I confused, Stephen Seiler polarized model which recommends around 80% low intensity and 20 percent high intensity over LT2 or in a 3 zone model 80% zone 1 and 20% zone 3 with none or very little zone 2. Many recent studies say this is the most effective way to train for endurance events.
Then you have the African runners and Norwegian Triathletes and Ingebrigtsen clan, among others , doing a significant level of high zone 2 work with much lower amount of high lactate zone 3 work.
I come from a easy high mileage background and believe in a get that part but I don’t understand the role of tempo or sub threshold or threshold work in current training.
What am i missing here?
there is scant evidence that world class runners follow 80/20. It’s mostly nordic sports as he points out over & over in his talks/ in podcasts etc. Also 80/20 isn’t going to be a format you see world class athletes follow to the letter all year long. At times it could be 95/5 and other times it could be 60/40. One needs to see the forest through the trees and apply the info to their situation instead of trying to fit their situation into a box that probably doesn’t work for them.
The way you state it is 80% zone 1 training and 20% higher intensity training. That is not correct.
It’s the # of sessions that have intensity in them. Only 20% of sessions will have any intensity in them which means that < 10% of your actual training time will be at intensity and probably around 6-9% after you factor in warm up/cool down.
Bottom line, do a lot of easy/aerobic volume, do little bit of fast and you’ll be fine. It’s more important to be consistent and less important to adhere to any sort of 80/20 or whatever training system.
The best system never followed is less good than a half ass system adhered to in most cases
ETA: There is a thread on here where Seiler actually chimes in as well as other threads that go into a lot of detail regarding 80/20. Searching the archives is a smart call, or use google bc it seems the search function on here kinda sucks according to many others.