and
do they have a plan for ramping into this kind of training?
or do you need a base established?

Although I am a "lurker" of sorts with EN, I have scooped every free tidbit they offer and am a student of theirs. Half Iron is my longest distance, but their concept of recruiting fast twitch muscles to slow and building a strong VO2 base to work off scientifically make sense. I also appreciate their ROI concept, as my family would not agree with big fat long training weeks year round. Give it a shot for a season, it sure won't hurt any (not true, actually, there is plenty of off-season suffering in store for you if you try it!).

Reverse periodization. It is used, and out there. Never had the guts to put my season on the line, since I'm so pleased with my current progression. If you give it shot, let us know how it goes!!!

That's pretty similar to how I've been structuring my training the last couple years. A big reason has been due to my deployment schedule, though. I missed all of last year's training, so I had to start from scratch this past January. After a week or two of just getting my legs back under me again, I started intervals for a couple months, then worked base, then back to intervals.

When I had time to work year-round and could put in 6 -8 hours per day regularly, I worked well with a traditional, winter base periodization. However, now that I have a real job, I find it difficult to apply a pro's training method to an AGer. I used to see this all the time in college, too. The cycling team would spend all winter doing 6-hour rides at 16-17 mph. It was a waste of time. They were only training themselves to go long distances very slowly. After a few months of intervals, I will usually be able to go for a long, base ride and sit on ~22-23 mph the whole time. (Another difference is that people generally don't go hard enough during base training, but that's a different topic). Unfortunately, the tricky part is that you need to be fast to build an effective base, but you need a strong base to really be fast.

I think Gator brings up a good point about the effectiveness of reverse periodization, if you don't have the time to put in an adequate base. If time is limiter, you need to make it up somehow, and that can only be done with increasing the frequency of sm/bk/run workouts, and the intensity of those workouts.

I view every season as preparing yourself for the race specific workouts for you A race. Race day fitness is going to be based on the quantity and quality of the trailing volume of the previous 6-7 weeks leading up to a race. So you want your best quality workouts in this window. If real life gets in the way, turn up the intensity, since you can't turn up the duration, but make sure your recovery days are TRUE recovery efforts.

Paying attention to body composition takes an even more important role, when you can't put in the time to burn away that excess body fat. Weight is free speed, if you lose it. So don't eat like you are putting in 20+ hours a week.

Elite nordic skiers, VO2 in the high 80's, spend lifetimes at very low intensity and low heart rates with planned efforts at VERY high effort. Skiing with a US Olympic skiier, his heart rate was at 135 ( age 35) while I was at 155 (age also 35) trying to keep up. He was training, I was gettind tired. Skiing with the Norway national team, a friend said he practically fell asleep on long days skiing with the team they were going so slow. This is thirty year old stuff. Stories abound regarding elite athletes who "discovered" the fast before far, which works if you spent thousands of hours working on far. No one ever got just fast going slow BUT no one ever got fast without spending huge amounts of time going slow upon which they spent the right amount of time going very, very hard. Mark Allen has lots to say about this. Going hard for a season or two will be OK but will lead to a plateau. It is a bit of a shortcut but ALL world class athletes have spent about ten thousand hours training. Magic number, that. The other number you can't avoid is 800 hours per year.

I thought that most people did that. Unless I'm learning something totally new I tend to do the fast before far thing. I think it's important to have the base to do it, but one of the best things that I've ever done for my training is cut out the majority (especially in the off season) of my long workouts. Now I just have a few long, well placed "test pieces" that are more of race checkups and see where things fall apart. I don't have the time to structure my life around training goals so I train higher intensity and lower duration almost exclusively. The worst that I've ever done is a marathon and my longest pre race effort that season was no more than 10-12 miles. I had a lot of fast 5k's in there though (well, fast for me). I won't lie, the race hurt me a bit but nothing I wasn't expecting. For me, it has become more about enjoying what I'm doing more every time that I do it than anything else. I can honestly say that I've never been stronger or faster and I train maybe 1/2 of what I was at my peak.

