Training. (Read 2732 times)

Thank you Nobby. I believe this is something that I have been overlooking. I know it sounds insane, but I've been following a canned training program and just trying to listen to my body when it says, "no more" or "HTFU." I see the problem with that now. I think it is time to put more effort into my training plans. Okay, I have a follow up questions. In looking at a "what you need" training plan, if I look only at my last race performance, I'm not sure that I would cover "what I need" to get faster. I ran a very conservative 1/2 last August due to weather conditions. What emphasis or what percentage of your "what do you need" training plan is based on last race performance and what percentage is based on your training log? Thanks again!

Well, Aimster... So you got me check your log and profile and all...!!! Now this will cost ya! ;o) Suppose I'd coach you; this is what I'd do... I understand some people just love to run for the sake of running. They might just go out and run... Nothing wrong with it. I have no intention telling them that "they are doing it all wrong." I guess it all depends on what you want. So I'd assume your goal is to "run some races and run them well." So before you actually get to "what do you need?", you'd need to know "where you are right now" (present) and "where you want to be and when" (future) and lastly "where you have been" (past). Where you are right now can be seen in your PRs and your log. You have run just under 8-minute pace for 2 miles; and just under 9:30 pace for 5 miles; and yet you have run on 10/5 a 8-miler as your "long run" at 9:15 pace. To me, this shows that you rather lack stamina (if you can run 8-minute pace for 2 miles, which shows you can run fairly good clip by the way, you should be able to run 5-miler at somewhere around 8:15~8:30 pace) and your training intensity seems too hard. Well, what do you know? Looking at your log, actually you HAVE run a few 5-mile tempo run at 8:10 pace. Obviously, your 5-mile "race" was not quite up to your ability. So, from this, I'd say, you would need a bit better job on "peaking" or "pacing", and your training structure should reflect that. And, if in fact you do need more "stamina" work, you should do a few more long runs at easier pace (so you CAN go the distance). Now, "where you have been"; if you have what you did before your half marathon, that would help. But just looking at your log (with a quick glance), I can see things are way too random. You did two 5-mile tempo runs back to back on 9/4 and 9/6 without any recovery jog (I don't give a damn about what some people say about "junk miles"--without those nice easy recovery jog, you do NOT recover as well while still improving further) in between; you've done 6-mile tempo run on 10/3; the day before your race; you have 3 long runs between 1:37~1:50 within a span of 3 weeks; yet that was pretty much it for a long run. I don't particularly like the way RA's "workouts" chart shows because it does NOT show "no-run" days which, as far as I'm concerned, is quite important. If you run, say, 1:45 one day, no run the next 3 days and, boom, a tempo run of 6 miles... I don't like that kind of a pattern. Like I said, easy recovery jog is what "recover" your body from "point workout" while keeping your body activated. So another thing "what you need" would be some structure in training program. "What you need" depends on, not only your training or how fast your run or what-not, but also your running form, etc. For example, one of the girls I coach, who just PRed her marathon by 10-minutes, shuffles. I didn't have her do hill/step training before her recent marathon (Twic Cities), because I didn't want to change too many things only a month before the marathon, but I believe, by working on her "push" with her backleg, she would improve her marathon time by another 10~15 minutes. Her training/performance doesn't reveal that. In most cases, if you're "racing" at 9~10-minute pace, chances are; you shuffle. By working on hills/steps, you would chop 10~15 seoconds off your "race pace" fairly easily because you would gain more powerful strides. Now, not everybody in every situation could do that because, if you haven't developed good enough of oxygen carrying capacity, in other words, you can't really send enough oxygen to the working muscles to do the job, all the power in the world would not be able to carry you through the distance. Now, so "where you're going"... You said you have a race on 11/16 and another race in January. I don't know what race you're running (distance) but, if they are a half marathon, you may want to consider doing a bit more long runs. Your last "long" run of 1:45~1:50 range is almost 2.5 months ago. I'd assume you're looking at about 2-hour for a half marathon; and I would feel a bit uneasy on an hour's run. I'm not quite sure if you have enough time to dramatically improve your program/state of condition in a month (for 11/16 race) ; suppose you are running a half, you may want to consider doing at least ONE longish run of, say, 1:45~2:00 before the end of the month. Then you'll need a week or two for taper. If it's a shorter race, you may want to throw a few faster runs of, say, tempo run of 2 miles or some easy intervals (don't do them too hard). Moving forward, you probably want to consider having some structure to your program. Suppose you can afford to, or you want to, run, say, 4 days a week; which is probably the case for a lot of RA forum participants, I personally like to set a 2-week cycle. You'll do, first week, one hard workout of, say, tempo run of about 2~4 miles with 3 days jog; on the second week, you may want to do a long run of, say, 1:30~1:45 (up to 2-hours if you feel comfortable) and one hill training with 2 days of jogging. I left out intervals because I'm not too much of an interval-fan particularly for beginners/slower runners. You can switch the hill days with easy intervals about 3~4 weeks before your targetted race; but I believe it's more important to strengthen your legs with hills/steps before you move on to running fast with intervals/repeats. Far too many beginners, I feel, try to do repeats but turn out to be too slow anyways. Then you are not quite fulfilling the true purpose of iintervals. I personally believe in doing less more frequently than one big workout and take 4~6 days off in between. I guess you can call it consistancy. The more often you can run, the stronger your body will adapt eventually. For example, if you keep running, say, for 30 minutes 5 times a week; you will realize after a few month, your 30-minute route will become further and further. Now you're covering more ground within the set period of time; in other words, you'll be running further AND faster. This will occur more easily and safely; than if you try to run a lot one day and end up skipping the following dayS. Hhowever, once you get to the point where you can handle fair amount of running, then it will pay to have what I call "point workout" and do them WELL (=hard) with easy recovery runs in between. You would want ro race well and your race should be the place where you can run harder than your training (could mean either or both faster and further). In order to accomplish that, you'll need to push the envelope here and there. I see many people going backward; what I mean is, they'll set the time goal for the race first, say, 4-hour marathon based on nothing. And THEN try to do the workout that reflect that goal time/pace. Invariably, they'll push themselves too hard in training and either over-train themselves or get disappointed (because they can't attain that pace). The pace will eventually come to you if you've done all your homework. And, then, based on a few previous races, you will gradually determine your next target race pace. Far too many people today have NO idea what their current level is, yet, just pick some random goal of things like 4-hour marathon. Once I get to know my athlete, I get VERY close to their pace with my prediction. The girl I mentioned above, I predicted she'd do 3:32 (actually, I thought she'd do between 3:28~3:32 but thought she'd freak out if I said 3:28...) and she did 3:30:01. With the other girl, once I predicted she'd average 7:50 pace for a 25k race and she did 7:52. This is because I based my prediction on their training. I didn't set the time first and drew training based on that time. To me, that's backward but I believe that's what most people do. As far as I'm concerned, recovery jog in between (between "point workouts") are absolutely necessary. Take some elite runner like Ryan Hall for example. Usually, those elite would do a long run on weekend, one intervals and one tempo run...something like that in their weekly schedule. Many physiologists without any practical experience would quickly see those "point workouts" and label other runs as "junk miles" by saying, "You only need those core workouts and strip down the rest..." That's basically what made the US distance runners left far behind the rest of the world in the 1990s and early 2000. So going back to Ryan Hall, he would do those 3 hard workouts (now, I don't know exactly what Hall does; I'm just guessing); but he would be doing, in general, 13 workouts a week--twice a day, everyday except for Sunday when he would do the long run--so he would be doing easy jog (usually, for elite runners, about an hour of 7-minute pace or sometimes faster) 10 times. That's what makes difference. One of the Japanese Olympian, Suwa, a 2:07 runner and 6th at Athens Olympic marathon; when he made his breakthrough, he decided to run more but didn't want to all of a sudden increase the workload; so he just added 10 minutes extra to his morning jog and warm-up/cool-down; nothing else. That made enough difference for him to run 2:07 and 6th in the Olympics. Okay, I'm going on and on and on... I didn't mean to hijack the thread... Aimster, if you want to continue personally, you can always send me a personal e-mail. I just wanted to express my training philosophy, if you may call it that... Training is really not that complicated; it's quite simple once you see "what you need to do". Far too many people, in fact, majority of people, simply copy a cookie-cutter training schedule without thinking about it (oh, the land of "XXX for dummies"...). It's good to give a guide-line; but if you simply copy it without thinking, then you'll run into a trouble. This is good. I think this is coming right. I think I'll refine this and put it on my own website as well...! ;o)

