I had a hard time taking that second article seriously after this paragraph,

."..in other words, instead of simply training to finish 26.2 miles and relying on whatever speed you bring, runners are training to run 26.2 miles faster with workouts specific to the demands of sustaining a challenging pace over the miles. While the trend sprouted among elite runners and has been a key reason for the recent drop in times at the international level, the same principles can help recreational runners get faster, too."


Training to race, rather than finish, 26.2 miles a "trend that has sprouted among elite runners." Come on now. Marathoners have been doing track workouts, fartleks....I don't know...since a really, really long time ago. It's been a long time since marathon training was nothing but going out and running marathons.

"I realize that juxtaposing these two is creating a bit of a false dichotomy."

Took the words right out of my mouth...

I was hoping to see Alan as the author for both.

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http://www.sfuelsgolonger.com

Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed the Couzens article, and as you identified not really that dichotomous. LHD another tool in the toolbox of different ways to fatigue your body to achieve adaptations. The correct tool at the correct time, frequency, and amount is the art.

One thing to note, is that these longer marathon pace efforts are strategic and intentional in the overall plan. IMO many runners perform too much unintentional marathon pace effort throughout their day-to-day training.

LHD has been tried many times, so far it always seems to produce stagnation and injury. But maybe this time will be different.

everyone wants to train hard and fast because it feels better, and common sense says that's the way to get faster. Turns out common sense isn't any better as a training guide, than it is as a guide to quantum physics..

over and over, coaches rediscover the Lydiard way.. train slow to go fast..
Alan obviously knows this, but so many coaches are still working on it..

Training plans without context are useless.

Hey Tom,

Thanks for sharing that. I couldn't agree more that this relates perfectly to the icing v cake concept. It would seem to be common sense that, in order to do a large part of a long run hard, one must first have the ability to simply do a long run (at any pace!).

Furthermore, it would also seem common sense (at least to anyone who has been training for any period of time) that the extent to which a long, hard run "beats us up" is strongly related to the overall 'base' mileage that the athlete is running. A 32km run with 20km at marathon pace might be consistently doable for an athlete who is running 100k a week, getting into peak marathon shape, but it will surely destroy an athlete (to a similar extent as the race itself!) if an athlete tries it coming straight out of the off-season.

I think these articles are silly for setting up this dichotomy. Specific endurance is clearly important to success in any event. However, being able to handle those final few hard 'key' workouts that improve that specific endurance is strongly related to how much basic fitness the athlete brings to that final phase. For an article to ignore this & imply that it's an either/or proposition is reckless at best.

Kind regards,

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