EN bike v. BarryP run - what's the deal?

Triathlon Forum
1

So, I’ve been wondering…

Been some raving on the forum lately about improved biking (my FTP is now blah blah blah!) and running (I broke 20:00!).

It appears that for running, this is being achieved by: run lots and lots, sometimes hard but mostly easy, a la BarryP.
However, for biking, it’s Endurance Nation’s out-season plan, which (and I haven’t actually seen it, but) appears to be: bike only some, but do it really really hard.

So hopefully this isn’t a dumb question but, why the difference? Is it solely because running is harder on the body, and if it weren’t for overuse injuries, a EN out-season type (really hard a few times) run plan would be better? What am I missing?

2

I’ve often wondered about the same thing. I think it’s a combination of a few related differences. And it’s related to the fact that bike racers are able to compete very often, whereas runners compete far more sparingly.

Running is harder on the body. It increases the injury risk, and recovery from harder workouts takes longer. In running it is more important to build up a resistance to injury, i.e., a level of fitness that makes the body better able to sustain high intensity training. This also becomes more important with age.

Having said this, I think that the contrast may not be as great as it seems at first. If we go out for an easy ride for a few hours, we’re probably riding at a lower intensity than if we go out for an ‘easy’ run. Low-intensity running is probably still rather more intense than low-intensity cycling, in part because the mechanics of cycling are pretty much the same from walking-level effort up to sprinting-level effort.

Also, what counts as higher intensity efforts on the bike look a bit different than most people’s high intensity runs. A typical high intensity bike interval session might look like 3 x 20 minutes; in running that same workout might be called a fast tempo run with occasional breaks (or downhills).

3

i was thinking bout this the other day. has anyone mixed the 2 training plans? EN cycling and BarryP run training??

4

The Barry P run plan is for people that have not been able to handle running without injury in the past or recovering from injury right?

Not sure that anyone has recommended it for “getting faster” unless of course that running fairly often will make you faster in which case it is an awesome plan for you.

Getting more to your question i think that there is a perception that you will get hurt if you run hard. For the most part if running a couple sessions a week with hard intervals is going to hurt you then you are really not ready to train hard and should stick with a getting used to running more plan. You should be a 5 day a week runner for a couple of years before you start worrying about how fast you can run or what the best training method os for you.

That said pretty hard to injure yourself biking too hard unless you run into something or have a really bad fit.

5

volume and intensity both work.
use them as schedule and injury risk allow.

6

As an EN team member I can give you a simple answer to your question, “Work works.” If coach Pat or Rich doesn’t chime in here soon, I will elaborate.

7

So it doesn’t matter how you get the work done (either hard or long), but in the case of the bike, its easier time-crunch wise to do it quick, and in the case of the run, many don’t have the quick/hard option because of the risk of injury. But theoretically long slow bike and hard short run would also work (as long as you have the time and don’t hurt yourself.) Right?

8

So it doesn’t matter how you get the work done (either hard or long), but in the case of the bike, its easier time-crunch wise to do it quick, and in the case of the run, many don’t have the quick/hard option because of the risk of injury. But theoretically long slow bike and hard short run would also work (as long as you have the time and don’t hurt yourself.) Right?

I would say yes.

9

I agree, work works. The EN bike workouts are no joke. But neither are the runs. Doing VO2 max intervals is a real eye opener.

10

EN out of season plan does NOT follow the BarryP method of running. Absolutely not.

Typical week:

Monday - Day off.
Tues - 60 min of FTP intervals on the bike, 25 min transition run slow out, increase pace back.
Wed - 60 min of FTP intervals running
Thur - 60 min of FTP intervals on the bike
Friday - Off
Sat - 75 min of above FTP intervals on the bike, 30 min transition run slow out, increase pace back.
Sun - 75 min FTP intervals running.

Repeat for 20 weeks. I am just finishing week 18. It sucks. It sucks a lot. It sucks like nothing that has ever sucked before. But, it works!

Remember, this is a 20 week out of season specific plan. I have done the BarryP plan and it works. But, the EN out of season and the BarryP plan are two different animals with different objectives for different times in the season.

