Soft Surfaces

I’ve been extremely lucky to spend a lot of time this summer in Park City, Utah. Many world class runners make come here to train for altitude camps because you can drive 30 minutes or so in be in Salt Lake City or Provo which both are hot, but at elevations where runners can run workouts at paces much closer to sea level effort.

Observing the habits of these runners, there is one thing that is sacred: soft surfaces. Park City has tons of trails, but many of them are very hilly which are great if you are training for trail races, but only a limited amount of soft stuff that is flat-ish.

Accordingly, some of the best runners in the world will run endless loops around a soccer field for the entirety of an easy run or back and forth on the same few mile stretch of trail for hours just to avoid running on hard surfaces.

I usually am of the mindset that is it’s good enough for the best in the world, it’s good enough for me, but by no means am I recommending running around a soccer field for all of your runs. What we can take away from this is that there is a lot of benefit to mixing up running surfaces.

The research on whether or not this is beneficial is inconclusive, and I do think there is a place for doing a lot of your workouts and long runs for a marathon on hard road surfaces to prepare your body for race day. However, mixing things up and running on different surfaces can provide a little bit of relief when it comes to pounding if you are feeling beat up and actually go a long way in preventing injury by using different muscles in the lower leg and foot.

Different Stimulus for Different Runners

This is part 3of a 3 part response to a specific comment.

Part 1 - We Value What We Can Measure
Part 2 - The Correct Amount of Specific Training

The last part of the comment that I wanted to address was the following:

I coach a fair number of 4 hour marathoners & I do have to be very careful to not overstress their bodies because they will take almost twice as long as a a 2:20 marathoner to cover the same distance. But they STILL have to run 26.2 miles on race day. They have to be prepared for that distance regardless of the amount of time they take to cover it.

This is an ongoing concern of mine as I try to optimize the time vs specific stress for each of them.

I do agree the most important part of training for a race is preparing an athlete for what they are going to face on that specific day with their goals in mind, but I do think it is important to consider workouts in terms of time when thinking about athletes at different levels. I’ve come to think about training much more as the sum of a season of training sessions vs. the impact of any big long runs of specific sessions.

I do think running over 2:30-2:45 in a long run puts runners at serious risk of injury late in runs, no matter what the goal time is. Some folks may well cover well over 20 miles in that period while others would accumulate far less mileage. In my mind being able to run 2:30 regularly with some quality work allows an athlete to repeat that effort and recover appropriately.

I think this model is more widely accepted at the ultra-marathon level, where there is a limit to the amount of training you can do and recover from, and it is often far from the demands of the actual race. A big part of effective training is being able to increase fitness in a way where the training is repeatable and manageable enough where motivation stays high and athletes can recover. In my mind one’s ability on race day is much more closely tied to a season’s worth of efforts vs. a handful of workouts.

The Correct Amount of Specific Training

This is part 2 of a 3 part response to a specific comment.

Part 1 - We Value What We Can Measure
Part 3 - Different Stimulus for Different Runners

As mentioned in a previous post, a comment a few months ago made me think quite a bit about different aspects of how I think about training. Part of the comment related to my view on specific training sessions.

I also see your point on moving from set distance to a time model for runners who are training at slower paces than the elites. However, I wonder if this is mostly in regards to threshold/tempo work where a very specific training stimulus is sought. When it comes to doing training for a set race distance where you want your athlete to be prepared to run a given pace for the given distance, I believe it is crucial to train at those paces & not adjust for the relative speed the athlete will run to cover that distance. 10 x 1K at 10K pace should be universal, no? If not, I would love to hear your argument for why it is not.

You say "There is a time for specific work, but not nearly as much as I once thought. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should."

I would love to hear you give more examples of when the specific work is too much. It's not that I necessarily disagree with you.

I think some coaches tend to fall in the camp of doing no specific work at all - just training at certain paces which improve different physiological variables and then conjecture the athlete will run their best races accordingly. Other coaches are hyper specific doing sessions almost weekly at race pace and slowly building from very short intervals to longer intervals.

After years and years of using both models, where I stand now is somewhere in between. I think being very, very specific session oriented early on takes up a session where you could be instead working building more aerobic capacity or speed. Over time I believe training slower than race pace and faster than race offers more room for improvement than overemphasizing race pace in most cases.

In my mind, using race specific workouts are very much the icing on the cake. The correct amount at the right time is perfect.

With that being said - as your season goal race approaches a handful of specific sessions in the absence of racing allows athletes to learn the correct rhythm and see where they stand in reference to goals and expectations. My view for the marathon differs a bit, where running longer specific sessions around marathon pace are important to build muscular resilience for long efforts at marathon pace, which is very different than long, slow runs for most folks.

