I've found that it can work, but ONLY if you are taking advantage of the decrease in training speed to gradually but significantly ramp up training volume. Especially for running.

People tend to lose their common sense around this when they first encounter it, because all these folks online are saying 'train slow run fast!", but the (obviously) reality is that if you keep training volume the same but just slow down all your training paces - you're gonna get slower. (duh).

This approach usually pays of spectacularly well for folks doing the first 'big' marathon build, often to 50+, even 70+mpw. At that volume, you're running the large majority of miles at easy aerobic pace (well under the 80/20 fast/slow ratio recommended in some books) but due to all that mileage, most folks go out and crush their 5k-10k-HM race times due to all that new big volume.

I'd guesstimate that you should be getting to at least 25% more volume on average than prior if you are intentionally slowing down your overall training paces, to see improvement. That's just my guesstimate, not a scientific figure.

Obviously, if you're a low-volume athlete (like running <15mpw) then you'll need alot more volume rampup to compensate for the loss of speed in training.

You have to train fast to race fast.

Yes given that 90% of your training is easy, but you have to nail the 10% of speed work. Percentage in time.

I absolutely believe you can get faster just training slowly. In fact, I did it this year. However, I also believe to be the fastest version of your self, you should include work at faster paces/higher power.

How do you define "fast" when you say this?

  
There is no way you have a PB if you never run faster that your race pace once in a while.

The question is what portion of your training should be above target race pace.. 10%, 15% or 30% and how slow should your slow be.

IMO that is very dependent on your fitness and your physiognomy (at what speed you start to produce more lactate, what does your lactate curve look like, etc)


But a lot of people with very strong opinion on this subject (Sweet spot vs Polarized)

My two cents...

"Slow" and "fast" aren't specific enough to describe how we should train. If you tell people to go "slow" or "fast" they can understand that in completely different ways.

My go-to training plan for myself is to put as many miles as i can get in December and January. To get big miles, i can't just go out and do intensity every day; however, if i keep myself in zone 2 i can get 20 or so hours per week for a few weeks in a row without getting sick, injured, or burnt out. That builds a really high TSS, and I've been able to race fairly well for myself in February/March/April when i have a lot of my important races. As I get closer to my races, I start doing less hours and more intensity (faster training). But i wouldn't consider zone 2 "slow." I can hold a conversation in zone 2, but after 5 hours i'll feel pretty smoked. When it comes time to start training zone 4, i find that i can already hit pretty solid numbers in those zones by only doing lots of zone 2. And once i start doing zone 4 work, i find that i get race-fit very quickly. YMMV, but it works well for me.

If i had less hours to train i would increase my intensity. For example, if i had 10 hours per week i would train at a higher intensity (faster) than if i had 20 hours per week. I'd spend more time in zone 4.

The idea that going slow (zone 1) for 5-7 hours per week will turn you into your best self isn't accurate in my opinion. I don't think anyone who know there stuff actually believes that, but I've met people who believe it.

Like others have said, I think there is a balance point in there somewhere. Lots and lots of zone 2 can be extremely helpful, but eventually as you get closer to your event i think training some high intensity will help build speed.

Side pet peeve: people who won't use their big chain ring in the winter time because "training in your small ring makes you fast." I've had to wait for people on many occasions because we have a huge tailwind and they can't keep up because their coach said they can't use their big ring. They are spinning like 120 rpm in their 34/11. If you're in your training zone, who cares what ring you're in? Sigh.

Some of your training should be faster than your race pace. If you want to run at 6 minutes per mile in a race, I would want to be doing quarter miles in under 75 seconds.

This.

I didn't run faster than moderate pace from March until doing a 4 mile time trial in September. I averaged just under 40 mpw. No races since February. I ran the TT at 2.5 minutes per mile faster than my training pace. I regularly ran hilly trails on the weekends, but there was no variation from the moderate pace.

If you're a new athlete who has only trained at one pace, going faster than that pace in a race is going to be uncomfortable, but is certain doable (depending upon the length of the race), assuming that the athlete rested sufficiently prior to the race.

No. It makes you stronger. And if you're stronger, you can swim/bike/run/row/ski the same speed for longer. Which in turn makes you faster if it's a race over 60-90 seconds.
But actually faster. No.

I disagree with this part - "training easy all of the time" - however this was worked wonders for me personally: https://www.8020endurance.com/

I did that, I got really good at running 8:30-9:00 min/miles

i use 80/20 endurance and when im training consistently (not this last stupid year) i absolutely believe in the method. you have to have a high volume of easy stuff mixed in with some all out work, but it will absolutely work and make you faster. i also am 100% injury free since going 80/20, which is huge.