11

EN out of season plan does NOT follow the BarryP method of running. Absolutely not.

Typical week:

Monday - Day off.
Tues - 60 min of FTP intervals on the bike, 25 min transition run slow out, increase pace back.
Wed - 60 min of FTP intervals running
Thur - 60 min of FTP intervals on the bike
Friday - Off
Sat - 75 min of above FTP intervals on the bike, 30 min transition run slow out, increase pace back.
Sun - 75 min FTP intervals running.

Repeat for 20 weeks. I am just finishing week 18. It sucks. It sucks a lot. It sucks like nothing that has ever sucked before. But, it works!

Remember, this is a 20 week out of season specific plan. I have done the BarryP plan and it works. But, the EN out of season and the BarryP plan are two different animals with different objectives for different times in the season.

I know exactly what you mean by your post, but I think it is a little misleading to folks that have not purchased the plans. I can’t think of a single time I actually did 60’ or FTP intervals or at Threshold pace. The workouts are around 60 minutes long and have various amounts of FTP intervals or Threshold pace work in them.

I think personally the the workouts suck a whole lot less then sitting on a training in a basement in February for 3+ hours. I’d much rather workout hard for 1-2 hours and be done with it an get on with my day.

To the OP - as others said there are many different ways to achieve the same thing. At the end of the day if you do the work and follwo some sort of a progressive overload you will get faster. It’s up to you if you want to do this by adding frequency, volume or intensity. Different coachs/plans do it differently. I think the key is to pick one and stick with it for a while.

12

EN out of season plan does NOT follow the BarryP method of running. Absolutely not.

Typical week:

Monday - Day off.
Tues - 60 min of FTP intervals on the bike, 25 min transition run slow out, increase pace back.
Wed - 60 min of FTP intervals running
Thur - 60 min of FTP intervals on the bike
Friday - Off
Sat - 75 min of above FTP intervals on the bike, 30 min transition run slow out, increase pace back.
Sun - 75 min FTP intervals running.

Repeat for 20 weeks. I am just finishing week 18. It sucks. It sucks a lot. It sucks like nothing that has ever sucked before. But, it works!

Remember, this is a 20 week out of season specific plan. I have done the BarryP plan and it works. But, the EN out of season and the BarryP plan are two different animals with different objectives for different times in the season.

When you say for example… “60 min of FTP intervals” do you mean the total work out is 60 minutes long with intervals or do you mean you are doing 60 minutes of FTP intervals plus warm up, cool downs and recoveries?

13

EN out of season plan does NOT follow the BarryP method of running. Absolutely not.

Typical week:

Monday - Day off.
Tues - 60 min of FTP intervals on the bike, 25 min transition run slow out, increase pace back.
Wed - 60 min of FTP intervals running
Thur - 60 min of FTP intervals on the bike
Friday - Off
Sat - 75 min of above FTP intervals on the bike, 30 min transition run slow out, increase pace back.
Sun - 75 min FTP intervals running.

Repeat for 20 weeks. I am just finishing week 18. It sucks. It sucks a lot. It sucks like nothing that has ever sucked before. But, it works!

Remember, this is a 20 week out of season specific plan. I have done the BarryP plan and it works. But, the EN out of season and the BarryP plan are two different animals with different objectives for different times in the season.

When you say for example… “60 min of FTP intervals” do you mean the total work out is 60 minutes long with intervals or do you mean you are doing 60 minutes of FTP intervals plus warm up, cool downs and recoveries?

I am in week 18 of the Outseason Plan. For example, this week’s bike sessions were as follows:

Tuesday: Main set: 2x20 min (4" recovery) @95-100% FTP, remainder of time at 80-85% FTP. Goal time 75 min.(followed by 30" brick run, zone 2 out and zone 3 back).

Thursday: Main set: 3x10 min (4")@95-100% FTP, remainder at 80-85%FTP. Goal time 60 min.

Saturday: MS: 5 x (2.5’ ON, 2.5’ OFF) ON = 120%FTP OFF = 65%FTP. Remainder of time at 80-85%FTP. Goal time 75 min. (followed by 25" brick run @ zone 3).