I think the biggest example of why I think support paces (faster and slower than race pace) lead to the biggest performance gains was the improvement I’ve seen in marathoners since incorporating fundamental tempo work in training. I first learned about this concept from Nate Jenkins and it truly has allowed many athletes I work with make huge breakthroughs.

Specific sessions do have their place, but I think for most races placing an emphasis on using workouts to get strong will allow for much stronger performances on fewer specific sessions.

We Value What We Can Measure

This is part 1 of a 3 part response to a specific comment.

Part 2 - The Correct Amount of Specific Training
Part 3 - Different Stimulus for Different Runners

A few months ago I received a comment on the blog in reference to the post “Measuring Stress vs. Volume” from longtime coach Steve Session at Telos Running. It brought up a lot of good points and allowed me to clarify my thinking in some ways.

Below is the first part of the comment:

I agree wholeheartedly that there is great value in training at a wider variety of paces than many coaches who follow either an energy systems pacing model or a race distance pacing model realize. Too often runners are told that the paces they run only check off certain physiological check boxes & ONLY those checked boxes are providing a training stimulus. My coaching experience tells me this is not accurate & has led me away from proscribing strict set paces & into a range of paces to allow for daily variability & flexibility. Of course, we need to have references to know what stimulus an athlete is receiving by running at certain paces or things get too loosey-goosey & it becomes challenging to know what responses the athlete is getting from training. But I think a lot of athletes are overtraining so they can hit a pace for a rep rather than seeing that they are training all the way up & down a longer continuum. We'll probably only have our anecdotal experience to prove this since there seems to be no will to use scientific testing on athletes who are not at an elite level.

My introduction to energy system training came from Jack Daniels and Daniels’ Running Formula. His emphasis on training the lactate threshold is something I carry with me, but what did not make sense was running at paces other than velocity at Vo2 max, 60 minute race pace (threshold) and mile-ish pace (Daniels’ repetition pace) were too hard or too easy to produce a desired training benefit. I am not a scientist, but I truly believe stimulus occurs on a continuum and every pace of every run is creating adaption. As Daniels was so research influenced, I think those paces stood out to him as key areas of improvement because they could be easily measured.

The way I see it is just because it cannot be measured, it doesn’t mean it is not providing benefit. During a base phase of training I like to use 5-minute reps at one-hour race effort and other fartlek type work at 35-minute race effort, 10-minute race effort, and even 5-minute race effort. I think taking athletes off the track and getting them in touch with how these efforts should be goes a long way into building appropriate fitness for where they are at and prevents overreaching just to hit specific paces. It also allows runners to use grass and other workout spots that may be more forgiving on the body. More than that, I think it develops instincts for how things should feel during races versus locking into a specific pace on a Garmin.

From firsthand experience, there have been many races where my “10k pace” caused me to run too fast during the first part of a race only to fall apart late because I was too reliant on hitting set intervals and lacked the body awareness to know how the effort should have felt.

There is most definitely room for specific paced workouts when you are close to preparing for a workout, but I think using effort based fartlek early on can go a long way into building a better runner.

Inversion in Coaching and Training

I read Avoiding Stupidity is Easier than Seeking Brilliance this morning which focused on the idea that ~80% of winning points in professional tennis are caused by the winner, whereas in amateur tennis 80% of points are lost are caused by the actions of the player losing the point.

Simply put, not making mistakes often is superior to being aggressive and overreaching. In no sport is this more prevalent than running.

You often hear things like being 10% undertrained is better than being 1% overtrained, but few people align their training to ensure this happens. Frequently gains in fitness are misinterpreted as signs to push harder, but that often results in injury and overtraining.

Avoiding pushing too far also allows for the accumulation of solid training week after week and year after year. When people see huge results, they often look to that one workout that must have caused the result, but in actually it usually is the compounding effect of fitness that has occurred over the course of months and years.

Sometimes simplicity and consistency isn’t sexy, but it’s not stupid, and it works.

Measuring Stress vs. Volume

I’ve probably ready both the second and third editions of Daniels’ Running Formula at least ten times each. The formulaic nature of the book is comforting, but I also had a hard time believing in the idea that there were only three paces that produced worthwhile stimulus. I hold true to that instinct, as I think the biggest gains I’ve seen in marathoning have come from running longer efforts in what he would consider a “junk mileage’ zone.

At one point I saw no value in thinking about runs in terms of time vs. mileage. I also so little value in prescribing work in terms of zones such as threshold or VO2 max and instead used more of a race-pace based system of 10k-pace, half marathon-pace, etc. I think a lot of great coaches use this method, but the more I reflect on training the more I realize many of those coaches are coming from a place where they are coaching high level athletes at a very similar ability level. If you are a high level college coach, 5k-pace means more or less the same for most people on the team.