One of the hardest parts for me is race day pacing, given I haven't done as many long efforts. To me that is the biggest risk and I don't want to talk about the days when I miss judge that. ;)

There's a local tri coach that has at least one client who spent a year or two with Endurance Nation. If the coach shows up at our group run tomorrow I'll ask what feedback he has heard. Obviously they left for a reason. It's a sample of one, but it's hard to get a fair assessment if you only look at the positive customer testimonials.

Based on my very limited experience, I would say that it depends on the individual athlete whether this would work or not. For a complete beginner to endurance sports, Ie. couch to triathlete, this would not work. You have to have the base before adding the intensity. However, having said that though, how to do you know what your upper limit to base building is? When do you start adding intensity?

I personally used VJs, formula and it worked for the event distance that I was doing. I experimented with the "fast before far" method last season before VJs advice, and it did not work for me. I ended up burnt out, riding the vortex of injury. So I dropped it for quality base building instead. That was much better, I was able to keep increasing my volume and my physical fitness improved immensely. Even with no intensity I was still able to move to the top of my AG. Now that I have a good base, I am wondering about adding intensity again. I am experimenting with it, but dropping some of my mileage in order to try to make it work better this time. But I already have a base built up so I think I am at the point where I can experiment somewhat successfully.

People often ask me for training advice (beginners), and I tell them to leave timing devices at home and just put in the miles, who cares how fast. I really don't think you can even go down the road of intensity until you have got your base in. On the other hand, if you have entered into triathlon with a background in endurance sports then yes, I do believe the strategy might work. Many triathletes I know were already successful runners or swimmers before taking up triathlon. That type of athlete has a completely different profile, that wasn't me, so I don't know if it would work or not. I have only ever done planned intensity with my running workouts and I don't appear to have a weakness in any of the three sports according to where I stack up in my AG, I come out all the same. So I have no idea if intensity training really works. Maybe once I add intensity to my bike and swim workouts I will see a difference.

Hi,

Thanks for the discussion! My notes:

Return on Investment (ROI)
We feel that coaching is about time investment management first, "coachy" stuff a distant second. That is, we work exclusively with age group athletes with real lives, jobs, etc. We continually ask ourselves "what is the return on race day for every minute of training time invested?" So before we schedule someone for easy base miles in the winter on the treadmill or trainer, at the end of a long season, staring down the barrel of another long season, we ask ourselves "what are the mental/personal/family costs of that scenario and what is the return on race day?" How much is the time of a father of 3 worth, and what are the associated costs, of a 3hr trainer session on a Saturday morning in January in Ohio? What if his goal race is IMWI? How is that different from his peer in San Diego training for Wildflower in May?

In my experience, many of the training recommendations out there are the product of what has worked for/what elite or pro athletes do. These people have a very different time/value equation than our dad above and we feel that difference requires a different way of organizing their training.

General to Specific
I don't like the term reverse periodization. I prefer to look at training as moving from general preparation to race specific preparation. Under General Prep, for the bike and run, I want to put this in your head:

The best predictor of pace/power/speed at all distances is pace/power/speed at lactate threshold.

That is, all things being equal (good race pacing, nutrition, etc) the guy with the faster 10k running time will also be a faster 5k, half marathon, marathon, HIM and IM runner. On the bike, if I can hold 22mph to your 20mph for one hour, I will also be faster than you at 2hrs, 3hrs, 56 and 112 miles. Again, this assumes that each athlete has done the typical endurance training to prepare them for a HIM run or IM bike.

For this reason we consider the most basic component of the ability to run or bike quickly is...the ability to run or ride a bike quickly. The most time efficient way to build this ability is to...run and bike quickly :-)

Race Specific
Once we build this general requirement of all triathlon racing -- to be faster -- we focus on building the endurance necessary for the race distance. That is, our short course, HIM and IM athletes train with the exact same training plans until about 12-16wks out from their race. Then they drop into their race specific training plans, doing race specific volume to build the endurance specific to their event.

Run Intensity vs Bike Intensity

Whenever possible we encourage our athletes to train with objective metrics: power on the bike, if they can afford it, and pace on the run. For each we use systems that have been proven to be effective and "safe" for single sport athletes and through experience we learned how to adapt these methods to triathletes.