A couple of comments:

  1. The goal time is just a reference time. Let’s face it, most of us are goal driven people so we need some benchmark to shoot for. The beauty of this program is that the focus is on completing your main set. Once we complete the main set, the rest is money in the bank. If we feel good and want to do 90 minutes, then that’s ok. If we feel tired and we want to cut the work-out short after completing the main set then that’s ok too. If we overslept and only have time for the main set, then shame on us but we are human. Remember, this is technically our off-season and the time to shorten things up or even skip a workout if our body says it needs a break.

2)Our warm-up and cool down is how ever long we want it to be. If I am doing a bike/run then I don’t do a cool down. I go right from 80-85%FTP on the bike to the prescribed run. Occasionally I’ll add an extra 10 minutes to the run if I am feeling up to it and time/weather allows. There is also flexibility in this as we can split the session up into 2 separate workouts if need be and do the bike in the am and the run in the pm. It’s also not the end of the world if we skip the run for whatever reason.

3)There’s a reason why we are allotted 2 days off per week in the off-season. We NEED the extra time to recover. These workouts are hard. If you do these workouts right, your legs are constantly getting fried. I like to use these days for strength and core. Others use them to swim although swimming in the Outseason is optional.

4)When one first glances at the volume of the plan the typical reaction is, “that’s not alot, I’ve been doing twice as much in the off-season.” Au contraire! I beg to differ. This is not sitting on your trainer spinning in zone 1 and 2 for 2-3 hours watching your favorite epiodes of South Park and Family Guy. I’ve done that before and come spring got nowhere fast. Yea, I had great Endurance in Z1 and Z2 but that’s about it. I’ve also tried the run approach to LSD (Long, Slow, Distance) and that’s exactly what I achieved. I could run far but I was still slow.

The EN way may not be for everyone but as a time crunched age grouper who has a wife, 3 kids, a dog, and a full-time demanding and often stressful job, it works well for me. I wish I went this route years ago.

14

The EN outseason run portion is the FTP bike equal. It’s usually 2 days of Vdot T-pace intervals, and 2 transition runs. Without going into specifics one of the T-runs is usually mod hard, the other is easy. The premise is build FTP and 5k/10k run speed in the off season. It’s really a brilliant program for those that don’t want to be training monks in the winter and have a life to do what you have neglected during the racing season. You know things like have a good marriage, spend time with kids, household projects etc… All this while actually IMPROVING certain aspects of fitness that will carry over quite nicely into higher volume race prep training when it counts the most, 10-12 weeks pre race.

People only talk about the bike portion of the EN program here on ST. The run training is no joke.

15

In the long term, I think too much Vdot pace running on a weekly basis is a bit risky. I think one poster said it best a few weeks ago, is that you can also jack up your FTP doing RAAM pace if you’re training RAAM like volume. You can jack up your run fitness by getting volume up. I think Barry has a way of getting this done.

Rich has a brilliant approach for the time limited age grouper, and I am sure he gets his athletes up to the run base required to handle that much Vdot pace running week in and week out. The problem with an online forum is that people read a nugget and decide to jump in full throttle having not done the homework.

For the average runner, probably much safer to gradually ramp up volume at “RAAM pace” (I’m using the adjective very loosely). I think in general that is what Barry P is recommending. Running is just such a different animal from biking that you really have to do things in an extremely conservative way before piling on a lot of Vdot stuff (Chris G said something along the lines of "you better be a 5x per week runner for a long time before trying this).

I’m all for the bike intensity in the winter. I’ve never sat on a trainer for hours on end in the winter. Seems like a big waste of time.

16

Generally I agree with what you are saying. However the EN program is layed out very well in my opinion and there is plenty of recovery built in there. 2 full days off/week if you want them. Swimming is optional. I tend to take one of those days off and swim only on the other while adding a swim to one of the other training days. I was looking for a change this winter and this program has definately hit the spot for me. I needed to get some lifetime back while holding onto fitness. In reality I think my overall fitness has improved and I really am not carrying a lot of fatique around week to week. I’m recovering well and have had zero injury issues, I tend to be fairly durable anyways.

