Sept 15-Oct 15 "Daniel's Running Formula" Book Club

I think it is very relevant especially for a beginner.  He speaks to some of the physiology of running and training with a purpose.  By understanding some of the principles of running and training I think a beginner can avoid many of the mistakes that most less knowledgeable runners make.  By understanding the purposes of various types of training sessions and when and how to schedule them you can minimize injury and get the most out of the time and effort you put into the sport. 

Yep, I agree! And with the bit about Switchy, too.

Time for me to revisit this classic ... like Salty, I'll be in and out as well, as I can or as I have thoughts or thoughts on others' thoughts.

Yeah, what he said 

And with this thread anyone can ask questions about things their confused about.

Ok to carry over in here,

"

True, but is 5k for a mile pushing anaerobic?  Surely not, or you couldn't sustain that pace for a 5k.  When I did the Jack Daniels plan when I was improving my 10k, he had a couple of X 800's workouts, but he had way more mile repeats in his plan.

Maybe we should (as they say at my work) "take this offline" and wait until the Daniels' Running Formula thread gets jumping."

So let me get this straight, JD had you doing mile repeats at 5K pace? How many and how much rest? And was it a v02 workout?

If I look at his vdot charts it's not even listing a a mile for reps  or intervals. It seems it's more geared towards the threshold pace for mile repeats, which makes a lot more sense to me.

Alright!  Let's get this party started!

Here's a workout straight from the 5k-15k plan that JD has in his book:

Mile repeats at I pace with 4 min jogs.
Time at I should be below ~8% weekly mileage

Going by my 5k time of 19:01 when I was focused on my 10K, my VDOT was 52.  As you can see in that chart, he doesn't have an "I" pace listed for that VDOT.  However, my T pace at that Vdot was 6:38.  I extrapolated that my "I" pace was somewhere in the neighborhood of my 5k pace, and a few calculators online seemed to show similar results.  

As for the 8% mileage rule, this ended up being around 3 miles for me when that workout started getting closer.  

He also had workouts similar to this in his plan:

4x1mile T pace with 2min recovery jogs)+ 4x(200m R pace with 200 jogs)

He had efforts that were across the board, and I believe that's because for a distance like the 10k (like the 40k in the bike) you need a combination of strong aerobic capacity and muscular endurance to pull off a good time.

Yeah, I would have expected the second workout 4 x mile @ T with the stride type at the end. We do that one a lot. You get to work at threshold AND get some economy/form/turnover

I guess it just seems really inefficient because you are running less time at VO2 max (as opposed to say, an 8 x 800 workout) and you are taking really long rests. And it seems a little cumbersome with having to extrapolate anything I mean, I hardly use the word extrapolate in regular conversation  and then having to calculate the 8% and then that happening to be an an even mile for mile repeats. 

 But, I can see your point about getting the endurance and aerobic capacity. And I totally spaced on the context you hinted at by saying it depends on what you are training for.  So, good call. 

Heh.  As a Software Engineer I use the word "extrapolate" daily.

I agree that all the calculation that JD requires in some of his planning can be cumbersome, but for me that's part of the fun.  Also I'm not talented enough to get faster by just running, so knowing exactly why I'm doing x workout and how it's helping is a must for me.

Edit:

Thinking about it, when I compare the 10k run to the 40k bike, the 3-4 mile x 5k effort isn't that much different than a 4 x 10' @ 100% or 2x20' effort workout on the bike 

Hmmmm interesting thought about talent.

I don't consider myself all that talented. But I feel like I've got the gift of being inexperienced enough that a lot of "just running" will get me a long way.

The really talented people seem to have to really push hard in really specific ways to continue to improve.

Or at least that is my observation.

There are some calculators out there that will give you the mile pace:

http://www.attackpoint.org/trainingpaces.jsp?eqdist=1500&vdot=52

Yeah, what he said 

I've read that as well, but for 1 mile effort, if I can handle running a 5k at my 5k pace, then how is it unsafe for me to do a 3x1 mile with 4 minute jog workout at said pace?

I'm hoping that's correct.  I feel like there's a pretty huge difference between running 6:09 miles back to back to back versus running them with 4 min jogs between.  Maybe physiologically they are the same.  That's something I'd like to learn.

And with this thread anyone can ask questions about things their confused about.

OK, so all this discussion is certainly whetting my appetite for the JD--the book, that is.

Those of you who have read it already, what do you think might be the best structure for discussion, if any?  A free for all?  A let's not talk about anything past pg ___ until next week, broken up into weekly segments? Others?

I would like for those who are just getting aquainted with these ideas to be able to hang with the discussions as much as possible.  What do you think?

It's really technical.

I think maybe you could have people read a segment (whether that be a chapter or a few) and then just bring up either talking points or questions. It could be that simple I think. 

I was thinking about this last night and started to write something along these lines but had a hard time articulating anything.

There is a lot of meat in the first few chapters that I think is important that everyone understand.  It lays the foundation for subsequent discussions about how the various workouts and purposes fit into an individuals real life schedule and goals.  I've limited my reading to the first few chapters because I didn't want to get ahead of discussion and jump into how do I setup a training schedule without first hashing out the various physiological adaptions, workouts to stimulate those, and appropriate paces and distances for those workouts.

We talked a little about VDOT earlier and I think that is also important to understand as it helps set parameters for workouts.

Maybe it would be a good idea to have a roll call that would include what experience you have already on the topic.  Some people that have posted are very familiar and knowledgeable already, some are brand new, and some fall in between.  What races/distances are you training for.  What is your current fitness level/experience.  What do you hope to get out of this.  Some might be to understand the prinicples, others might want to focus more on the very specifc examples and workouts like we've seen already.  What questions do you have on any of the material in the first few chapters.

It is kind of tough to have too structured of a discussion because I think there is a pretty wide range of familiarity with the subject matter.  I do agree that everyone should feel comfortable and those more knowledgeable and experienced can help explain, answer questions, and provide insight while still be able to carry on some "case study" discussion that I think is a lot of fun.

I've learned a lot from the book in just the last week or so.  If anyone doesn't have the book yet and wants to get some familiarity here are some articles that summarize some of the foundational stuff.

 http://www.coacheseducation.com/endur/jack-daniels-june-00.htm