A Marathon of Sprints
Training is simple and complex.
It’s simple because we adapt in the direction of repeated stimuli. It’s complex because that adaption doesn’t happen immediately. So we get nervous, confused, and impatient.
Running training and its application should be straightforward.
It’s simple: To run faster, run fast as often as possible. That’s it. It’s really not complex.
When you examine all great runners throughout history such as Paavo Nurmi, Emil Zátopek, Herb Elliot, Peter Snell, Prefontaine, Henry Rono, Seb Coe, Joan Benoit Samuelson, Hicham El Guerrouj, Paula Radcliff, Haile Gebrselassie, Paul Tergat, the Dibaba sisters, Alan Webb, Kara Goucher, Kenenisa Bekele, Timothy Cheruiyot, etc. one quality stands out — every single one had many years, if not decades, of high frequency fast running before they reached their peak.
What’s interesting is “hard“ training was the standard and accepted practice of elite runners for about 100 years (1880s-1980s). Then the 2nd running boom happened.
The first running boom in the 1970s &1980s was all about testing your limits by way of hearty amounts of hard training, fast running, and racing. The 2nd running boom was the mass participation movement. And with it the popularity of Long Slow Distance (LSD) arose. Which makes sense. To convince the average person to invest in running shoes, pay annual club dues, buy running clothes and fork over race fees you have to sell them on the idea that running and training is easy and fun, not tough and difficult.
The LSD concept then warped our modern interpretation of training philosophy.
Let’s take Lydiard for example.
Many think today of Lydiard’s method as a high volume (100 mile weeks) approach of “easy” running. But that’s only the first part of it. The 100 mile weeks were run only in the preparatory Base Phase which was designed to set up the athlete for 6 days-a-week of speedy track workouts alternating back and forth between hard and moderate days. The Stephen Seiler (polarized training) school of thought would have a heart attack at this regime.
But here’s the thing — it worked.
Why? Well, a true Lydiard base phase consists of 10 - 20 mile daily runs at moderate speeds. This is essentially low-grade lactate threshold velocity training daily for 1/2 a year. We know lactate is a preferred fuel of the brain and body, not a poison. So moderate running for 6 months which upgrades a runner’s lactate threshold capacity is a sound approach for a general conditioning period. Lydiard’s argument was it set up the body for the daily sharpening work over the following 6 months of training.
One thing I’ve noticed that separates better runners from less competitive runners is the faster runners run faster more often. Slower runners prioritize volume of training over speed of training. Meaning, they tend to run a lot of miles, but not that fast. Whereas faster runners tend to run really, really fast 4 - 6 days a week. At times faster runners do run high volumes of miles, but not always. However, nearly all run fast often. Some days the fast running totals no more than 2 - 5 minutes, other days it can last up to an hour. What matters is not the volume of speed work, but the frequency of it. Effective training is really a marathon of sprints. Running fast day in and day out gets you a lot better than a massive amount of slow miles.
Slow running does has its value. It’s a great recovery tool on the back of a strenuous effort. But as a stressor which evaluates competitive performance, it’s not so potent. Daily jogging of 30 - 40 minutes works well for the person who wants nothing more than a good standard of basic cardiovascular health. Altis head coach Dan Pfaff is in his 60s and jogs everyday for health, but none of his world class sprinters or jumpers do — they’re in the prime of their life and already healthy, so jogging for health won’t help them get faster, frequent sprinting will.
Competitive distance runners need both speed and endurance, so sometimes longer, slower training runs makes sense. But when the accumulation of mileage is prioritized over speed of those miles, balance is lost and the threat of diminished returns increases.
Training to run faster is simple. When you run fast frequently, you get faster. After stressful efforts, rest and recuperate, sometimes by running slow. Then repeat these steps. When done over the course of a season or career the results on race day will be very impressive.