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[Ryan]

Good timing for this to turn up: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/ED1008/S00030/ucol-sport-scientists-test-training-technique.htm

[cesar]

Nice article!

[ksrunner]

If I were to wear a GPS, I don't think I could resist the temptation to look, being the numbers guy I am.

I am a numbers guy as well. In order to resist the temptation to look at the GPS, I changed the default settings to turn off all audible alerts and I changed the default screens so that I would never be able to just glance at my wrist and have all of the information that I would need to calculate pace. That helped me to break the habit of looking at my wrist during training. Once I was no longer in the habit of looking at my wrist in training, it carried over to racing as well.

Cooling down after a race this weekend, the two guys I was cooling down with were comparing splits. Of course, both of them finished ahead of me, so in that sampling of three, concern about splits appears to be a predictor of faster performance. For me, I don't think that concern about splits during a race will get me closer to the podium.

Steve

[Andrew A.]

Cooling down after a race this weekend, the two guys I was cooling down with were comparing splits. Of course, both of them finished ahead of me, so in that sampling of three, concern about splits appears to be a predictor of faster performance.

Correlation !== Causation

[ksrunner]

Correlation !== Causation

Thanks Andrew. I should have added that three is much too small of a sample size on which to base any deductions. I believe that given two runners with similar fitness, if one is concerned with splits while the other is just racing, the one who is focused only on the race will usually finish first.

Good timing for this to turn up: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/ED1008/S00030/ucol-sport-scientists-test-training-technique.htm

Ryan, That was a nice article. Since I've been running without a watch,   I've been counting strides when doing intervals assuming 180   strides/minute of hard effort and 150 strides/minute for recovery   effort (I usually count by sixes 1-2-3-4-5-1; 1-2-3-4-5-2; ...). I've used the same method with a watch since I didn't want to spend time looking at my wrist as I ran and found it accurate to within a couple of seconds. Couldn't one do both the hard reps and the recoveries by feel? So long as you are running at the desired effort level, is it important that each hard effort last the same duration or cover the same distance?

So, instead of 5x3 minutes at 5K effort with 2 minutes rest, what if I ran 5 x 5K effort until I achieved the desired level of fatigue and then rest until I felt I could do it again. I might run the first rep until I reached the level of fatigue I feel at 1/2 mile of a 5K race. Then, allow myself to feel a bit more fatigue with each successive effort -- stopping when the effort at the end of the last rep feels hard or very hard. That might be more or less reps than originally planned. I should feel like I could do one or two more reps at the end of the workout to insure that I will recover before the next workout or race.

I suppose that the main reason that we don't hear workouts presented like this is that many coaches are training groups of athletes and it's easier if everyone starts each rep at the same time. This format would only work well for an athlete running alone.
 

[ksrunner]

After my previous post, I realized that trying to do the hard reps completely by feel would be too much for me to handle -- especially late in an interval workout. Depending upon my mood for the day, I would be likely to do either too little or too much. I would need a time or distance goal for my hard reps. Either, I would have to establish that goal ahead of time, or perhaps I could run the first rep by feel to establish a time or distance goal for the remaining reps. Then, I could run additional reps of that time or distance until I felt that I had achieved my overall goal for the workout. I think that I could work with that format.

But, now I recall another workout that I've done that was totally by feel.

I did this workout a few times during a time period between when my watch broke and I won a GPS. It was a fartlek type workout where I would run hard until I felt fatigued. At that point I would pick a landmark little further out and I would maintain that effort until I reached that landmark. Then, I would jog until I felt that I could do it again. I was running to and from work at the time. I would repeat that sequence until either I was done due to not feeling up to any more hard efforts or due to arriving at work. Choosing a landmark further out (but not too far out) once I began to feel fatigue helped me to feel that I wasn't going to sell myself short on the hard reps. This type of workout could easily be adapted to suit different needs by doing the hard reps at different effort levels (5K, 1 mile, etc).

Steve