Why Am I Training Using Duration and Not Distance?
Last year I trained for and ran a marathon. The plan (Run Less Run Faster) was typical. Each running workout was mileage specific, and the target long run and tempo miles ramped up over the weeks.
In contrast, now, I'm into EN. I've been through my OS and into my HIM. All the workouts are for specific durations, not mileage. I can intuitively agree that mileage goals are not that important for the OS. But in the HIM plan, if I need to do 56 + 13 in the race, why would I not train up based on mileage goals, not workout duration?
I've thought of various explanations. Stretching for mileage goals:
- May result in insufficient workout intensity
- More injury prone over a 16-20 week plan
- You'll know you have a problem if on your prescribed 3 hr ride you only hit 35 miles
Those are my thoughts. But what does the EN manifesto say about this duration vs mileage approach.
Thanks, John
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You ride at 21mph, I ride at 18mph. We both ride 3hrs. You ride 63 miles, I ride...whatever 18x3 is. But all our bodies understand is that sat on the bike for 3hrs.
You run 8' miles, I run 10' miles. We each run 2hrs. You run...whatever, I run whatever. Our bodies only understand that we ran for 2hrs. But if Patrick tells us to each run 18 miles, that takes you 2hrs, takes me 2.5hrs. Those two runs are significantly differently.
Therefore, prescribing workout duration by time vs distance allows us to "normalize" workouts across abilities. Your 2hr run is my 2hr run is Sally's 2hr run.
We do TT on the bike and swim as well as Vdot for our running. So the two hours that we do at what ever level we test into " normalizes " specific to each of our own abilities.
Otherwise if you don't test and you just go out and give it a shot, do your best, you might as well follow a cookie cutter program out of the local Tri rag.
I'm a MOP to BOP swimmer. I have difficulty finishing the yards for an hour swim workout that are assigned. Is it more important to swim the yards assigned, which would take me 10-15 minutes longer probably, or is it more important to swim just for the time allotted? Thanks.
Janine, I am in the same situation as you.
I don't know if this is the right answer, but for swimming I always swim the assigned yards and let the time sort itself out. Swimming seems to take the least amount of toll on the body, and I want to be comfortable and experienced with both the time and the distance.
OK. I will try to summarize my basic EN member understanding (Plus a healthy dose of me thinking out loud
).
So I do my bike test resulting in 230W FTP. Coach R does his test and results in 250W FTP. I understand the value of normalizing across my own various training rides in order to make valid comparisons. But, w/all due respect and wishing him the utmost success, what Coach R (or other racers) does in his training is not really relevant to my training and vice versa. I guess it is "normalizing" though in the sense that the prescribed EN workouts are designed to stress each of our bodies to more or less the same degree, based on our tested FTP capacity for work, yes?
But, for the sake of argument, we each go on a training ride of 2 hours at 85% of our FTPs'. I do 195W for 2hrs (390 watt hours) and Coach R does 212W for 2 hrs (224 watt hours) So, yes, our respective levels of effort are more or less comparable in terms of physiological toll over 2 hrs, right?. But, I covered fewer miles because, e.g., I'm heavier and I have 3 bottles and entire box of powerbars duct taped to my frame so my 85% effort will not push me as far as Coach R's 85% effort.
So, we each have a different capacity for work (our computrainer tested FTP's), plus we each have different amounts of work to do (the weight we have to move down the road). Come race day, Coach R and I will each have to cover 56 miles. Coach R will ride steady at [x]% of his FTP. I will ride steady at something like [x-y]% of Coach R's FTP. We both have to stretch our available capacity to produce watt hours over a much longer HIM period 3 - 3.5 hrs. I have to ride at a lesser watt/hour pace (the x-y) because I have, based on my FTP tests, a smaller capacity generator. I dial back my race day effort level using the EN racing with power spreadsheet. That spreadsheet uses my FTP test results and my estimated time to complete the bike split, and then predicts that I should ride the split at a steady 160 watts, e.g. At some point in the plan I do a 56 mile race sim just to make sure all is order.
