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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Brian Stover USAT LII
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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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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

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

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

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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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
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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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Technique will always last longer then energy production. Improve biomechanics, improve performance.
http://Www.anthonytoth.ca, triathletetoth@twitter

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

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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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
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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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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
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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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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
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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