Donovan Brazier - Speed guy/no long runs - ?!

MayASK wrote:

I always hear how Brazier never ran more than 40min, that he's never been an endurance guy more of a sprinter etc.

Yet he has a 15:25 5000m PR, set in High-School.

These claim don't sound right given this 5k time.

15:25 isn't fast at all for a 1:47/4:07i guy. It makes sense that his 5k is so slow compared to his 800 and mile times based on his low mileage speed based training.

I get it's pretty slow.

But when I'm searching for his training regimen, from the claims of other people, his training is mostly something like 6x200m with 3 min full rests in between.

How do you get to 15:25 with that. Unless you're massively aerobically talented. And again, given people claims, he's a sprinter type, so not very endurance talented.

msb21 wrote:

MayASK wrote:

I always hear how Brazier never ran more than 40min, that he's never been an endurance guy more of a sprinter etc.

Yet he has a 15:25 5000m PR, set in High-School.

These claim don't sound right given this 5k time.

15:25 isn't fast at all for a 1:47/4:07i guy. It makes sense that his 5k is so slow compared to his 800 and mile times based on his low mileage speed based training.

He's faster than 4:07i ... he ran a 3:37 1500 ... and no doubt he can run faster than 15:25

How does he run a 3:37 1500 off of what seems to be 400-800m training? I feel many high mileage 800m runners cannot do that.

He's a prodigy, and he's got great natural endurance to go with explosive speed. I think that's really all to it. Look at Emmanuel Korir in this camp as well. He made the WC 400m final and can challenge the 44 second barrier in the open 400, yet at UTEP he could run 25:4x for the 8k in cross country.

i think people run too far in general. speedwork is underrated if your event is something like 10km. what are you getting from running 100 miles a week that you couldn't get from 30-40 miles per week? You're maintaining your general cardiovascular fitness, I'll give you that, but that can be done in the pool or on a bike with less impact and less chance of injuries. What else? Not much. Your vo2 max doesn't improve markedly on long runs. Your form might suffer through tiredness, leading to injuries.

in my opinion it is better to run at a fast pace and go as far as you can, let's say 5km. and gradually stay at the same pace and run further, for 7 or 8km, until eventually you can run at that pace for the entire 10km. and then move onto the next goal. sprinting or just general interval training encourages good form.

this mentality of 'i must run this distance this week' is a western thing. if you look at the kenyans they concentrate on staying with the fastest guy for as long as they can. and if they match that pace for 80% of the distance they are happy with that. they're not concerned about the remaining distance.

if you are just running long distance all the time a lot of those miles will be junk miles and a waste of time/energy, and quite possibly counter-productive.

VO2MAX, and better threshold. No one can run a 1500 to his potential on 30-40 mpw with a 7-8 mile long run.

Listen to Brazier here, in 2019 when asked about his longest run he has ever done. Less than 8 miles, or 45 minutes. His workouts are 30-40 min long. He ran 3:37 off that, so either he is vastly downplaying his volume/mileage OR he is the greatest miler ever in disguise, who could threaten the WR if he did more than 40 mpw and extends the duration of his runs and especially workouts.

Keep in mind that Peter Coe (Seb Coe's father) fooled the entire world for decades by making them believe Seb ran 30-40 mpw, when actually he ran closer to 80-100 mpw with long morning runs every day that just weren't counted. Runners and their coaches love to downplay what they are doing in an attempt to make competitors copy them, vastly reduce mileage and get destroyed by their own runners doing more mileage in races.

myviewisthis wrote:

msb21 wrote:

15:25 isn't fast at all for a 1:47/4:07i guy. It makes sense that his 5k is so slow compared to his 800 and mile times based on his low mileage speed based training.

He's faster than 4:07i ... he ran a 3:37 1500 ... and no doubt he can run faster than 15:25

Talking about his high school PRs...

This post is hilarious.

Don't agree totally, but there's truth in that.

They train at such an high intensity that they also get a good endurance from even low volume. Just because they hit their body so hard, it adapts to be able to sustain these harsh training and so they gain a certain level of endurance.

Most people are way too often in "comfortable hard pace".

WinnytheBish wrote:

This post is hilarious.

you should say why, and then we can have a discussion. your post adds nothing at all, theres no content, it's just in the way, like the junk miles I'm talking about.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

VO2MAX, and better threshold. No one can run a 1500 to his potential on 30-40 mpw with a 7-8 mile long run.

your vo2 max improves most from interval training, not from long runs. threshold perhaps but we're talking about fairly short distances. does 15 minutes of hard running really need significant threshold training i.e. 100 miles of it? surely not. if you must do that sort of mileage at least make sure a chunk of it is on the elliptical machine which is much easier on impact.

Daniels and Tinman both say that VO2MAX increases with time run/mileage in new runners.