In short:
So, I think this is my question: Is there a further fitness benefit to be gained by, e.g., doing some portion of training based on mileage goals (with an appropriately dialed-back pace)? Can it increase endurance by causing the body to respond in ways that EN intensity workouts alone cannot? Stated yet another way, there is some point at which increasing mileage does become irrelevant or even harmful, but am I training in such a mileage-averse way that I am foregoing some benefit of setting mileage goals? I don't know.
Thanks for bearing with me.
Uh...
Ok, sorry, you're thinking about this way to much
First,t he bike and run are very different. I'd bet your paycheck that you could put down the cup of coffee, right now, and ride all day, as far as you could go until the sun went down. That could be 100 miles, 120 miles or 150 miles. As long as you rode easy, paced yourself, drank stuff and ate stuff, you could do it. Anyone reading this thread could do it. In short, mileage and therefore time on the bike is a true non-issue. You might think it is, but I'm sure others could jump in with similar stories of riding crazy far on fitness they didn't think they didn't have.
More importantly, I ride three hours or 8hrs, you ride 3 or 8, Lance rides 3 or 8. But all our bodies know is that we each sat on a bicycle and pedaled for 3 or 8hrs. Doesn't know if that was a mtn bike at 16mph, road bike at 20mph, or tri bike at 22mph (making this up).
But, if you want to ride longer than 56 miles, go for it, knock yourself out. You're not going to harm anything it sounds like you could maybe use the confidence boost? Hell, jump on the bike and ride 100 miles next Saturday. You'll be totally fine.
The run is completely different and I believe it's old skool negligence to schedule run volume, especially for the long run, by time vs distance. Here's a story for you: back in my coaching dark ages for 2003, I was coaching a 65yo woman to IMCDA. She was an old skool marathoner. I would schedule her for a 2.5hr, maybe a 3hr run because I knew that, yes, she needed to go a little bit longer than my other athletes (3hrs vs 2.5hrs) because she was going to be out on the run course for at least 6hrs. She was a very slow runner on a good day, much less after the IM bike. But her old skool mentality told her to run 18-20 miles....which took her >4hrs...but she didn't tell me she was running for 4hrs. She'd get her 2.5-3hr run on her schedule, nod her head and then get in her marathoner 4hr run. She was constantly shelled, run down, sick, and I only figured it about by early June, too late to really fix anything. She DNF'ed on race day....because she didn't make the bike cut off because her stupid marathon head had her running too much to apply what remaining resources she had to her cycling.
As another example, if we told Matt Ancona and you to each run 18 miles, Matt would probably do that in about 1:50-2hrs. I might take you 2:40 (guess). Those are VERY different workouts, with very different consequences for downstream. To give you both 18mi runs, without accounting for the differences in TIME and therefore stress that your respective bodies will feel is straight up coaching negligence. If the marathon world is still doing this, I feel it's because they still do a lot of stupid things and they are not, by the way, also tasked with integrating cycling and swimming into a schedule.
In short:
Hold on...let me me think about whether I want to run more miles to prove a meaningless point.......uh, no!
Seriously, thanks Rich. It does make more sense to me now. I just have this need to try to figure out how it all works. In any case, I feel totally ready for my 70.3 on Sunday, just following the EN plan. Will let you know after next week.
John
Same thing generally applies at the HIM as well, but it's just magnified at the IM distance.
At the risk of piling on...
2:30 is a pretty long run. It really does not matter how far you can run in 2:30. If you can cover 20 miles in 2:30 great, only 12 thats fine also. The distance just does not matter. Lets face it, if you can only cover 12 miles in 2:30 its not like you are going to be running at mile 18 on race day anyhow, you just arent. The IM courses are littered with people who can BQ on any given day of the week walking and unable to shuffle in within an hour of that time. Destroying your body running 4 hours to cover 18 miles is just stupid, it is not going to help on race day so why bother.
This is great input. I appreciate the comments, and perspective. Thanks, John
Of course, this begs the question, how long is long enough? 3 hours? 4 hours? I guess the answer to that question may be how much volume can you absorb and still NAIL your workouts the next week. Personally, at my pace, and my weight, running > 4 hours and I'm breaking out the handicapped sticker and telling the wife SHE's gotta mow the grass.
IMO, I've had to separate training from the actual race. In training, I come to the workout with what I have. My goal for that workout is to impart some measure of stress where I can recover and adapt and gain fitness and get ready for the next workout. My goal for that long run is not to get as close to the race distance as I possibly can. So, I try in my mind to separate training from racing. I can't run a marathon every weekend to get ready for a marathon.
Oh, and one more thing. My fitness is what it is. I'm a BOP, 5:30-6:00 open marathoner. But I can train to improve that time. I can lose weight. And next year, instead of only getting 11 miles in a 2.5 hour run, maybe I can get 13 or 14. I'm convinced that I don't get there by running 14 miles every day.
In my experience, the reason(s) why someone runs a 5hr+ open or IM marathon isn't how the long run is or isn't. It's a function of a lot of things, in no particular order:
Instead, we focus on how long the long run should or should not be, especially if you have an open marathon history and have been exposed to open marathon training methods. In that world, you can get away with a 5hr, 24 mile training run because there is no swimming or cycling around it. But as you can see, there's more to it than how long we should/should not be running on one run per week.
And like ChrisG said, you only need to stand on the IM run course to see there's much more than a lack of fitness or training going on. There are some very, very, very fit, skinny people...walking the marathon or absolutely crushed.
I only got to mile 21 of the run at IM TX but it was only because of some severe back pain I believe was inflicted by a couple of VERY deep tissue massages too close to race day. I was ready for that race and really saw some great improvements the last 6 weeks of training.
from your bullet points, I nailed the execution. body comp is my major problem and I'm working on it. Down 130 pounds from my high water mark a couple years ago but still at 245#. Also, besides the last 5-6 weeks of training, I had NO focus on becoming a faster runner.
I'm resetting for Redman 140.6 to snag some redemption. I'm looking forward to proving the EN-style training to myself and frankly to a bunch of my friends who are skeptics.
If you're on the marathon course for 6-7 hours, you are walking a LOT, not running. So actually you need LESS run training than someone who will do 4.5 hours, +/- , all running.
Seriously, the risk of running more than 2.5 hours in prep for an IM marathon far outweighs any potential benefit one can dream up. 100's of us with experiene in the EN plans testify that the system WORKS.
Don't know who your coach is but giving an Ironman athlete 5hr runs is just friggin' negligence. Is the guy/gal and IM athlete himself? Clown, straight up.
Sorry, this stuff gets me pretty hot.
Thankfully, Vic saw the writing on the wall and jumped ship over to EN but an endless stream of people flock to coaches like that every season. They probably pay $300/month to get horrible advice. I hear stories like Vic's all the time. Making the big assumption that these folks get through the season uninjured, what percentage of them are ever coming back to 70.3 or 140.6 racing because they're absolutely burned out? Hell, I never want to race a 140.6 again and the two that I have done have been using EN. I can't imagine my thoughts on it had I been doing 24 hour training weeks with 5 hour runs. Coaches like that are literally ruining the sport and turning off potential athletes.
Totally agree with AL btw ... If I were asked to train someone who just wanted to finish in 17 hours I would have them run very little. The IM bike leg is where run speed goes to die for people who have any chance of actually running on IM race day. If you can't run a 4 hour open marathon you are not really in that category. Best to get off the bike as soon as possible in the best shape possible and then start the jog shuffle process with plenty Of hours to walk it in
After my DNF at TX (had problems with my back, got to mile 21 of the run), I'm looking for some retribution at Redman the end of September. Main goals for my training are to be down 25 pounds by race day (15 weeks), and much stronger on the bike. Really excited about doing this the EN way.
Funny you mention that, Rich. No, this coach is a coach by certification only, not by experience. Looking back, I can remember a common theme with ALL her athletes that I trained with. Everyone was TOAST!!! Several athletes just took a week, two, even three weeks completely off because they were burned out. A couple almost quit.