Training needs to be very customized for some runners. I find speedwork is only effective every two weeks instead of evey week like some training plans. And I am much too stubborn for many coachs to deal with.

IT takes both chronos and kairos, an aporetic intersection of careful control and sponteneity. The controlled, analytic and relentless chronological development of training carefully and cautiously builds the possibility of the kairological encounter: the lightning strike, the race magic, power beyond the possibility of analytic control.

Freak.

Nobby ..... Instead of the Workout view you can use the Calendar view (It's directly above the Workout link on the left). You can mouse over the workouts to get more details (such as pace), or click on them to get all of the workout details. Hope that helps.

Thank you Mr PH, learn something new every day. Also many thanks to Nobby for the excellent coaching advice, I feel as if it is tailored just for me, I run similar paces (maybe a bit slower) to Aimster, but run a bit more mileage. That advice to have 1 point workout every 3-4 runs is what I think I should be doing as well, rather than the random runs I do now. Will do that for 4 months and see if I get any better for my goal HM in April.

I don't necessarily have anything specific to add to this thread, but I can't not give some input on how utterly and completely outstanding it is. Carlos Casteneda writes about something similar to the hippy's moment of truth, the moment in which your perception of a thing undergoes a significant shift. He calls it stop[ping your world and, for the second time siince I've been running, that just happened. The tree/forest/periodization section alone just gave me an entirely new way to look at the way I train. This shift comes at an intersting time in my running. I am now more in tune with my body and how it responds to training than I have ever been and now that's paired with a new view on long term and short term pathways. So, thanks to the OP and everyone who made this one of the greatest threads ever.

Here's one about the meaning of it all. (Thanks to Purdey). I agree this has been a good thread, but of course it would be. After all: we love training.

Ok, now that we're into posting awesomely useful awesomeness, who's got the 40 (or 29 or 36 or whatever) commandments for running?

And thanks to you for posting it here...I'd never read that. Wow, beautiful.

I keep this to hand for when my motivation deserts me. I think it's going to get posted on my fridge today, next to my daughters paintings!