Running Question
Hello all,
Thanks for setting up the trial membership. Strongly considering the full membership, buying a plan at a minimum.
I'll try to stay to the point with my train of thought here.
Started doing tri's for real 3 seasons ago. Previous to that I was very injury prone, especially with running. Did IMWI last season, walked most of the marathon due to injury. Lower leg issues like shins, plantar faciitus, etc.
On Slowtwitch I spoke with guys like BarryP and DesertDude and formulated a plan for running in the off season. I took my run volume down to 100 minutes per week and split it in a 1:2:3 fashion. I am currently at 300 hundred minutes per week and my runs consist of 3 short runs of 30 minutes, 2 medium runs of 60 minutes, and one 90 minute run. This type of plan has been fantastic for me. Last season I was running at an 8:45ish pace for an oly tri, this year I near 7:00/mile.
More importantly I've been injury free and able to sustain my plan.
On another note, last off season I read your stuff and created my own basic plan based off of it. I'd say it fell into the intermediate range and I went from 21mph at Oly races to almost 23mph at Racine 70.3.
So...with that history here are my questions/concerns. First, I know the EN philosophy works. I really enjoyed my offseason last year as I watched my FTP go from 250ish to 305. I love harder rides and hate the long slow stuff all the time. That attitude gets me into trouble at times, but I digress.
However I am concerned about your plan from a running perspective. It isn't that I want to go out and run huge volumes and no threshold work. But run frequency and BarryP's running program really really helped me. And I am a little hesitant to start running much harder than I have knowing that I've only been able to run consistently innjury free for the last 10 months...and that other attempts at consistent harder running left me with injuries.
Are you "against" the idea of changing your plan to have 5-6 days of running with several of those days as simple recovery days? ie 30 minute easy runs. Or is it something you just think is less effective?
Anyway, that is my only real question...is there a graceful way to include a run frequency mentality into this plan?
PS...I wanted to make a little clarification after reading some of the Elephant thread.
First, I am not necessarily looking to increase my run volume to stupid levels. Please don't get that impression. I think there is some validity to increased run volume as BarryP on Slowtwich illustrates. So long as it is done appropriately. However I also see the validity in this program.
I am more specifically interested in running frequency. My initial thoughts are running 3x30 minutes, 3x60 minutes with one or two of the 60 minute runs being threshold work. Its easy to fit into my outseason schedule, I get reasonable volume, and I don't need a lot of recovery from it. I'd obviously need to learn how to work that plan into a biking schedule that is filled with hard work.
Comments
There is nothing wrong with adding some run frequency to the plan. However, don't let it interfere with other workouts. If you skip an important bike workout to fit in a 30 minute easy run, it's not so good. Also, if the additional frequency creates fatigue that has you missing numbers/goals in workouts, then I'd back off.
tom
This kind of accommodation is the kind of thing that being a member can help out with. When something like this comes up, the level of support from coaches and other people who have had similar experiences can be really off the charts. If you buy a plan, I have no doubt that RnP will give you a good working answer. (In fact, you should get a direct and better answer than mine within hours.) But knowledge about working around stuff like this is exactly the kind of thing that membership can bring - there's a pretty big sample of us out there, and there have to be some people that have had similar issues and worked through it while using these plans. Thus, you can get real experience in addition to the very worthwhile suggestions the coaches and WSMs can make.
I don't really have anything to add, other than the dirty little secret around here is that we are all self-coached athletes.
The tweaks you described are what any smart guy does: take "a" plan and amend it to fit their constraints, opportunities, limiations, their experiences with their own body and training, etc.
As a member, you are surrounded by coaches and team members with skin in the game of helping you help yourself and paying it forward for the help they have received from others in the past.
As a plan customer you have the plan and all of our ebooks, podcasts, etc to help you sort that out but you won't get an answer nearly as quickly and efficiently as you will in here.
Lastly, the threshold running we have you do in the OS isn't "that" much. It's certainly not every run. Please see the training plan we have put into our account. The distribution of those runs across the week is the same for all of our OS plans. The difference between Beg, Int, Adv is the number and length of the tempo intervals.
Thanks for the responses.
I agree with the concept of needing to run fast to run fast and all that good stuff.
For me, at this point, it is almost a paranoia of changing something that has worked. I already beleive in the EN philosophies...it is more fear at this point. I don't want to go back to being injured...but I don't have a lot of experience either. especially with running.
I like the idea of 30-60 minute runs because I can do them even if I am completely wasted after a ride...and they have very little impact on my TSS scores so long as I don't go crazy and try to race a dog or something. Once I get to 90 minute runs I do need some recovery...and 120 minute runs require recovery.
That is why my thought is to eliminate them on the OS and focus on frequency with the shorter stuff and do the threshold type runs as my confidence improves with running consistency. That has always been my limiter...consistency. You can't be consistent when your injured. Unless of course you are consistently injured...and that isn't a good consistent.
I would personally do the EN plan as written for at least two to three weeks. If all is well, then start to add another 30' easy run in. Another 2 weeks later at another 30' easy run in and so on.
If you can't hit the workouts in the EN plan, then it is time to stop doing any extra work. If you can still hit all the planned workouts, do the extra stuff and stay injury free you found something that will work for you. Just beware of deminishing returns when adding run volume...getting from 30-50 miles a week will probably make a big difference in performance for most people, but going from 50-70 will probably give very little benefit and greatly increase the risk of injury.
As Rich said we are self-coached athletes, but the best part of being ont he team is you can adjust your plan and then share your experience with the team to get objective feedback from others.
This is definitely an area that YMMV. You just have to test it out for yourself and clarify monitor what works and does not work.
And another thing...
Just want to point out that your question here was answered by:
They've all be with us for a long time and could easily be coaches, or their own coaches, in any other coaching outfit. They will be the first to tell you that if you know what works for you, work with us to integrate _that_ into how we do business.
However, the unknown variable for you in this new You + EN question is our flavor of cycling work. It is, for reals, no joke. You may find it very difficult to do the BarryP thing in conjunction with the EN cycling thing. But we can work that out, fix that by working with you, as coaches, and with guys like the doodes above who've been there.