First let me say that I have the utmost respect for Gordo and Scott Molina - I think the concept is great and clearly it was a successful strategy for Scott and is for Gordo. Who's going to argue with a sub 8:30 IM guy!
However, some comments:
1. The concept is a great one - get right minded people together for a big period of training. This is an old strategy, but highly effective. More athletes should do this. We used to do it years ago.
2. That being said, the distances that are being covered are HUGE. I wonder if you reach a point of diminishing or no returns. The physiological research hints at the fact that after a certain point there are no tangiable returns and that you have to have a closer look at intensity if you want to get results. Many top ednurance athletes will drop their yearly volumes substantially as they get older, but their performance remains the same or improves.
3. You don't have to train that much to go sub 10 - Myself and many others who have gone sub 10, have not trained anywhere near that level of volume.
4. When I first did an IM back in the 80's( IMH) they sent you a booklet with your acceptence note with some reccomended training volumes. I can't recall for sure but they seemed crazy to me at the time - somthing like 30,000 yards of swimming/300 miles cycling/50 miles of running each week. I was doing about 1/2 of those totals on average, with some bigger weeks and went 9:40 at IMH that first time out.
Fleck
Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog
However, some comments:
1. The concept is a great one - get right minded people together for a big period of training. This is an old strategy, but highly effective. More athletes should do this. We used to do it years ago.
2. That being said, the distances that are being covered are HUGE. I wonder if you reach a point of diminishing or no returns. The physiological research hints at the fact that after a certain point there are no tangiable returns and that you have to have a closer look at intensity if you want to get results. Many top ednurance athletes will drop their yearly volumes substantially as they get older, but their performance remains the same or improves.
3. You don't have to train that much to go sub 10 - Myself and many others who have gone sub 10, have not trained anywhere near that level of volume.
4. When I first did an IM back in the 80's( IMH) they sent you a booklet with your acceptence note with some reccomended training volumes. I can't recall for sure but they seemed crazy to me at the time - somthing like 30,000 yards of swimming/300 miles cycling/50 miles of running each week. I was doing about 1/2 of those totals on average, with some bigger weeks and went 9:40 at IMH that first time out.
Fleck
Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog