quote:<HR>Originally posted by Tchuck:
Why does mileage have to drop if you are running very slowly between hard work outs?. Have you ever communicated with Tinman regarding the above statement by you. I think he disagrees with your statement. He feels if one drops miles and adds intensity, it may be counterproductive to racing at "your best" because of a possible regression in "aerobic fitness" and thus one's ability to hold pace may suffer.
I personally have gotten faster following this advice keeping my miles steady and also virtually no taper to my races but certainly I am not on the level of a competitive hs or college runner in terms of times or miles (20-25). Just curious because your statement kind of surprised me......I am not so sure all coaches follow those recommendations......
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First of all, I think Tinman knows what he's talking about. He seems to have a very sound training principles and he has had real-life experiences which, to me, is more valuable than any "I've read that in a book" kind of knowledge.
In the wake of "new generation" of marathoning, it is undeniable that there have been some off-the-wall (as far as I'm concerned) rule breaking things happening. But when you look at those stories a bit more deeply, sometimes they can be explained.
I can see Tinman's point of view when he says not to taper too much. For one, it has been many examples, such as John Walker's I believe Tinman likes to use. When your aerobic bucket is getting low and needs to refill with surge of conditioning, it pays to get out and do some hard 10-miler or even 15-miler even only a week before an important track meet. You don't want to empty your aerobic conditioning and, it could happen if you don't run enough during those final weeks. On the other hand, I believe, in the case of this young boy who's running about 40 miles a week and trying to get it up 60 this summer, if he keeps up with the mileage as well as intensity once he starts workouts with the team and starts doing some repeats and twice-a-week racing, he might flirt with the danger of getting injured or getting himself in an over-stress situation.
You can easily keep up with your aerobic capacity by doing lots of jogging. In my case, the girl I'm coaching, she just did 4X100 (with 30m rolling start) yesterday. She did them fast. She took about 300m jogging in between. We jogged about 20 minutes as a warm-up (she said her legs were a bit sore so we took a bit longer than usual 15 minutes); then we jogged about 20 more minutes as a cool-down. I don't know how many miles we ran all together; but we don't necessarily count those warm-up distances--we just jog till we're warmed up. I usually tell her to jog an hour here and there; run about 1:20~1:40 over the weekend. But those are nothing like our usual 2:00 on Sunday and 1:30 or so mid-week that we do during the build-up phase. For the total mileage, it may not be that much lower because of all the jogging we do but certainly it's not as stressful or "hard". In the end, I hate to put it this way but, "who cares?" There's no forumla for it; if you need to keep up the mileage, go ahead and do it. I don't think, expecially for a high school kid who's competing 1600m or 800, probably won't need to keep up with the overall mileage.
Now if your total mileage is about 25 or so, and you're running a half marathon, it's (to me) a completely different story. Cutting back your mileage for taper in this situation may not only necessary but could also be detrimental. I'm sorry but 25 is not much at all to begin with! I think today way too many people are talking about "minimum" to "get by". We are not talking about peak performances, we're not talking about someone running 100 miles a week. I'd be actually curious to hear Tinman's story; when he suggests no or minimal taper, if that's a group of slower people or full-flight high school speedsters.
Just on the side note; when I "advise" people who run marathons, I'd tell them to go for a 3-hour run for the last long run about 3 or 4 weeks before the actual marathon. Then they'd go on a taper. Even then, they'll maintain over an hour of running at a time. I'd go something like 1:30 for the next 2 weeks and an hour or even 1:15~20 for the week before. I, on the other hand, ran my first marathon with a 3-hour run a week before, 2:30 on Tuesday and 2:45 on Thursday and ran my first marathon on Sunday and broke 3-hours (barely!). I needed a taper! It was a part of my build-up and I was going sub-7 pace most of my runs. I won't even want to count that as my "competitive" marathon. On the other hand, I have a 4-year plan of Lasse Viren since he was 19-years-old until Munich Olympics. He would start out at about 50km a week in October of 68; building it up to 90km a week; then drop it to about 80 during the hill phase; about 70 during track workouts; down to about 60 during the competition period. Every year was pretty much proportionate. During the Olympic year, he might have odd period when he would run over 200km a week, his maximum during the build-up was 180; 160 when he included hill repeats; about 150 when he started anaerobic interval training; down to 140 once competitions began. Keep in mind; he would run 10km at about 45 minutes every morning throughout. That would keep his good aerobic capacity up. Had he done better if he kept up the mileage? I doubt it. Can the same principles be applied to someone who's training 25 miles a week? I don't think so. How about a high school kid who wants to bring the summer mileage up from 40 to 60? I would say so.
There's always someone who would bring up the example of Steve Spence who increased the mileage AND intensity as he progressed. I can give you a dozen examples of "conventional" approach. If you decide to follow this "exception" even then, that's your choice.