Run = Jack Daniels VDot system
Run a TT, extract a "VDot" value. From this, extract training paces for a variety of training intensities. Train, get faster, validate faster by testing, establishing a faster VDot = faster training paces, etc. This method has been validated through the training of millions of runners.

Bike = Coggan and Hunter Allen power stuff
Ride a TT, extract a functional threshold power (FTP) or lactate threshold heart rate. Train at specific percentages of these numbers. Get faster, validate faster by retesting = higher FTP = higher training wattages. Again, validated through the training of thousands of cyclists.

The rub is that bike and run intensity are different:
Bike: since 2001 I've coached either directly or through my team and training plans thousands of athletes. I can't think of single athlete who injured themselves on the bike by riding too hard...other than crashing :-) The fact is that cycling is a very low risk activity (non-impact) relative to the run and so warrants a more aggressive approach of when to go faster. In my opinion and experience, the time to start riding the bike harder and getting faster is as soon as you can toss your leg over the top tube. "Do easy miles to build a bigger engine so you can go earn permission to ride the bike hard" is, in my opinion, a bit outdated and doesn't take into account these risk and ROI considerations above.

Run: yes, run intensity has to be handled a bit differently, but:

1. Note that under the Jack Daniels VDot system, your training paces are based on your demonstrated ability to race at pace X. They are based on your actually, verified through performance fitness.

2. We are not a couch-to-Ironman squad. Our athletes are about 90% HIM and IM focused athletes.
The rest are short course athletes. I would say that both populations typically have about a year of consistent multisport experience before they come to us. In my experience, that...experience...is more than enough to "handle" the running intensity we prescribe within a well thought out, proven system. But, yeah, if JoeBagODonuts approached me on the street about how to train for long course triathlon, I'd tell them to put together about 2-3 months of consistent, injury free running before they jump into any training plan that involves running intensity. But, in my experience, the folks receptive to the ideas and methods we describe typically have the wheel durability required. Yes, if you've made it up to this point in this long ass post on an internet triathlon forum...chances are you're more serious about this gig than the average bear and have the chops to handle well-thought-out intensity within a well designed triathlon training plan.

Finally, I'd like to point out the difference between what you read and learn in a book vs what you learn through experience. Since 2005 well over 2000 athletes have done this "fast before far" approach under our supervision -- as members of Endurance Nation or as training plan customers. We've refined those plans every year based on our own direct training and racing experience and the feedback of these athletes.

So while you might be able to point to what I guy wrote in a book because he read a book by a guy who read another book...I can point to a very, very large data sample that says our way of organizing training is pretty successful also.

Damn....sorry about the length here! Anyway, feel free to ask me any questions, happy to help!

rich, thanks for taking the time to respond here!
it's certainly a compelling point that you have your own (significant) data set to back up your strategy.

if i may....to parse the response for my questions:
[quote=tri-ac]and
do they have a plan for ramping into this kind of training?[/quote]
no

[quote=tri-ac]or do you need a base established?[/quote]
yes

(i don't think it diminishes what EN is doing but it's good to know up front)

thanks again for posting here!

I have many thoughts on this. I'll try to stay focused...

I happen to know top elite racers that use or have used EN and MAO. I talked with them quite a bit before deciding upon my plan.

Everyone's situations are unique. I'll describe mine just so you understand where I'm coming from.
4-5 years ago, I was 50 pounds heavier than I am now and had never run a race of any type.
My best Olympic Distance result was 2:27:22 back in 2009. 28:26/1:09:21/46:24
Last year at 40/41 I was researching training programs as I was hooked and working out 5-6 days a week.

I decided upon the Mark Allen program for a few key reasons. The athletes I spoke with said they were amazed at how injury free they had become by following the program. They had learned the lessons of proper recovery pacing. And of course an important key was that they made improvements each year. They were at the top of the AG podium if not the overall podium. I'm never going to see that but it's good to hear that they were pleased with the plans.
Honestly, the injury free part was the biggest draw for me. I'm terribly inflexible and I never seem to recover too quickly. (age?).
I also do much of my training alone. I really wasn't sure that I'd be able to push myself through the EN plan. I know I can push when I'm with a group at the pool or the track but that doesn't happen often. (I think that's why I love race day. It's so easy to find the motivation to push yourself.)