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It also depends on how often you are racing.

If you only race once every two or three months and have a off-season of four months with no racing, that's a very different situation to someone who is racing twice a week, over a variety of distances, throughout the year.

+1 on this.

The first time I trained for a marathon, in 2007 (didn't know what I was doing!) I did a solid amount of mileage and virtually no speedwork for most of the training cycle. Ran a few 5ks between 8 to 4 weeks out from the marathon, and demolished a PB by about a minute on the second one, running 18:15 on the track solo. That was the fastest running I'd done in months (most of training was mileage at 8:00+). You can definitely break PRs in a race or TT context by going faster than you ever did in training.

As another poster said, for most it's not the best way to be your fastest self. But it can be more injury-proof, especially in running.

You need to train fast at some point as you need to train the mind as well as the body. When training fast, you develop mental toughness and discipline as you experience significant pain. You develop little tricks and techniques that help you when you are really suffering. And over time your ability to suffer increases as you find different ways to manage the pain. For example I might be really struggling, but then I will say to myself, "give it 1 more km then you can have slow down", by the time that 1km has passed you might be in less pain or you might be close enough to the end of the run where it becomes psychologically easier to handle the pain.

If you are just training easy, you would never suffer and you would never get the opportunity to train your mind to deal with the physical anguish the body will face. The pain would be unfamiliar and when it hits you like a train the mind would not have the skills to deal with it.

It isn’t about the slow pace itself, it’s the insensity. And mainly because of less recovery, so you Can increase volume instead. So, if recovery time is a limiting factor in adding volume, lowering the instensity and adding volume might be beneficial. If time crunched or already training maximum amount of time available (I mean, work and life matters) and recovery isn’t a limiting factor, then no, lower intensity won’t help a bit, on the other hand - try to increase intensity to the point where recovery becomes a limiter and back it down a little bit, until it’s balanced.
High volume and High intensity would yield far the best results, if you could recover from it.
I Think 80/20 or LSD or whatever is often taken out of context of the big picture.

No, if you train exclusively at an 'easy' pace all of the time you will not miraculously be speedy on race day. As others have said, at least some of the training must be at or above race pace to achieve the physical (and mental) adaptations to be able to sustain a high pace in a race.

The reason for "easy" training (be that 80% easy / 20% High intensity, or any other proportion), is to ensure that you build endurance/strength during easy sessions, but still be fresh enough to really nail the speed work in high intensity workouts. Similarly, training "hard" all of the time is also not good, as it just means you overload with fatigue, leaving you unable to do proper HI sessions well.

I also believe that 90% of GI and cramping issues people have in races (but never in training) are not due to "bad nutrition" (thought some definitely are). Rather, I believe most muscle cramping is caused by the body / muscles' reaction to being pushed to levels of intensity and duration during a race it never sees in training. I.e. People doing nearly all their training at 8min/mile and then wondering why they cramp trying to run their entire marathon race in 6min/miles.

But, if they have done a significant amount of training at 6min/mile or under and their body is adapted to running that pace, they will be less likely to have cramping issues. Thus you need to go fast in training (but not always fast) to go fast in a race.

You have to train slow to race fast

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I’ve trained and been coached several different ways over the years. Whether it was sweet spot training, higher intensity interval stuff like some of EN’s old plans, personalized coaching, 80/20, and easy running.

My personal best 70.3 or IM runs were when I never ever left zone 1 in run training. Run 3 miles... zone 1. Run 6 miles... zone 1. Run 13 miles... zone 1. Lot of that was due to being able to up the run volume compared with other plans that had intensity built in. I ran my best 70.3 run at about 1:15/mile faster pace than I ever saw in training.

Anyone that says if you only run at say 9:00/mile easy pace can only end up running at 9:00/mile during a race is full of shit. I trained for one stand alone marathon in my life. Ended up not racing due to having surgery the week before the race. I was zone 1 all the time coming off an IM build a few months earlier. I was confident I could have run a Boston Marathon qualifying time (or came damn close) despite never running one mile in training at that pace with exception to an 18 mile race sim about six weeks before the race. Granted, anything could’ve/would’ve happen on race day but I ran that race sim at a pace way faster than any training run. I also learned that day that running that pace for a very long distance sucks ass but that was more mental than physical. 😁

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"Anyone that says if you only run at say 9:00/mile easy pace can only end up running at 9:00/mile during a race is full of shit."

