high schooler, and was wondering what your opinion was on doing a time trial once every 6 weeks or so during this long base cycle at around 95-97% just to keep in touch with racing and that true race effort. I felt stale after doing a long winter base my first couple of races. I’ve read that some people do 2k time trials, but is there any distance you recommend for someone like me at 70-80 MPW, and if you think it’s a good idea at all. Thanks!

I'll just tell you what Tinman recommends about TT's.

He thinks they are very important. You have different options:

400/800 TT - if you want to measure speed/anaerobic abilities

2k TT - for VO2MAX and to set faster paces

10k TT - for CV paces

1 hour TT - to see where endurance is

If you do a 800m TT in 2:08, you can guess that you would have raced 2:05 or something.

You feel stale because you probably mostly did base-work and threshold and no hard races/TTs or VO2MAX sessions. Tinman has VO2MAX sessions like 10x1 min on, 30s off on soft surface or 10x300m with 100 jog rest of 10x400 with 100 jog rest at your 2-mile pace to get the legs moving again. He typically assigns one of these workouts once every 3 weeks.

Lots of grinding mileage and endurance work and threshold makes you stale after done for too long - so definitely introduce the TT's, and/or short "VO2MAX sessions" and you will feel great again!

I feel much better after the 10k TT since it was a good effort after months of grinding aerobically. Just remember, don't do it at 100%, because first it's very hard to run all-out just by yourself and second, it would take you significantly longer to recover from it. 97% effort is perfect! Lydiard called these TT's "7/8 effort".

coleiolio wrote:

I’m a high schooler, and was wondering what your opinion was on doing a time trial once every 6 weeks or so during this long base cycle at around 95-97% just to keep in touch with racing and that true race effort. I felt stale after doing a long winter base my first couple of races. I’ve read that some people do 2k time trials, but is there any distance you recommend for someone like me at 70-80 MPW, and if you think it’s a good idea at all. Thanks!

There is absolutely no need for TT:s!You just have to do your individual best paces in your training that a very good experienced coach find out at your workouts when it comes to recovery time and paces.

- The Wizard -

siehst wrote:

Where does Tinman say run a TT and then subtract about a minute if you think you could have gone faster? Also, a 10k race would probably be on the road and would easily compensate for whatever you held back.

He said TT should be run at 97% effort, because it's super hard to run 100% all-out alone AND because it only takes 4-5 days to recover instead of up to 2 weeks. And it's good enough to predict paces. He even said a 97% effort TT is 5% slower and not just 3%. That would be around 1.5 minutes.

The question is, for me as weak 10k runner how much faster could I really have got. I was lying in the grass after the TT for 2-3 minutes so it must have been intense. Last K only was 3:10/k, so it's not like I had plenty of energy left. And most of that was just from last 200 in 31. It's like Tinman said, I'm an aerobically weak HS kid and can't close last 500-600m FAST because I don't have much left, and most of my time improvement comes from the last 200m.

That points again to using 3:25/k as CV pace, and 3:35/k as threshold pace. I guess I'm just so used to run hard during intervals that it's harder to run slow, at the appropriate pace than faster.

One advantage is it would be easier to progress - 3:25/k first week, 3:22.5/k next week, then 3:20/k. And if my aerobic power turns out to be stronger than my CV, I could at least run the fun stuff like 300s or 400s at my appropriate VO2MAX pace.

Definitely interesting tho, this just shows how incredibly complex training is. My hard 3k-5k paced 1k VO2MAX intervals improved me a lot in the beginning, but then I stagnated and got worse. Now with CV/threshold I seem to be improving more, especially on longer distances, but it's important to hold back and not fall into old habits again of running too hard in workouts.

Training isn't incredibly complex.You just got to know 'the secrets' to perfect individual performance.

lol i literally have never done a time trial and all my prs are faster than this guy. don't bother with them unless ur a fat hobbyjogger. just train

SUPERIOR COACH JS wrote:

the all time annoying exacta rolls in wrote:

So what? I'll tell you.... he likely saved himself the ignominy that Below Average suffered at your coaching.

You are fraud!!!!!

Bet LRP as you call him, is no peach either, so he may well have done you a favor as well.

You ever hear expression, don't look a gift horse in the mouth? Maybe you shouldn't.

So,.......you mean it was an ignominy that Below Average with my coaching ran a new personal best at 10 miles after 10 years!?? You seem to have had a miserable life and now you just spit out your dung in frustration. Have a nice day! ))

You were training him for a marathon, dummy. If I send you to the store to pick up cherries, and you come home with beautiful oranges-- you failed your mission!!!

Given that you say you showed a lot of flat speed, maybe you're training for the wrong distances. Why don't you do much faster workouts toward a fast mile or even 800m?

zxczxcv wrote:

Given that you say you showed a lot of flat speed, maybe you're training for the wrong distances. Why don't you do much faster workouts toward a fast mile or even 800m?

I don't know whether I'm FT or ST anymore. Or a 50/50 mix like most runners. My 800/Mile currently are still better I'm sure, even with only distance training. 4 min mile pace feels quite relaxed over 30s. But the mile is a highly aerobic event!

Right now, no matter what distance I want to focus on, I need to become stronger aerobically. I've only trained for 2.5 years, and am still improving a lot aerobically. Aerobic training makes me better on ANY distance after 400m. I will be in great shape to run a fast 800, Mile etc.