That's not to say I think the EN plan is bad. In fact, I am hopeful that eventually I will become a better athlete. At which point, I will want a new challenge and can sign up with their program.
For myself, that is the progression that made the most sense.

I don't think you can ever know with certainty whether you've made the right choice. But I do think you will know if you've made the wrong choice. If you are not enjoying the training, I'd say you've got the wrong plan.

I wish I could back my decision up by posting my 2011 results but illness took my A race away from me this year. (bummer). I'm a believer that the 2nd year with a coach is when you really start to see the dividends anyhow. Looking forward to 2012.

Just a clarification Ironmom...how is your current yearly plan structured? Does it looks something like this:

Phase One: Off season (reduced or no mileage)
Phase Two: Base building (increasing mileage in aerobic zone)
Phase Three: Hold base mileage, add intensity (work in all zones?)
Phaes Four: Competitive season, intensity adding a taper period (work in all zones).

Is that what your yearly training looks like?

Do you consider yourself to be an elite AGer with respect to your AG? For example, where would you place in a sprint most likely if the field was competitive?

ironmom for the speed work you would need to get their 20week OS (outseason plan) then go into the 12 week build to your race of choice.

I personally train myself and my athletes with far on top of fast as well. For age groupers I think it provides the best balance provided it may or may not be better.

I just know my athletes enjoy making FTP gains in the offseason while only training 6-8hrs a week. No 4-5hr rides in that schedule.

All,

Sorry for the delayed response. I raced IMWI 2-3wks ago and am now in St George, UT to support my wife in her first marathon (!!)...and am then jumping on my dirtbike to ride solo around southern UT for a week so I've been a little busy :-)

Not sure how to work the formatting in this forum but...

We have 20wk OutSeason, Ironman, and Half Ironman training plans, and 12wk HIM and IM plans. See this blog post for how we recommend our athletes "stack" these plans around their season:

http://www.endurancenation.us/blog/training/stacking-en-training-plans-a...

Regarding injury and intensity:
I just want to stress again that our plans, the one's we sell on the site and that our own athletes use have been honed and developed across thousands of athletes over the years. Patrick and I have thought very, very, very hard about how this workout on Monday flows into Tuesday which works with Wednesday which flows into Thursday, etc. One very common comment we here is that the plan just "works:" it's very hard...then backs off right when you need it. Saturday is what it is because _that_ Saturday workout is about the 9th generation of _that_ Saturday workout, improved with every rewrite.

Finally, we are not a black box. See the Join tab on our website for a free 5-day trial opportunity. See the Free Resources tab for a range of free webinars we've created to help you learn more about how we coach our athletes. We absolutely don't want people on our team who are not a good fit for us and our athletes/peers/friends. So we WANT you to come inside and talk to them yourself. Ask my athletes/customers about their experiences with us...don't listen to what I have say :-) Before you drop $$$ on a training plan, take one of those free webinars above and decide for yourself if we do or do not know what we're doing.

In short, I'm no longer in the game of the high dollar guru our gotta pay a lot of money to talk to you. We've gone a different route, which is to figure out how to apply the experience of 20+yrs of Ironman coaching to a team of over 500 athletes. What _that_ means is very hard to explain so we just open the doors, via that Join and Resources tab above, to just have you check us out for yourselves.

Thanks again, I'll try to hit this thread again next week while I'm the road!

Based on those stats, I would say you are already an elite AGer. To get to the next level is really challenging. It isn't like when you are trying to move from MOP to FOP. That can be done on your own, but in your case, my first choice of advice would be to hire an elite coach that works with elite AGers. But that is expensive and you would have to seriously care about winning to put out that kind of money. You can try my free advice first! LOL.

How I structured my season last year, was basically what you saw above and that was only good enough to get me FOP the pack times, with two 1rst's, one 2cond and one 3rd (in a road race). That sounds good but those places were all in sprints and in the olympic, although a competive field only got me 10th place. The olympic was my "A" race.