Yup, running lots of miles at an easy/steady pace will get you pretty darn fast, I started running in university and went from a walk on former junior hockey player running 41min 10k to a decent running in the 15/32 range running high mileage of around 100 miles per week within 2 years (also lost 35 lbs), I am certainly not the most talented and in fact was one of the slowest runners in my club in the post university track club days back in the 90s. Now running easy/steady I feel will get you 80-90 percent to your potential but you will need to do some higher quality stuff to get to your potential in the 5/10K range, I never ran a marathon outside of IM so not sure about needing quality to max marathon potential. I think the great Ed Whitlock ran close to 2 hours per day at an easy pace and his only high quality was racing quite a bit and he ran 2:50 around age 70 I believe.

I don't think its an easy this or that situation

You will get faster just by running consistently if you are new to the sport and I don't think anyone is disputing that. but only up to a certain point which varies person to person based on "talent". Then you will plateau and to continue to improve you need to either A) increase volume B) increase intensity

So then you can make a claim that if 2 people are training and one does 30 MPW with 2 harder/faster sessions and the other does 100 MPW of only easy runs then they probably will both be improving if before they just did 40 MPW of easy running before. Which strategy works "best" depends on the person and the race with longer races such as ultras, the marathon and half marathons likely benefitting from the high mileage plan and shorter races such as the 10k, 5k and below benefitting from the other plan.

Lydiard said something along the lines of "its not the distance but the pace that limits us". Meaning that if you run slower you are able to run longer and subsequently get fitter and I think that is the claim that your friend may be getting at

I can almost guarantee than the person doing 100mpw consistently, even if all z1-z2 pace, will crush themselves in a race versus themselves training 30mpw and with 2 hard speedwork sessions per week, at all distances from 5k to marathon+. Maybe not in a 400 or even a mile all-out, but 5k+, likely.

At 70+mpw consistently running you get pretty fast even while running zone 2. My z2 runs at that volume felt surprisingly hard, even with HR in check, as you can push the legs so fast and far given your conditioning.

Most folks (esp triathletes) who have never consistently trained big run volume miles of 50+ mpw (esp 70+mpw) assume that it's just as good to do 30-40 with speedwork, but it's typically not. Keep in mind i'm not saying you'll become 2x better by doing big mileage - the gains are real, but modest.

It was literally impossible for me to break a 20:50 5k from age 16-30 because I never ran more than 35mpw, even if I did strucutred book training plans, and raced regularly, and went guts-all out on speedwork days. One 60mpw marathon training cycle (with speedwork to be fair, but not more than before on low-vol) and I went from 21:00 avg to 18:30 in my early 30s in a single training cycle, and not even focusing on shorter distance racing.

It's hard as a triathlete to see this kind of single-sport volume. Unfortunately for me (and most), splitting time between SBR means you never get to this type of volume for any sport, and thus you need training strategies that work with less volume for each.

There are ways to do this. The problem is triathletes think they're training for three sports, not one, and that every workout needs to be a rehearsal for (going slow at) races.

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never underestimate how fit & fast you can get just running around at a pretty easy pace. After all exercise is just one big chemical reaction. When you think of it that way, at least to me, it's really easy to see why lots of easy training can make on fast(er). You need a lot of fitness to go fast. The fitter you are when you try to go fast in workouts the faster you'll be able to go when racing.






Even if you've been running for a few months ~7:45 pace I've seen people (athletes I coach) rip off 6:30s in a 70.3. They may have banged out a few 7:15's here and there but nothing faster. I've alluded to the reasons why above and will elaborate more in my next answer


Base training is bullshit. It's a term that needs to be retired from the vernacular. Training should be general to specific. You can do vo2 max intervals in general prep and specific prep. Same with threshold training or aerobic efforts. It all adds to your fitness level and the higher your fitness level the more likely it is you can go faster than your less fit self and have a greater margin of error to screw up in a race and still pull a good result out of your hat.

Now the one reason athletes stay slow is they never do anything harder/faster or rarely anyway. I'll use a group of people I know in Raleigh as an example. They go train for their IM riding in a group at 17 mph for 6h. You're not going to be less fit bc of that. But that's the extent of their training. 6h group ride, 3 store stops never anything hard. Now you could have someone do 5h ride 2-2.5 of that pretty hard and at the end of the day produce more kJ (kilojoules = work done). Lets say they do this for 6-8 weeks and go race. Who's going to have the better opportunity to have a better race, have a greater margin of error, be able to pull The Race of Their Life off? Don't answer the group riding for 6h. They'll be able to do the race but if they try to ride 5:20 it's probably not going to end well.

