In contrast, someone once posted Seb Coe's marathon PR (think it was something like 2:22....not sure) as an example of what one can do off of lots and lots of speed training. It was later pointed out to that person that running a world record in one event and then several minutes slower than the Olympic qualifying time in another event is no testament to how one should train for the latter event.

By similar token, I'm sure Shorter wasn't very good at 800 meters (relatively speaking).



Of course this is off topic, because I'm sure no one is talking about Seb Coe style workouts for an IM. ; ^ )

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

"someone once posted Seb Coe's marathon PR (think it was something like 2:22....not sure) as an example of what one can do off of lots and lots of speed training."

here's the one-year training log of a guy who, circa this one-year span, was less than a second away from the world record in both 1500m and the mile. and had a career that spanned the coe/ovett/cramm/crabb eras.
notice 77mi/week, which includes time off, sick time, down time. many weeks of 90-95mi per week.

you'll see lots of trackwork in there. but then, that's what you have to do when you run 3:31/3:47. notice how many longer runs, and how many of them were easy or moderate.

i don't know what coe's training entailed. but if it was anything like steve scott's, you can run a pretty fast marathon off a diet of 85 and 95 mile weeks.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

The why?

Blend athlete's mental state, the ex phys science behind the sport and my own subjective "this feels right" and that's the why. I could leave it at simply the science but then that's not coaching. I like to play cook with all the tools that i have at my disposal.

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

This is why I was trying to get MarkyV to explain his rationale. Wasn't sure which philosphy he followed and why......still not sure.

American's love to have labels/associations. This thread is not any different. Sighting that so-and-so does this like ________ (JD, Kenyans, sutto, MA, etc) my point being is... I learn from others... I take little bits from them... but also ignore other pieces of what they do. All coaches should be like this. Your style, your way. If you are simply doing what others have done before 'cause you read it in a book then that's not coaching that's copying/regurgitating.

When I ask for help on things like this more often then not I get back macro POVs and generalities. I don't want specifics. That doesn't tell me much. Give me a view of the forest and combined with the other stuff that I know I can whittle it down and figure out what the trees are saying.

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

And there's a statue of Shorter in Boulder. ;) Pretty good for a guy who was self coached after college.

That's an awfully flowery way of saying "No." :)

:)

i try to be cutesy with it too tho :)

I ask questions... and am given macros... so in turn i do the same.

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

This is why I was trying to get MarkyV to explain his rationale. Wasn't sure which philosphy he followed and why......still not sure.

I am not sure what Mark's philosophy is either, but I did talk about this a while back in a post of mine, but no one really paid attention:

1. We know what he is - An outstanding swimmer - one of the best/fastest in the sport.

2. We know what he needs to do - improve his run.

How to do this?

Strong swimmers historically have not been strong, to great runners - their are exceptions to this. Many of the top guys on the ITU circut are like this. Lew Kidder referred to them as The Sharks. These guys are the swimmers who had latent talents and abilities as runners - when they train both, they can swim AND run with the best! They are freaks. Their was a U.S. triathlete a few years ago Nick Radkewich, some here may recall him - I believe that he had a scholorship to Notre Dame for varsity swimming and running - that's the kind of guy I am talking about.

The other type of type swimmer and my guess is that their are more of this type are a bit fragile on the run and are never able to do "normal" run training. These guys, need to figure out their own way to get it done. Push to hard on the run with either volume or quality and they are going to get hurt. It's not hopeless for these guys - they just need to figure it out on their own. As I mentioned, their was a guy I trained with a lot years ago, Mike Stirling - top ranked AG swimmer in Canada. Got into Tris but could never do the running that we did. Did his own thing. He figured it out - was on the Elite National Team for several years and competed at the Elite ITU World Championships on at least two occasions.

Not knowing Mark at all other than to say "hello", I don't know what group he is in - the former or the latter. Perhaps he knows - or he should know.

Mark - hang in long enough, and we'll have the whole program mapped out for you!!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Mark, thanks for the response. I think I'm not being clear. I'm not asking you to defend your coaching style...ie when I say "rationale," I don't mean that I want you to cite a study or back it up with physiology. I just mean a high level reason for why you have long course athletes go shorter and harder in the winter rather than longer and slower.


I'll be so bold to give you an example of why I do the opposite for novice runners. I've typically found that new runners who jump right into doing faster paced training, do so at the expense of building their endurance base. Each person at a given time only as so much money in the bank. The more its spent on speed, the less its can be spent on endurance. Way more often then not, I see these people build up to a peak in about 6-8 week, and then gradualy slide downward in performance. Cutting out of lot of this intensity early on allows for more emphasis to be placed on building endurance running at AT. This typically leaves the athlete under prepared for early season meets, but has shown in my experience to build them up toward a larger peak later in the season (once intensity is ramped up), and tends to lead toward better long term development. It appears that the benefits from the harder workouts are realized in a relatively short amount of time, so I don't need to worry about it as much in the early season.