This year I plan on making some changes. The first being that I am going to eliminate the off season. I am reducing my bike mileage and replacing it with "intensity" workouts. Most aimed at improving my VO2 max and my FTP. I am also going to vary the time of my workouts. From short (40min) to long (2hrs, 15min). This all in the off season, which unfortunately will go until april. Once I can get outside, I am going to maintain my intensity and increase my mileage. That way when I enter my competitive season, I will be able to focus on race specific training, because the intensity will already be there. I don't know if that helps, but I found that the way I structured my season last year, left me too far behind by the time I entered my tri season. I just hired a coach and he laughed at my schedule, and said you are lucky you got away with what you did, based how you structured your training. There are some other key elements when looking at how you structure your training week to week that do help, but I haven't actually tried them out yet to know if they work! After next year I might be able to give you some better advice, ie. after I have tried them out to see if they work. That is if I don't get pregnant and have another baby..LOL. In that case, I won't be do any races.

[quote=Ironmom][quote=hamlet_cat]Do you consider yourself to be an elite AGer with respect to your AG? For example, where would you place in a sprint most likely if the field was competitive? [/quote]

My last 10 races:

Place AG/Place OA Women/Distance
4 30 Sprint (but this is the only race I did this year since I broke my arm)
4 12 HIM
2 3 Oly
2 5 Sprint
3 15 HIM
7 20 Oly
3 8 Sprint
2 2 Sprint
2 14 Oly
5 17 HIM

Last year I was TriNW's top All-around triathlete in my AG, and in the top 10 women of all ages. That's only of Northwest women who race all three distances though, mind you. I guess I'm a Jill of all distances, master of none ;-). I have only taken the #1 woman's spot in a race 3x, only one of which was since having the kids.

[/quote]

With Results like that, why are you not doing the coaching instead of looking to get some? I think you clearly know what you are doing. I think you are a pretty shrewd athlete and I would question would the dollars down on a coach, really be worth the rewards, you are on the podium 60% of the time you race, and not far off it, the rest of the time... Hell you can coach me any time you like.

[quote=Ironmom][quote=Warrior]
However, the distance I really want to *master* for myself is Iron distance with the eventual goal of KQ. I was within an hour of KQ at my 1st Ironman, but the times are getting faster every year.
Unfortunately, I just don't have the $$$ to pursue everything I'd like to do right now...[/quote]

Wow, what an amazing goal. You have a lot going for you already; experience and skill. You also might soon have the time as well. In my area we have a provincial triathlon team which is the goal of many of the elite AGers; to qualify for that team. Once they get on that team, they have access to the same coaches that coach the Olympians. Then the represent our country at National triathlon events. Many of them have the goal of KQying as well. One thing I do know about them is the train as seriously as the pros. Even though they don't consider themselves pros, they is very little difference. For the masters, it is usually just age that separates them.

I shouldn't really be giving you advice on running, since I am way behind you as far as experience goes. But one thing I am curious about since you identify running as a weakness and swimming as a strength. What is different in your swim training that makes you a stronger swimmer than runner?

Wow, from the back you look like a body builder...to normal people that would be a compliment! But to a triathlete..probably not. LOL. Can you give me a couple of details about your stats.

Most Recent 5K time? When?
Most Recent half marathon time? when?
Most Recent marathon time? When?

If you can only give me tri splits that is ok, but road race info is better.

Also what does your yearly running training look like? What does your weekly running schedule look like? Ie. How is your weekly mileage distributed? What types of quality runs do you do? What types of surfaces do you run on? How often? Do you use a treadmill, just run outside? Do you use any race strategies?

Also, when you say technique, can you just elaborate on what you mean by working on technique, what specifically have you been doing?

What about racing? Do you use any race strategy? Do you taper for your races? How often do you race?

Sorry for all the questions, but some of your answers could help shed some insight, either for you or me.

[quote=TryScott]There's a local tri coach that has at least one client who spent a year or two with Endurance Nation. If the coach shows up at our group run tomorrow I'll ask what feedback he has heard. Obviously they left for a reason. It's a sample of one, but it's hard to get a fair assessment if you only look at the positive customer testimonials.[/quote]
I didn't forget to ask, but he hasn't been around until yesterday. Nothing really enlightening, and they appear to be as advertised, by getting people to PR with less volume. The athlete that he coaches was with EN for 2 years, and he initially PR'd but then plateaued. This year he has used the more traditional training and is moving up in the AG results again.