Again to clarify base training is a term (often used wrongly imo), not an actual thing you do while training. It's a term coaches & athletes should stop using imo, as always ymmv.

Hopefully all that helps

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Take a recent example from pro Richard Murray who ripped a 28 min 10k at 4:32/mile. If you follow his Strava his easy run training is 7:30-8:00/mile. In interviews he mentions that other pros drop him in training because he runs so slow intentionally.

So much to unpack here.

"Fast" and "slow" are relative.

You mentioned time - most triathletes GROSSLY underestimate how long it takes to really build up base fitness! The chunks-of-time units here are YEARS!

. . and then consider that it the typical well balanced triathlon weekly training program, that most coaches hand out or you can find only you are only putting in a 1/3 of the time that you would if you were just doing that one sport. This is why I'm a big advocate for block training where for multiple months at a time, you just swim or just run or just ride, but you are doing it almost every day of the week - that's how you REALLY start to lay the base down. Odd thing is, you be hard pressed to find a triathlon coach who ever suggests this - but that's probably because they are coaching an athlete(s) who is training for an IM race they are training for next month! (go back to the 3rd line above).

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It's one reason, but not "the one reason." There are many reasons that people who aren't progressing don't progress. Some people race every workout and dig themselves into massive holes.

From the bike racing community I'm in, I see the problem of people who do way too much high intensity. Racing Weds. night worlds and the Saturday morning group ride every week. In addition to Zwift, etc. Never take a week or three to shed the damage that high intensity training does, so never really have any distinct peak fitness over the course of the year.

This is a bastardized paraphrasing of Arthur Lydiard's training methods. For running, yes it does work, but then again Lydiard never said go slow all of the time. I suspect it's the same idea for all endurance sports but I don't know much outside of running. For race specific training, Renato Canova left a trove of information at LR.com years ago that's always worth reading through.

Sounds like a good way to get injured (18:30 5ker repping quarters at 75sec).

I’ll be honest, I’d be lucky to run 8x400m at 75sec at the moment. I’d be shocked if I ran slower than 80min for a half (6-6:05/mi). 5k right now would be right around 17-17:20.

My biggest jump in capability as a runner has come from slowing down and doing more. I shoot to run 7 days a week indefinitely, often for weeks on end, and shoot for an hour daily, sometimes I get 80-90min, sometimes I shorten to 30min if I’m dead. Pretty much all jogging at 8min/mi, with the occasional progression run and strides. It’s not uncommon that I run 8:15-8:30/mi. It’s not common that I run faster than 7:30/mi on my daily jogs. Typical week is 50-60mi of jogging, might do strides twice a week when I’m feeling motivated. Hilly routes. The only other training I do is kettlebell swings with a 53# bell. Not a runner’s build, 5’8/165lb.

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I used to do 20 quarter miles at 75 seconds with 15 seconds rest between each one.

I was feeling rather slow because Mark Conover was on the track at the same time as me and he was doing half mile repeats in 136 seconds.

yes and no . Mostly no it depends on you.

Say a athletes only have 7 hours a week. they likely should do 3 hour of quality above threshold.

That is that is 60/40 ish.

Then they get off work one day and do an extra session. likely just add one hour due to fatigue 8 hour week 3 hard.

Long weekend. add long bike ( 3 extra hours) 11 hours week still 3 hard in the week.

Loose their job now 16 hours a week 3 hours hard effort.

The more you train more hours become slow and aerobic so every person and week is different. If you have only 4 runs a week of 60 min and run only 60 min hard all week that is not going to get the gains like a 16 hour guy with 3 hours of hard in there.
SAME % of slow vs fast.


Everyone can only really do so much hard a week once that is cover in a smart plan the rest is easy.

most that go slow only just lose wt to go faster.


NOW what is slow ????? here we go, a slower athlete fast is still running anaerobic at 10 min/ mile.

So if you say go slow to them to get faster it's now walking.
Beginner runners likely cover 50-80% of weekly run times anaeobic and that is why they hate running and find it hard.

Not everyone should train the same and not everyone has the same time and lifestyle for a set training plan. Try different things to make sure you are consistent, over systems.

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That's insane to me. Nearly half of training above threshold? I, personally, could never handle that. I train ~15 hours/week and do maybe 90 minutes above threshold.

WHY is 3 hours a week hard. I would guess over 90 % of athletes do more then this already.