I have since adapted my way of thinking much more to quantifying work based on thinking about what zones are most effective in producing stimulus from a time perspective. For example, an elite marathon may run 10 x 1 mile at threshold pace with one minute rest. Thinking about that from a time perspective, that would be 10 x ~5 minutes at one-hour pace with a one minute test. If you would try to transfer a similar workout to a 3:00 marathoner, 10 x 1 mile would be more like 10 x 6.5 minutes at a pace that isn’t necessarily optimizing work at your threshold.

The idea that a more pedestrian runner would be doing 65 minutes of work vs. an elite’s 50 minutes in roughly the same “zone” is insane, but it’s a trap I’ve fell into many times before. I’d now argue a better workout attacking the same stimulus for the 3:00 marathoner might be 6-7 x 1200 at threshold pace. It doesn’t sound nearly as sexy, but it is probably a better dosed stimulus that would elicit a more appropriate response and recovery time compared to higher volume work.

The same goes for easy running. Elite marathoners often run the main run of an easy day in about 70 minutes covering 10 miles. For a long time I thought the 3:00 marathoner should be pushing to cover 10 miles as well, but is running 10 more minutes on an easy day for a 3:00 marathoner a good thing when comparing it to an elite runner who often has a life infrastructure set up to maximize recovery? Probably not. Should a 3:00 marathoner even be running the same 70 minute run as an elite? Again, probably not, but you get the point. Time is a much better measure of stress than mileage for that reason. There is a time for specific work, but not nearly as much as I once thought. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

As I mentioned before, I think all paces exist on a continuum and every pace of running is worthwhile and produces some results. Prescribing work based only on the three or four paces from Daniels is leaving quite a bit on the table. However, I do think when assigning work, a better way to think about total workload is using time and pace range from a physiological zone approach. 6 x 1 mile at half-marathon pace could mean two very, very different things for different runners. However, 6 x 5 minutes at threshold evens the playing field and allows one to think about appropriate dosage for the level of the athlete.

I, too, was once mileage conscious all the time. However, I don’t care much about mileage at all on a weekly basis at all. High School coach John O’ Malley has contributed to a lot of the way I think about these ideas.

Hypothesizing a lot of his principles:

• The human body doesn’t know mileage, but it does know stimulus, stress, and recovery.

• So many things outside of training go into what the body is interpreting as stress.

As comforting as a calendar that lays out the perfect program is, it also assumes that life and response to training is the same for everybody and easily predictable. We’re all just using our best guesses to figure out what works best.

Quantifying Smarter, Not Harder in Training

I’ve been thinking about quantifying different types of threshold work after hearing about Marcus O’Sullivan talk about the idea of production percentages when using cruise interval type workouts. There are many things that go into measuring what a workout does for an athlete, both physically and mentally, and everyone is doing their best guessing to figure out what works best. With that being said, it is interesting to think about what effect certain efforts have from a more quantitative basis.

The chart above breaks down a few different workouts and uses the idea that on average, about 45 seconds of each rep in a broken threshold is spent getting to point where you are at your lactate threshold. For the 25 minute straight run, I just subtracted a minute although it likely takes longer to get to threshold, but maybe you are working above your lactate threshold later. This isn’t perfect, but it does create a model for discussion.

I think most runners are of the mindset that longer intervals are harder and harder is always better. Two mile repeats are better than one mile repeats and of course three mile repeats must be better than two, right? I’ve thought that for a long time, but Marcus has really made me reconsider.

Let’s take the example of 6 x 5 mins vs. 3 x 10 minutes, assuming we are using a 5:1 work:rest ratio between reps. For someone training for a marathon, these are pretty standard type efforts and both pretty doable for a fit athlete. However, 6 x 5 is much more “doable” than 3 x 10. The 6 x 5 is far less intimidating, less demanding mentally, and you are losing 2 minutes 15 seconds of total stimulus between the workouts.

If you think about 7 x 5 minutes vs. 3 x 10 minutes using the same model, you would get 2 minutes more of stimulus with the 7 x 5 minute workout, despite it being more approachable for many when comparing it 3 x 10 minutes.

In the 6 x 5 minute workout, a runner is more likely to be running with better mechanics and running at the proper effort when comparing it to longer efforts. The danger of longer intervals and straight tempos are an athlete’s tendency to run them too hard. There is a place for straight tempo and longer repeats for sure, especially the mental component they offer, but maybe they are better used sparingly. There also is probably benefit in going above your lactate threshold at the end of steady runs or longer reps, but those are demanding efforts and I’d argue training shorter reps at paces slightly faster than lactate threshold may be a better way to trigger that adaptation.