Personally, I enjoy their podcasts an I've heard from someone that met the owners that they are great guys. However, I'd wait until I've gone a season or two of pushing my body with high volume before I tried their plan.

Ok, here are some ideas, unfortunately I am basing my response on theory as much as experience and the direction I am going with respect to my run training. Not all of it may be valid for you. We are in the same age group, but we different levels of experience, and maybe different body types. I am 5’3, weigh about 112 and I am not sure about my BF but it is somewhere between 15% and 18%. I am muscular, but only from the waist down (and its from skiing, mostly fast twitch unfortunately).

To help with the 5K, some things might help. Obviously increasing your running frequency and increasing your weekly mileage will help, but with the track workouts, I would try to incorporate all distances from 100s (reps) to 1000m (intervals). Rep training is important because it teaches your body to run fast without your CV system putting the brakes on for you. I don’t know if you do this range in your track workouts, but I would even if your focus is marathon running. For the tempo work, do solid tempo running, (ie. 20min tempo pace/40min aerobic pace) but also do tempo intervals (ie. go to the track and do 5 x 1km at threshold/tempo pace). Also vary your rest times when you do your speedwork. Avoid over working your CV system, but an example would be running your intervals at a slightly slower pace time, and not allowing yourself to recover completely before starting your next interval. Still only do one tempo and one interval a week, but just make sure you vary what you are doing from week to week, so you are getting the full benefit from your run training.

If you are only able to do four run workouts a week, I would space them out, and instead of doing a recovery run for the fourth, make it a technique run where you focus on technique. Wild guess here but I am assuming because you are muscular you might have more fast twitch muscle fibres than slow twitch. I don’t know if you can manage treadmill running (try at a slight incline .5% to 1%) but here is an example, on the treadmill you might want to set your metronome to 100 and try doing some short intervals where you run at a cadence of 100 or higher than normal etc. Trail running is great but I think it is low cadence, you might need to incorporate higher cadence running. Maybe even race walking or power walking might be an option if treadmill isn’t. Rep work is also high cadence, but it is also exhausting.

Another example of technique work might be for example working on your stride length (ie. increasing the range of motion you get with each stride). This is going to sound ridiculous but this is what I did the other day for example. I went out and measured every 5 feet going around our paved track and marked the 5 feet increments with sidewalk chalk (x). Then I did one-legged hops where I tried to hop from one X to the next X. There is no way I can do 5K of that, but imagine what that exercise could do to your 5K time if you could!

One thing to note is that road racing is marginally different than running in a triathlon split. If you have any time to incorporate some road racing into your race schedule it might be of value. For example drafting and being dropped is significant in road racing like it is in cycle racing. You have the chance to practise a bit of road racing strategies in a running event that you might be able to use in tri splits. You can learn how and when to apply the gas and when to back off. I didn’t really learn these skills when I was just doing run splits in tris. I think people who do sole biking/running events are at advantage over people who only do tris with respect to this aspect of racing.

I think if you can improve your 5K time, your half marathon and marathon times, will follow based on just an increase in volume. To be able to run under 25min for a 5K for our age group you most likely have to be following an elite 5K plan. That would be a 12week plan, with an entry level long run once a month of 16K and a weekly mileage of 50K (running 5-6x a week). The plan builds up to a max of 75K week and a long run of 24K. Although I only made it up to 60K and 20K. I was able to run a 5K in 24:30 and a half marathon in 2:05:13. The 5K was easy and the half marathon was difficult. The macMillan calculator predicted that I would run the half in 1:53:xx, but maybe my training wasn’t good enough for a half. It is possible that I could have broke 2 hrs, if it hadn’t had hills and wasn’t off road (also with drafting maybe) but who knows. For now I am assuming it is an accurate prediction of my skills for now.

Anyways, I hope that helps. I am not that experienced, and maybe in a year or two you’ll post another “how do I run faster” post and I will have more evidence to back up my theories!