I think the people that are getting into trouble with too much Vdot run pace stuff are the ones that are doing it while doing a lot of overall volume at the same time. Plus, when they are supposed to run at E-pace they run 15-20 sec/mi too fast. I have been guilty of that in the past as running true E-pace is almost difficult sometimes. It requires work…

I won’t argue the merits of getting faster on volume alone. I have done it in the past and it works sometimes. Ultimately it stops working unless you bump up the volume even more. Most Ag’s don’t have or want unlimited time to spend on training though. It’s good to switch up the training stress fairly often. It’s too easy for the self coached athlete to fall into a rut of doing the same thing week in and week out at the same intensities thinking that more is better blah, blah, blah. Then after 6 months of volume they see no improvement in their race splits, so what do they do? Even more volume…More is not always better. Getting faster is always better and sometimes to achieve that you have to go fast. Going fast requires a big drop in volume for most people to stay healthy but a lot of cats out there are afraid to drop volume…You see where I am going here.

17

i was thinking bout this the other day. has anyone mixed the 2 training plans? EN cycling and BarryP run training??

Thats pretty much what I do…But I dont really do many 10 or 15 minute runs.

18

I agree with goallout. One thing you have to remember is the out of season plan is only 20 weeks long. That same philosophy does not continue for the entire season.

Also as goallout said, there is quite a bit of recovery. Having 2 rest days is quite foreign to me. In addition, at first blush, it simply does not seem like you are working out enough with the relatively low number of hours per week on the out of season plan. However, the people who get themselves in trouble are the ones who try to supplement the EN plan. That IS too much.

19

Lots of great input from our members and training plan customers. A few of my notes below.

I don’t know anything about Barry’s plan other than it appears to be run focused? We are triathlon coaches and this is a triathlon training plan, with the goal of making you a faster runner and cyclist at the same time. The bike workouts are scheduled and structured to work with the run workouts and vice versa. There are very good reasons why we have two days off per week, why you run 4x, not 6x, why the run interval session is Wednesday and not Friday, etc. I wrote the original version of these plans in '05 and they’ve been refined 7-8x, with the input of our members and customers, since then.

Dev – all due respect, we’re not hurting people with the run portion of these plans:
These are not and we are not a couch-to-first-triathlon plans or team. Nearly all of our athletes and training plan customers come to us with at least a year in the sport so they are typically starting these plans in October - January after at least one season of triathlon training.Jack Daniel’s VDot system ensures that people are only running as fast as they should be, as demonstrated through formal testing and racing.Run volume is typically about 2.25-3hrs across the entire week. Cycling volume is 3-4hrs. And two days completely off. As others have said, people get themselves into trouble when they try to retain a portion of their current/former schedule/tri-life while doing these plans. For example, doing our bike workouts with a 5-6x/wk, moderate to high volume running plan would be a very, very, very bad idea :slight_smile:

Bike intensity: my experience in the sport sez that you should start trying to get faster as soon as you can throw a leg over the top tube. I mean tennis shoes, rat cages, borrowed cycling shorts, cotton t-shirt on a borrowed 10-speed, go that way as fast as you can all the time, with the commonsense caveat that saddle height is correct and you don’t some crazy knee tracking issue going on. In my experience, you’ll enter April MUCH faster than your base building, z1-2, high volume, blindly following recycled training advice twin.

Run intensity: not as scary as you think, as long as…
You have a modicum of injury free mileage in your legs. See my notes above re couch-to-triathlonYou’re training with pace via a proven system (Jack Daniels)The intensity is very well thought out and has been honed over time.-----------------

20

There are a lot of reasons why your approach to running training is not an effective one.

It is simply your cycling approach, which is a valid one and regurgitated straight from Andrew Coggan, without taking into account specific aspects of run training, like injury prevention, running economy development, specificity and adaptation.

While this approach has practically zero risk for cycling, the risk for running is high for not a lot of gain in both improvement and time-saving.