That is one about alp de zwift, one day of 5 x 1 mile run and 20 x 100 m in the pool for about 60 % triathletes, add a few short fun climb efforts running and biking on your other days.
( or for most just one hard group smash fest ride trying to over reach and hold on for 100 km)

you still have 4 easy days in there were you can vary 4 hours to 24 hours and lose wt and practice posture and timing.

Maybe your efforts of aerobic vs anaerobic are not set properly??? basically any effort over a 7.5 /10 is anaerobic. so Once you breath through your mouth you are now Anaerobic.

Fast guys can breath through there nose at sub 4 min / km. So what may sounds fast is actually their aerobic zone. don't go by fast vs slow go by high stress vs low stress.

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People spend around half their week at race pace or higher? (Above threshold is faster than race pace for any triathlon other than a sprint).

I can't believe that's typical. Maybe for very "time crunched" athletes there's this theory that you need to have lots of intensity to make up for the lack of time.

That just wouldn't work for me, though. I need a certain chronic training load before I could handle 3 hours per week @ threshold. The amount of time I can handle @ threshold goes up with total time available. Not the other way around.

Again, this is just me. I know my body pretty well after 30 years or so of endurance sports, and 40%+ at threshold *isn't* how I get fast.

you aren't good with numbers maybe. and I think you are setting your own paces wrong.

40% at threshold if you do 7 hours a week is basically the same stress as 20 % at threshold if you do 14 hours a week. the more volume you do the less overall percent A vs AnA.

No one can do over 5 hours a week of Anaerobic or they risk injury and burn out. MANY TRY THOUGH. but your precents change off that number depending how much extra easy you do.

And standard/ Olympic distance events are at anaerobic pace and sadly if you are not fast like you over half of your average triathletes have to attempt half's and full Ironman events at well into anaerobic efforts especially when hills are on the course and head winds.

You think the people going 16 hours are just taking it easy at a 170 beat HR they are trying to do the same effort as the 8 hours guys just less skills and ability.

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I see your thinking and I agree

yet if you look at polarized training (80/20 model) that equates to about 10% max of your total training time at threshold or higher intensities.

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You may find this graph instructive

This is not an anaerobic sport. Being fast requires a highly trained aerobic system.


No one can do the same effort over twice the duration. Energy intake and TSS accumulation have to be balanced so the intensity drops off a lot.

HUH 40 % Threshold time of 7 hour is the same time as 20% threshold time of 14 hours.

I am missing what you are saying here?

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just terminology. sorry.

I am referring to anaerobic being at 4 mmols ( threshold) or about. As I pointed of a 7.5/ 10 effort of the scale of RPE. That said yes alot of good intervals are done in under 2 min 400 m intervals , 100 swim, and 1 km bike intervals.

Thanks

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If you look at the polarized model its 80/20 with 20% of all workouts having intensity in them, not 20% of all time being at or > threshold, as many people mistakenly think.

When you start to calculate that out, that means for most people < 10% of your total training time is going to be @ or > than threshold.

Second 40% at 7h is not the same as 20% over 14h. Mathematically that works, sure. The physiological response is exponential. Someone who only trains 7h/wk doesn't really have the capability to train 2.8h of that at or > threshold. They're just not fit enough to support that. I think you gace an example of 5x1mile. Someone training 7h week is going to end up running 1 maybe 2 of those > threshold and the rest will be sub threshold unless they a going on 10 min recovery between them, which if they are, I'd be they could easily get to 8h week with some mods to training.

Maybe if they are only doing HIIT training where they do something like :30hard/fast & walk recovery but then again those people are going to race less well as race duration increases.

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This touches on something that I've been wondering about often recently – namely, while there is extensive data indicating that a high volume of LIT is effective/essential for maximising endurance performance, is there an "intensity floor" below which training is simply unproductive or useless? Here, I'm thinking more about cycling rather than running, since in cycling it is quite possible for a decent rider to tool along at very low relative intensities. Or, does no such floor exist?

On a connected point, some years ago I started doing winter sessions on the bike in which I base my intensity level on Lydiard's description of "aerobic conditioning" for running. Since for me this involves holding an average power of 250+ W for up to 3 h, there is no way that this is consistent with a typical interpretation of an easy, low intensity session. Arguably it has, however, proved to be an effective training strategy.

What if that person training 7 hours a week has the capability of training more (like 15 hours) but is limited on time because of work/family/home commitments. It seems to me that person would have the ability to train a higher percentage of time and be able to recover to do it again the following week/cycle.

Or maybe the added time wouldn't do anything extra for him?

I suppose it would take and experienced and well acquainted coach to realize how much higher end training could be utilized.