As their career progresses, the benefits that they gain from large quantities of AT running are diminishing so more emphasis is placed on higher intensity earlier in the season.

That's what I meant by a high level rationale. I don't care for an science to back up your position or names to be dropped. I was just curious what you are trying to accomplish by going shorter and harder early when training for an IM in your quest for (obviously) faster times.

Thanks again.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

I can take a no. No biggie. I was just curious and a little bored at work.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

Fleck,
You're talking about Mark as an athlete, I think this thread "called him out" as a coach.
I find it funny that a triathlon coach, whether coaching AGers or pros is expected to have a philosophy. It's not good enough to have your philosophy be "I make my athletes faster" I never asked my swimming coach about his "philosophy." This isn't to say I didn't ask questions or question what we were doing but I trusted as my coach his "philosophy" was to make me faster.

Hey, I've been looking for that log! I snagged it off of Letsrun a few years ago, but then lost it when my hard drive crashed.

Interesting thing about Scott......he raced year 'round, but not because it was a good idea. He did it to earn a living. I often wonder what he could have done if he would have been able to focus on one big race a year. Hmm.....possibly no records? As it stands, doesn't he still have the most sub 4s ever?

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

I wrote:
"It looks to me that the best runners never run slow."


You wrote:
You contradicted yourself in the following post "How the Young Kenyan Athletes are Training." At least 60% of their training is done at AT or below. That's a far cry from never. Unless you are calling "slow" significantly below AT. If so, then I stand corrected.

When I am talking about slow I use the “definition” Dan Empfield used when he was writing about the Germans in his article “Winter months”.

This is what the article said about the young Kenyan training.

If you look at the program, they run 13 sessions and one “active rest” at very young age – and at high speed. The “fartlek” on Tuesday I observed in 1999 and it was VO2 max training. So in one week, they have 2 Vo2 max sessions (Tuesday and Saturday) 2-3 speed sessions (Wednesday and Thursday, plus partly Saturday morning) and one speed endurance session (hill reps on Friday). This comes in addition to the 4 AT sessions/week (the “long runs”) and two easy runs (am Friday and am Thursday......even though I would suggest that this last one does not go very easy at the end :-) )....so there you have it......the Kenyan training at a young age. AT training, speed and Vo2 max sessions....and competitions year around almost....try it on 14 year old Norwegians or Americans and let them enjoy.......at 2500 meters altitude :-)
http://www.mariusbakken.com/...nt=13&groupid=17

We can discuss my use of “never”. But this is a discussion board so you have to use some big words ;-)

One of my general questions are to people on this board: if you run an average of 40 – 50 mpw and are between 35 – 45 years old with 5 years of training; how fast should you run a 5k, 10k or a half marathon?

Fleck, not to derail the topic too much, I was wondering how you responded going into triathlon. I know you and I were of similar running ability. However, when I started doing tris I was actually fairly diaspointed with how slowly my bike came along. I had a friend who started at roughly the same ability level and who had no endurance background at all. As a triathlete he turned into a very crappy swimmer, and a below average runner, but actually got pretty good on the bike. His bike training was pretty modest, yet he improved much better than I did.

There are two local runners turned duathletes that I've trained with on and off; Greg Watson and Lee Cox. Both of them got pretty strong on the bike (one of them *very* strong). We were all in the same league as runners, but the one thing I noticed was that *I* was built like a runner. They were not (both had relatively short legs. I've got lonnnng skinny runner's legs). I've often theorized that physically they were better endurance athletes than myself, but I had a huge mechanical advantage on the run to put me on par with them. Go to the bike, that advantage is gone.

I know its crazy conjecture......but hey...its freaky Friday! ; ^ )

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

Barry, that's from Bob Hodge's website. You will find a WEALTH of elites training logs there, including those of Hodgie-San himself

-Joe

I was wondering how you responded going into triathlon. I know you and I were of similar running ability.

Barry,

It's hard to compare. When I got into triathlon it was a completely different age of the sport( early to mid 1980's) Things were not as refined as they are now.

Personally, I took to cycling reasonably well. I am tall(6'2"), but I have short legs( 33in inseam). I was told a while ago that this is a characteristic of many top cyclists - having shortish legs for their height. I was never the best or the fastest cyclist out there. My goal was to make up ground lost on the swim and stay close - then close on the run. I would normally run to my final place position, and was rarely passed on the run in races.

My absolute run performance did tail off from PB's of 31 min for 10K and 15:00 for 5K, but not by much for a number of years and I was able to maintain very good run fitness on much less overall run training. A typical run training week when tri training was - a long run of 1 to 2 1/2 hrs, a tempo/AT type of effort for 20- 30 or so minutes in the context of a 60 minute run, and then a interval workout on the track, fartlek on the trails, or hill reps. All other running was cut out, to get the cycling and swimming in. This was minimalist running to be sure, but I was still able to be one of the best runners in triathlons locally and also hold my own in standalone running races.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Yeah, I'm the same height with a 36" inseam. Getting my bike fit was a challenge. ; ^ )

You sound like the two I described.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

I would almost think that long femurs relative to tibia length would provide an advantage acting as a longer lever arm.

