Workout of the Day: AM — 4 Mile Tempo, PM — 6 x 300m
AM — 4 Mile Tempo, PM — 6 x 300m
Intensity — 4 Mile Tempo @ 15K pace, 300s @ 1500m pace
Recovery — 300m jog after 300s
Exertion — 8/10
Context & Details
Successful American distance coaches, and friends, Vin Lananna and Frank Gagliano both developed this workout. To my knowledge, they still use it regularly. When it comes to Vin and Gags, it’s hard to decipher who developed what workouts. They shared ( or “stole”) workouts and training concepts from one another so much it’s best to think of them like the prolific songwriting duo of Paul McCartney and John Lennon with The Beatles, and give them both credit.
You’ll notice this session looks very similar to a Canova “block” workout. The concept is the same: intentionally fatigue the runner in the morning with a moderate session, then return in the afternoon with another moderate session to create significant daily stress on the body.
Canova’s marathon block workouts are high intensity and volume (up to 40K of hard running at marathon pace on the day), so they demand 3-4 days of recovery afterward. On the other hand, this session is only fairly moderate. So both Vin and Gags typically use it as a mid-week session sandwiched in-between more specific sessions.
Another interesting point is both Vin and Gags, in the early periods of their training year, utilize three-workouts-a-week schedule, as Bowerman did. Giving the “Oregon System” of hard/easy approach more credence as an effective training regime.
Intensity of effort is the driver for physical change and adaptation in athletes. Frequent, repeated bouts of intense work regularly activate the alarm state of the General Adaptation Syndrome — the initiating mechanism for adaptation and super-compensation. You must do intense work often to elicit a positive change in athletic performance ability. But it is the periods of restitution that complete the adaptation process. Workouts damage the body. Rest allows the body to repair and adapt. Meaning, workouts are only as effective as the rest period that follows it.
Vin’s training pattern in the early season Conditioning Period looks like this:
Monday: Reps Workout
Tuesday: Training Run
Wednesday: Moderate Workout, like today’s WOTD
Thursday: Training Run + 8 x 150m strides/sprints
Friday: Easy Run
Saturday: Long Steady Workout
Sunday: Longer Easy Run
Effective coaching is about understanding what works — and doesn’t — and why.
Today, a lot of people tend to look exclusively to sport science studies and research as evidence to what works and how to train. However, the majority of sports science studies happen in highly controlled laboratory settings and tend to examine an isolated facet of training/physiology. I keep up to date on research. It’s interesting. However, sport science is not gospel.
The evidence that matters most is the training methods and logs of successful coaches and runners. This is perhaps the most holistic evidence available. Since we coaches and athletes live in the world of performance, we’re quick to assimilate methods or workouts that work. And equally quick to throw out what doesn’t work.
You may or may not agree philosophically with the design of today’s workout Vin and Gags co-created, but this session is a staple session for them both. Meaning, it has stood the test of time because both have observed it works in helping their runners get better.