All I have to do if I want to run a 800m or Mile, which I might do soon, is to do some fast reps to get used to the pace. 4x400 in 60s or 5x300 in 45s for the 800m, or something like 1200-1000-800-600-400-200 from 5k-3k-Mile-Mile-Mile-800 for example for the Mile. Also important would be test 800/1500 races, the first one likely won't be great. But my stamina and endurance need to be in good shape before attempting these hard, anaerobic efforts. I think the summer is a great time for a 800 and Mile, it will be hot so long races would suck anyway.

the all time annoying exacta rolls in wrote:

SUPERIOR COACH JS wrote:

So,.......you mean it was an ignominy that Below Average with my coaching ran a new personal best at 10 miles after 10 years!?? You seem to have had a miserable life and now you just spit out your dung in frustration. Have a nice day! ))

You were training him for a marathon, dummy. If I send you to the store to pick up cherries, and you come home with beautiful oranges-- you failed your mission!!!

No, I didn`t fail the mission . At the store they didn`t have any cherries so I picked up beautiful oranges instead. The cherries in the supply chain needed some more time to ripen.

SUPERIOR COACH JS wrote:

There is absolutely no need for TT:s!You just have to do your individual best paces in your training that a very good experienced coach find out at your workouts when it comes to recovery time and paces.

- The Wizard -

Hey JS, don't good coaches know how to adapt their advice to the audience? This person is a high schooler asking about the effects of time trials every 6 weeks. He is not working with a coach. He did not say he is in the market for an online coach. You seem to apply the same advice to everyone. Worthless.

I think you might need to zoom out a bit. I'm not sure training is this complex. I think you are training very well - but with a false sense of precision. Training theory and physiology are more of a colorful backstory to motivate thoughtful workouts and solid training. It could be that you are simply training well, and creating a completely false narrative about what's happening to you at a cellular level and why. It's important to keep track of what you know (the distances and times you have run), and what you think you know (what's happening in your body).

All coaches use stories to share their philosophy - Tin Man does a good job of motivating his ideas with real science. We aren't really sure that the individual details of his stories are RIGHT, but they are compelling, and the results suggest the stories seem to have a lot of truth to them. If history is any indication of what's going on, the explanations will start to sound outdated as we learn more about the reality. But the stories will still be compelling and have truth, even if the science gets thrown out the window.

Here's what I mean by a false sense precision. I hear you mention things like an intensity of 97%. We aren't even specifying what we are taking 97 percent of?

- Speed of a maximal effort?

- Average heart rate of a maximal effort?

- Average VO2 of a maximal effort?

Each of those metrics changes by the day. You don't have a max HR, you have a max HR at that moment in your life.

Then you have the subjective experience of trying to target 97% of some value that is not defined or measured. One athlete might run at 100% effort, but another athlete with an identical measured VO2max might run the same pace and assign it 97% effort. The individual variability is potentially larger than the difference between 97 and 100 percent - the signal could be smaller than the noise. I think you might benefit from trying to find the right ballpark, rather than the right individual seat.

Very good post, I pretty much agree with all of it. Tinman might say "do a TT at 97% effort!" - but what is 97% to me, who has never raced a 10k in his life? With the track I at least had a point each 200m to see if I'm still on pace. But was that 96%, 97%, 98%, 99% or 100%? Who knows.

In shorter TT's, like 800m or 2k his rule is to simply go out at Mile pace in the 800 and then hammer, or to start the 2k at 3k race pace and then get faster if feeling good. But like you said, even my "3k pace" might be hard to identify, in the middle of a training week without any sharpening work done. So it comes down to a lot of by feel running.

Wearing a chest strap each run hurt me more than it helped. I would try to hit specific heart rates, and wonder why they are so low sometimes even tho I'm running very fast or at max effort. Since getting rid of it and running by feel, I'm less stressed and make fewer mistakes in training. I might be at 120 HR like today at 9 min pace if I feel beat up after a hard TT the day before, but now I don't see it and try to run faster just to stay in the proper zone.

The good thing now, is we have a reference point. In two weeks I do a 60 min TT, and in 4 weeks I repeat the 10k TT. Then I might try to hit 3:25/k for the first 7 and then 3:20/k 3:20/k 3:10/k which would be 25s faster than yesterday (33:45). For the 60 min TT, I could try to run 3:35/k for the first half and then see if I can pick it up. I was lucky that the first 10k TT went so well and I didn't slow down. I used to slow down every race before, because I was going out too hard (despite holding back) and unable to hold the pace. But it also had a lot to do with training - I had no stamina, only speed due to my weekly VO2MAX sessions. I wasn't mentally tougher during the 10k TT than during all the races where I slowed down, I actually suffered a lot less but kept a stronger pace. Maybe it's the Next%, maybe it's the track vs road, but maybe I'm just training better than last year and it shows results.

coleiolio wrote:

I’m a high schooler, and was wondering what your opinion was on doing a time trial once every 6 weeks or so during this long base cycle at around 95-97% just to keep in touch with racing and that true race effort. I felt stale after doing a long winter base my first couple of races. I’ve read that some people do 2k time trials, but is there any distance you recommend for someone like me at 70-80 MPW, and if you think it’s a good idea at all. Thanks!

Time trials are a good idea. Once every four-six weeks is a good interval. I don't know that I would recommend going all out, but I know that's what I would have done at your age, so go as hard as you like.

You can do a little mini-taper of a few days, but don't do anything else to prepare -- no sneaking in a speed workout. You're looking to see how you do off base training alone.

If you get to the point where your times aren't really improving, and you feel strong but not fast, extend the length of the time trial -- see how much more you can go at the same pace. If you've been doing, say, 4:30 for 1600, and that becomes 2000m in 5:38 after a few months, you're making great progress.