Glad you posted this, and the replies are interesting.

My experience is no, it doesn't

Last year I got down to 1:28 for a HM (for me a PB) running 30-40k a week. That's about 4:09/km.

I really wanted to get better and had read a lot about the benefits of just easy running, so I set aside eight months for Z2 only training with the intention of building 10% a week to 80km a week (also seen as some kind of magic level).

This was August. By December I was running the 80k a week easily, but it was clear that I was slow. My HR for Z2 work had increased, not decreased. On training peaks, my efficiency score was getting worse and worse.

I started out running Z2 around 4:50 - 5:10 / km, after four months of the Z2 training I was more in the 5:20 - 5:30 range for the same HR.

Granted, four months is not a full application, but I would expect some improvement.

I then tried one quick km to see how bad it was, and the answer was really bad. I couldn't hold 4:30/km for more than a few hundred meters.

So in summary, lots of slow running ruined my running.

Reading the replies here convinces me that we are very much individual in our needs.

you didn't train slow...

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Why the F would you do 8 month of only Z2 running? How did you read that and not read at least 1 other article that said hey run faster now and then. Even 10 min per week of faster running would have given you a much better ROI.

Training is general to specific and one shouldn't neglect training at other intensities for that long.

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They don't have the capacity to train 15h per week though. Just 7.


First all endurance sports are aerobic sports. There's a lot to it, capillary density, mitochondrial density, etc. These things are develop to a greater degree as you do more. Take a triathlete who's riding 3h per week then they bump that to 11 for 5 weeks. Their FTP is going to go up by 10-15% even if they don't do intervals. Why is that? Why will it drop pretty quickly once they go back to doing 3h per week? I already answered these questions in this thread.

It would help him out.



I think the one benefit coaches with some time under their belt have over the self coached athlete is when you're self coaching 1 yr of self coaching = 1 year of skill set development. Your tool box isn't that big. One year for some coaches = 20-50yr of skill set development. (although I'd argue if you're coaching 50 triathletes you're writing schedules and not really coaching. that's a different argument for a different day though)

When you've been coaching for 10 years your tool box barely fits in a 26ft panel truck. The self coached athlete can put their tool box in the back of a ford ranger after 10 yr of coaching themselves and have room left over for their bike.

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All: A bit of a tangent so apologies.

Desert dude: Your comment piqued my interest. I thought it was 20% of time (or distance) as part of the polarized training. Didn't think it was 20% of the workouts... Could you point me in the right direction to read more about this?

Thanks

I think if you're consistently going out and riding at 50% of FTP that's probably too low too often. Now that's not to say the occasional ride at 50% of FTP is bad, it's not. In fact if you're shelled going out for a very easy hour such as this can provide many benefits.

On your connected point that sounds like a lot of tempo to sweet spot work. What % of your FTP is 250+w for 3h?

One way, and there was a thread alluding to this recently, to really boost your fitness is to do just what you said. That's very good for half/im racing. probably leave a bit of spring out of your legs for oly/sprints.

yet I'd rather have a FTP of 300 having done a ton of tempo/ss work than have a FTP of 275 having done a lot of vo2 & threshold work

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

There seems to be a lot of stuff going on in this thread. I hope to address two topics:

- It’s hard to hit fast paces in a race you haven’t hit in training.
- For slow/casual workouts to make you faster, you have to have high volume.

You can’t just run slow with little volume and expect results. It doesn’t work like that.

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https://www.strava.com/...tes/zachary_mckinney

I am not disagreeing with what you are trying to point out here but you are pretending everyone is already at the point end of the field and has the time to get all those hour in to properly prep for a plus 3 hr race.

What about trying to say is one program / % structure doesn't fit all. hence why good coaches get results with every type of athlete not just the work horses.

My main point was everyone needs the quality work first in the week and then easy fillers around it. The more volume you get in ratios change of course.

alot of Top guy will do 90/10 some weeks and 70/30 other week. Some slow beginners are basically 50/50 on 7 hours a week and can only do easy work on the bike. due to lack of skill.

Also a heavy runner can not go by the 80/20 rule as all those slow miles are so much harder on their joint load. they will spot running due to injury before they lose wt.

A fast runner that does an easy 10 miles in 1:20 has less stress then a heavy runner doing 10 miles in 1:20 or even1:50.