Hmm something for me to look up this evening.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

I just think that if you said the two guys below could run the same speed, one of them looks like he'd be better built for the bike. Long legs typically give the advantage to the run.




Or more specifically, these two guys.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

I just mean a high level reason for why you have long course athletes go shorter and harder in the winter rather than longer and slower.

can you define "high level" in the sentence above? that might help me get mental traction with your inquiry.

Um... because... that's the way it works. You don't raise MLSS by tooling around in Zn2 all day as quickly as you would by sitting in Zn5/4 and killing it there. Cogganism... "specificity specificity specificity" depending upon what you are trying to accomplish

running is diff... that's a case by case basis... most of what i speak of in blanket terms "fast then long" is for bike/swim

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

BINGO BINGO BINGO BINGO BINGO BINGO

I love it. The KTGC gets it. Oooohhhhh yeeeeah.

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

Quote:

can you define "high level" in the sentence above? that might help me get mental traction with your inquiry.

Um... because... that's the way it works. You don't raise MLSS by tooling around in Zn2 all day as quickly as you would by sitting in Zn5/4 and killing it there. Cogganism... "specificity specificity specificity" depending upon what you are trying to accomplish

running is diff... that's a case by case basis... most of what i speak of in blanket terms "fast then long" is for bike/swim

Sorry, I was using engineer-speak (I often criticize people for doing that). High level typically means either "laymans terms" or might be a discussion you'd have in a meeting with managers, finance guys, etc. who aren't necessarily familiar with your area of study. Low level is getting down to the scientific principles. etc.


Okay, so for bike and swim (of which I am an expert in neither). What you stated above seems to be the opposite of general to specific, if you argue that LT is the most important aspect of racing long course. If you think that endurance is the most important aspect, which is why you might focus on it later, then this sentnece - "Um... because... that's the way it works. You don't raise MLSS by tooling around in Zn2 all day as quickly as you would by sitting in Zn5/4 and killing it there. Cogganism... "specificity specificity specificity" depending upon what you are trying to accomplish" would contradict that.





aaaa

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

You wrote:
Over on the 100/100, we barely have 5% of the 550+ athletes registered running 40 miles per week. That's a joke. Not to belittle anyone's effort, but given the aspirations that I assure you most have, their work does not match the results they want!!!

I am just curious on your take of output from the running.

How fast should a person 35 – 45 years old running 20, 40 or 60 miles per week with five years running background be on a 5k, 10 or a half marathon?

I know you cannot give a scientific answer, but your estimate will be interesting.

By the way, have you read about Becky Scott’s training, she was really into the pure interval approach from Dr. Helgerud.

Have a skiful weekend ;-)

Barry,

Does the ratio of lower leg to upper leg enter into this? Just casually observing images of runners over the years it seems they not only have long legs, but especially long lower legs. I just figured that provided positive mechanical advantage, a better more horizontal angle of pushing, etc.

If you had long legs but short tibias could you ever be fast?

On the other hand a short tibia (or long femur) should help in cycling.

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Joe

How fast should a person 35 – 45 years old running 20, 40 or 60 miles per week with five years running background be on a 5k, 10 or a half marathon?

I don't think there is a straight answer to this...cause it does not really take into account body type, starting "mile speed" 5 years ago, current body componsition and what they are doing with that 20, 40, 60 miles per week and what they are doing outside of that. Is this person 130 lbs 5'5" or 220 lb 6'5"? All of this will come into play.

Sorry if I am giving a non answer, but the question is a bit of a non question in that the parameters are largely unbounded....it's like a set of simultaneous linear equations with M equations and N unknowns where N>>>>>M....for this there are too many potential answers. I can't do a cofactor expansion to find the determinant, cause this matrix is not square....sorry for getting all geeked out, but I was just helping my son with some algebra type math and no they don't do linear algebra in grade 7 although I think you need it to decipher this thread.

As for Beckie Scott's training, like in swimming in XC skiing, the technique at high speed high power output is something that you have to do throughout your training to actually be able to apply proper technique. Both are in forgiving environments where there is no pounding. However, you need a lot of "basic fitness" to sprint properly in both sports.

For Beckie an athlete who was trying to win an XC ski sprint medal, it really makes a lot of sense to be doing a lot of XC sprint training just like a track athlete. I think over time what you will start seeing is that XC ski sprint athletes will just do that. There was an era in speedskating where guys like Eric Heiden could win at all distances...that era is dead. XC skiing will see a full separation between distance and speed events (although one can argue that even the sprints are a bit of distance event cause they exceed a minute or two)