I don’t think this hypothesis is perfect, but it has made me think a lot more about why certain workouts are done and what they are actually accomplishing. If we’re trying to solve the problem of having athletes run faster, I do think smarter can be better than harder in most cases.

If athletes can do workouts successfully and feel good doing so, there is a lot to be said for that. You can still do a lot of work, but approaching it from a more efficient mindset may allow an athlete to stay motivated and increase fitness simultaneously. When it comes to putting in a lot work, both are important. If an athlete is constantly being beaten down mentally and physically, race day rarely goes as planned. I’ve been there many times before and I am trying to learn from those experiences.

Just because you can, doesn’t always mean you should.

Thinking More in Depth About Lactate Threshold Training

When training the distance runner, many folks agree it’s hard to find more bang for your back than running workouts focusing on improving one’s lactate threshold. There is a certain pace a runner can run where she is able to clear lactate at the same rate the body is producing it and faster than that pace results in the accumulation of lactate in the blood. Lactate is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is easily measure and increases proportionally with things that do cause a runner to slow down.

Jack Daniels says it is often best to think of the purpose of threshold runs as “improving your endurance - teaching your body how to deal with a slightly more demanding pace for a prolonged period of time, or increasing the duration of time you can hold at a specific pace.” He goes on to say, “threshold runs improve the speed you can keep up for a relatively long time.” Bob Larsen, longtime coach of Meb Keflezighi, is well known for saying, “When in doubt, do a threshold workout.” There is tremendous value in improving your lactate threshold and it’s hard to find workouts that offer a bigger return when thinking about improving as a distance runner.

From what I’ve seen, coaches at different levels progress threshold workouts in different ways. You often see shorter cruise intervals progressing towards straight tempo runs in the neighborhood of 20-30 minutes. Other coaches go back and forth between straight threshold runs and cruise intervals, and others use other methods such as wave tempos or alternations to achieve a similar effect. Despite it being such a valued method of training, I’ve seen little written about how to think about the effects one type of threshold workout has compared to another.

When I saw Marcus O’Sullivan present at the Day of Distance Coaching Clinic, he introduced the idea of “Threshold Production Time” when thinking about cruise intervals. To summarize his hypothesis (using roughly a 5:1 work to rest ratio when thinking about cruise intervals) he believes the first 45 seconds or so of each repetition are spent getting the time where you are actually stressing your lactate threshold. So for example in a workout that is 10 x 3 mins @ LT w/ ~45 seconds rest, each rep has about 2:15 of time where the workout is in the desired adaption zone. So even though you are running 30 mins of “work,” 22:30 is the time of the workout that is at the level of the adaptation you are seeking (2:15 x 10).

Compare the 10 x 3 mins workout to 5 x 6 mins with 60-75 seconds rest and you’ll see that roughly 5:15 of each rep is at the desired level of adaptation. So in 30 minutes of “work” in this case, 26:15 (5:15 x 6) is at the desired level of adaptation, or nearly 4 minutes more than the 10 x 3 minute workout. He expressed this idea through “Total Production Percentage,” listing the 10 x 3 mins as having 75% Total Production (22:30/30:00) vs. 87% for the 5 x 6 mins (26:15/30:00).

I don’t think it’s quite as precise as that, but I think it is an interesting model that raises some interesting questions. While it probably takes longer than 45 seconds to reach the threshold level in the early intervals, it probably takes less in later repetitions. What I am curious about is can you make the claim that a 10 x 3 minutes workout has a very similar effect to a ~24 minute straight tempo run accounting for ~90 seconds to get to the lactate threshold training zone? If so, 10 x 3 minutes seems to be a much more doable workout for most folks. I understand there is an element to training the mental side of running that a straight tempo teaches, but under this model cruise intervals or broken threshold seem to have a pretty good bang for their buck in accumulating time at threshold.

Does that mean the if you were the keep the recovery portions steady, it would result in a higher total production percentage for the same amount of work? When thinking about a standard Kenyan Fartlek of 20 x 1 minute on with 1 minute steady, do you get a very high production percentage in those 20 minutes of “on” running because it takes less time to get to the threshold level? Would that type of running be even more effective if you ran a mile at threshold first to increase blood lactate to the threshold before starting the fartlek?

I certainly do not have all of the answers, but this was the first time I’ve seen a breakdown of cruise intervals in a way that quantified what was happening. It will continue to make me think about the best ways to use this work in training moving forward.