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Technique will always last longer then energy production. Improve biomechanics, improve performance.
http://Www.anthonytoth.ca, triathletetoth@twitter

Google steven seiler in fact he's posted on here. google that thread

I pressed the easy button for you: https://scholar.google.com/...is=1&oi=scholart

ETA: here's one of the threads on it. Since this was first posted Seiler himself has modified his position a bit on this topic. There's a large body of work out there you need to watch to help you really grasp it, or at least start with the most recent. Included are several threads on ST as well.

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...o__P4931310/?page=-1

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Were you adequately rested for that one quick km? Seems to me that you weren't or you would have been able to hold that pace for more than a few hundred meters.

OK, thanks

Just under 80%. I think of it more as tempo than sweet spot, on the Z2/Z3 border if taking threshold (FTP) as Z4.

My races are mainly hilly and alpine gran fondos and cyclosportives. One hard tempo ride per week through winter has proven to be an effective strategy at building functional endurance to transfer to my longer target events during the season. If I can support over 3 hours straight averaging 260 W (actual average power, not normalized, so pretty much never not pedaling), then a 5 hour ride ridden in a regular way is not so challenging. I live in Switzerland and, compared to LIT, tempo pace also makes it much easier to stay warm on the cold winter days.

I don't know about 'exclusively' but it sure seems like doing 86% of all of the work easy doesn't hurt :-)

https://journals.humankinetics.com/....X5LReDgRp-I.twitter


" The improvement in performance of the participant was mainly determined by the progressive increase in training volume, especially performed at low intensity"

Just the latest in the papers supporting the "go slower to race faster" method. And, it should be noted, 7% of the balance was strength training, so only ~3% of all the training was between LT1 and LT2 and only ~4% above LT2 for the most successful Biathlete of recent times (5x Olympic Champ and 13x World Champ)!

Another interesting note, when he did increase the intensity in 2019, despite maintaining similar volume, his performance deteriorated.

IME, while 'exclusively' going easy isn't the best idea, most significantly underestimate the benefit of really eazzzzy mileage.

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Alan Couzens, M.Sc. (Sports Science)
Exercise Physiologist/Coach
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Alan_Couzens
Web: https://alancouzens.com

Well, an overweight, beginner runner probably Can’t do zone 2 runs at all - it’ll be walking. But then again, 80/20 doesn’t really make much sense unless you’re running at least 4 times/week (for a single sport), depending on the duration, of course. I mean, running 5k 3 times per week Can get you in decent “beginner”-shape and if that’s all the time you have, increasing intensity would definately make a difference. However, running more often would probably be better in the long run, so it’s a little out of scope for this discussion.

If you are defining zone 2 with HR then you'll be walking.

If you define zone 2 with pace then probably not

Depends on your HR & pace zones And the terrain?
On a flat surface, they should correspond pretty well...
The point was that for people out of shape, there MAY be no zone 2 “running”. Technically you could run, But just getting started would you really run at a walking pace?

Hi Mark,

Maybe not, which could have had an effect.

More annoying was the months of running, a lot of running, and seeing my speed slowly drop for the same HR / PE. I was careful to build the distance up slowly, never adding more than 10% a week.

After Christmas I went back to 'normal' training - fewer kms and intervals / tempo work and was running much better within a few weeks.

Everyone is different :) I had read a lot about aerobic only running, and gave it a try.

For reference (someone wrote above I wasn't running slowly enough), my HM HR was 173 Avg, recent max was 196 and my 'slow' running around 135. My pace just declined the whole time.

I think the one benefit coaches with some time under their belt have over the self coached athlete is when you're self coaching 1 yr of self coaching = 1 year of skill set development. Your tool box isn't that big. One year for some coaches = 20-50yr of skill set development. (although I'd argue if you're coaching 50 triathletes you're writing schedules and not really coaching. that's a different argument for a different day though)

When you've been coaching for 10 years your tool box barely fits in a 26ft panel truck. The self coached athlete can put their tool box in the back of a ford ranger after 10 yr of coaching themselves and have room left over for their bike.[/quote]
I think this analogy explains the benefit of coaching far better than anything I have come across (thus, why I decided to comment). I self-coached for years and was reasonably successful, given my limitations. When I started coaching high school runners, I trained them the way I would train. My ability to help them succeed four years later was so much greater for having added so many more tools to my box after working with 20-30 runners, both male and female, during those eight seasons of XC and track. And that was a small high school where I was lucky to fill out a full boys and girls XC team in some years. The smallest, least-important part of coaching is making a training schedule.