At 40 mpw you get most gains in VO2MAX, but you still get some more going to 60 mpw and then very slightly more going to 70-75 mpw. More does not seem to affect VO2MAX.

In highly trained runners, interval workouts around the velocity of VO2MAX are necessary to get any stimulus at all. But that still assumes that aerobic training of ~6 hours of running/week (70-75 mpw) is kept.

Replacing long workouts with short ones is perfectly fine. Igloi already did that almost a century ago with short, aerobic intervals with very short rests - 60x100 with 50m rest, or 30x200 with 100m rest, etc. Gives same stimulus like a tempo run for a FT runner, but at a more specific pace (Brazier could do them at 800m or mile pace for example).

With low mileage, Brazier might not have the highest VO2MAX he could obtain, but might achieve his best 800m race times. There is also a decent amount of anaerobic contribution, and he will be fresher on low mpw and it fits his muscle fiber type better. But it's probably impossible to reach the highest VO2MAX for an individual without doing at least 70 mpw.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

Listen to Brazier here, in 2019 when asked about his longest run he has ever done. Less than 8 miles, or 45 minutes. His workouts are 30-40 min long. He ran 3:37 off that, so either he is vastly downplaying his volume/mileage OR he is the greatest miler ever in disguise, who could threaten the WR if he did more than 40 mpw and extends the duration of his runs and especially workouts.

Keep in mind that Peter Coe (Seb Coe's father) fooled the entire world for decades by making them believe Seb ran 30-40 mpw, when actually he ran closer to 80-100 mpw with long morning runs every day that just weren't counted. Runners and their coaches love to downplay what they are doing in an attempt to make competitors copy them, vastly reduce mileage and get destroyed by their own runners doing more mileage in races.

He is definitely not vastly downplaying his volume/mileage. It's been confirmed by his coach, teammates and him numerous times. There isn't a massive phenomenon to try to sabotage competitors by misrepresenting training at all ~ it's a couple odd ducks here and there. If anything, some coaches (e.g. Mike Smith) are a bit vague or mysterious (Jerry Schumacher), but there aren't a crazy number of them doing mind games by overplaying or underplaying training. Patrick Sang/Bekele's coach are very open, Bowerman/Julian athletes regularly share, NAZ elite and so on share.

You are vastly overplaying some aspects of this. Brazier could run a great 1500, there is no doubt. To say if he jumped to ideal mileage for an elite 1500 runner (think 60-70 mpw for most of them, *maybe* slightly higher in base), he would definitely threaten 3:26 is over the top. Those 11 seconds are immense. Bear in mind that Brazier should be thinking about challenging the 800 World Record soon and without much change to training program. He's that good. There is not agreement on your Seb Coe (80-100 mpw) claim. It's clear that the 40-50mpw was a bit under due to some uncounted runs, but I've seen it more widely confirmed he was in the 60-70mpw range.

myviewisthis wrote:

msb21 wrote:

15:25 isn't fast at all for a 1:47/4:07i guy. It makes sense that his 5k is so slow compared to his 800 and mile times based on his low mileage speed based training.

He's faster than 4:07i ... he ran a 3:37 1500 ... and no doubt he can run faster than 15:25

Those were his HS pb's at 800 and the mile when he ran 15:25. Now he can run much faster of course.

MayASK wrote:

I always hear how Brazier never ran more than 40min, that he's never been an endurance guy more of a sprinter etc.

Yet he has a 15:25 5000m PR, set in High-School.

These claim don't sound right given this 5k time.

He's not a sprinter, that's how. Has he ever run anything under 400? I don't see any results.

He could put up a fast 5k if he focused on it, but it'd make him worse at the 800 so why bother?

MileProd wrote:

How does he run a 3:37 1500 off of what seems to be 400-800m training? I feel many high mileage 800m runners cannot do that.

In reality he never ran 3:37. It's a conspiracy. Have you ever seen footage of the race?

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

Daniels and Tinman both say that VO2MAX increases with time run/mileage in new runners.

but if we're talking about runners who have been running for a while they should be fairly close to the peak of their vo2 max after which it is not possible to get a better vo2 max. for those runners it's interval training they should be concentrating on if they want to eke out the last few percentage point gains. i imagine even for new runners, interval training will provide better results than long runs in terms of vo2 max.

the long runs and high mileage don't really give you anything you cannot get more economically from other forms of training.

Also - it's not that uncommon to be able to run a moderate 5k off 800 training.

I ran 16:39 off 20 mpw of running while training as an 800 runner - with a 2:02 800 pb. My 5k is probably better than my 800 compared to Brazier though.

While this is far from the ideal training for a 5k, ppl on LRC need to realize that low mileage runners are still capable of completing a 5k race in a decent time. Workouts were almost all track repeats with 200m to 1000m reps, usually done with medium rest (2'-3' mins).

In the end, a 5k is still a pretty short race and not doing 10 milers every day isn't going to render you incapable of running more than 2 laps...