As for the OPs question, yes, it is very possible to run at comfortable day-to-day pace and then run fast. At the peak of my fitness, I did about 140 hours of aerobic-only riding and 115 hours of running in a Dec-February timeframe back in 07 and 08. At both of the duathlons I did in March 08, we opened up with sub-5 min miles and I was super comfortable. Unfortunately, I was too all-or-nothing then. I'm sure I would have been some percentage faster had I incorporated some threshold or steady running/cycling. Nearly 15 years later, my coaching toolbox is much larger than before and I'm much better at self-coaching and thus, a lot faster relative to my age/limitations, than I was then.

When i started running it was at a13.5 min mile pace. It wasn't walking but not really running either.

I interpreted your post as a new person trying to run to HR and not being able to stay low enough. Running to a pace in zone 2 wouldn't pose that problem. Perhaps i was mistaken.

Great, thanks

reading through the links provided by Desert Dude, i found thios snippet posted by Steephen Seiler interesting.


"Hi,

Research I did with Arne Guellich at the German Sports Federation on 51 national team junior track pursuit riders suggested that that which distinguished responders (increased power at 4mM blood lactate) from non responders to a 15 week training period was actually that the non responders trained more in the lactate threshold to MLSS intensity range. Wacky I know, but that is what the data showed. Responders had more sub threshold training volume. Also, our interval training study on recreational cyclists suggested that accumulating 32 minutes of work at 90% HR max (9 mM blood lactate) induced positive changes in both fractional utilization and VO2 max. So, my thought would be to move some of the threshold trainin to long interval training. I find that interval durations of 7-10 minutes "force" athletes into the appropriate intensity. Rest duration 2 min. Two time gold medalist single sculler Olaf Tufter had 6 x 10 minutes at 90% as a bread and butter workout. For example, in his 2008 gold medal year, he performed that training session 27 times.

The two articles I refer to and many more are actually available to anyone interested on Researchgate.net."

4mmol is still not really relevant for this sport
For my personal example - my best ever HIM power (some years ago) matches my 2mmol power from long ago when I thought lactate tests were useful - 300w.

For an example of an athlete much better than me


She came off the bike with a 16min lead in her last IM
FRC is the zone you would class as Vo2 effort
There were two FTP level structured sessions in the year shown - 1 as prep for an IM VR and one as prep for cycling national champs (won the TT and 3rd in RR). All the rest of the FTP and FRC/FTP time is incidental (bike racing, having a dig on hills etc) and some progressive extensive sets.
Engine was built by lots of structured Tempo and Sweetspot/extensive

My ITU athlete has a lot more time in Recovery zone and a bit more time in the over FTP zones, because that is relevant to her events. But still building the aerobic engine is the focus as even a 20min MTR race is predominantly aerobic.

I'm trying to reconcile a few things in your posts.

Are you a single sport runner, or a triathlete?

Your HM time of 1:28 is quite good, especially on such a small amount of volume: stated as 40km/week. That's barely enough volume to run much more than 10km in a a few times a week, if you have any frequency at all. Frankly, I'm not really sure how I'd put together a "reasonable" HM plan on 40km / week. A 15k long run only leaves 25km for the rest of the week.

I find it barely imaginable, that someone capable of stringing together 20km @ 4:10/km, after a couple months of building up to 80km/week that you couldn't even manage a single km at 4:30/km.

For a pure runner, 80km isn't really all that much (let alone 40km/week). All of the above makes much more sense to me in the context of a triathlete.

One of the most informative posts on ST.....this year!
ETA...Scroll up 2 posts to see the chart

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

I do most of my running in low Z2, however, putting in some fast intervals works really well for me

Over the winter, I do a one hour interval training session, with program which is focused on 2mmol, 4mmol and VO2 Max pace. Typically each session is around 8km. In addition I run around 30-40km at an easy pace (Some weeks I run less and other weeks up to a total of 70km)

In the summer I don't do a dedicated interval session, however, I add some very fast pace intervals into my Z2 runs.... So I may run 15km with 500m to 1000m in Zone 4/5 every 4km

My Average distance this year is just under 40km per week

I run around 3h20 IM marathon and a 3hr stand alone marthon. My anaerobic capacity isn't great, however, I do run an 18m30s 5km and 39m10s 10km.

Yes, BUT, if you watch RM's YouTube videos (particularly his "run slow" video) he states categorically that he does those runs so slow in order to keep fresh for his HI track sessions, where he then rips out 2:12 / 800m reps...

Correct! All those slow and aerobic runs become much more valuable with a sprinkling of high intensity in the training intensity distribution. I am in favor of slowing down the base/endurance/easy runs into zone 1 as it still provides the endurance adaptations compared to z2 which for some runners seems to become more "moderate" than "easy" judging by the talk test.