This thread has become so much more than just an explanation about how you design custom training plans. And that's a great thing.
As a new runner, I spent a lot of time training on blind faith. I chose the Galloway runDisney plan because it was free and because it didn't involve running for 3+ hours every day. But I still had no idea how and why it worked. When I didn't follow it perfectly, I became scared that I would fail miserably in my first race even though I successfully finished all the long runs. It made for an interesting first race experience. If I hadn't wanted the Coast to Coast medal so badly, it probably would have been a first and last race of any distance ever. But every race since has been genuinely fun instead of a mixture of why did I sign up for this/what was I thinking/how insane am I and wow, I'm actually going to pull this off.
As I have to come to learn more about both how and why training plans mostly followed work, I have come to do things I once believed would never happen. Multi race challenges, training for a race in the worst time of year to train, and eventually hatching the insane idea to run a half on 3 weeks training despite having not ran consistently for 6 weeks beforehand. I went into that race 3 weeks after beginning training confident I would finish. And that's in large part because I had a better understanding of how training plans work. I believe that a lot of people talk themselves out of doing it because they don't understand how the training works and why it works.
The more you understand about how plans work, the more possible and even likely it becomes that you can achieve a running goal you once thought impossible.
Absolutely. Like many things in life, if you know the "why" behind it, then you find yourself more invested in it. When you're more invested in it, you flourish because of it.
Running can be simple. One foot in front of the other. Keep moving forward. Cross the finish line.
Running can be complex. Balance amongst days per week. 80/20. Carb consumption. Polarized pacing in training. Specificity. Progression of workouts. Pacing during races. etc.
Thank you for putting all this info out there. It's been amazing to read. I have one curiosity question? When some one comes back to you after having a plan and needing a new one for the next race/goal is it easier to put the 2nd plan together or do you go through all the same steps here and keep reinventing the wheel? Just wondering if it is just as much time/work writing a continued plan as a first timer plan?
Thanks for reading! It is absolutely easier to write the second plan than it is the first. The first usually involves as few as 5-10 back and forth messages to make sure we're on the same page. But sometimes it takes as many as 30-40 messages. It's all a matter of making sure that both myself and the runner feel comfortable with the ideas we come up with in attempting to reach their goals. Sometimes people will ask common questions which makes my life easier because I can copy and past previous conversations or posts I've made to answer the question.
But with the second plan, I already know their goals, their injury history, their recent training, their recent performance on my training, etc. Many of the runners I work with message me on a daily, weekly, or bi-weekly basis. Which means I've got tons of data saved for each as to how the last plan went. That helps me make quick decisions about what to do next for them. So the 2nd plan is usually as few as one message. I want a new plan, this is the race schedule, and I have the following availability. The actual writing of the plan itself is no faster though. To write a good plan still takes careful construction. So the Q/A cuts down tremendously. I'd estimate that a new person takes me anywhere from 2-6 hours of work. But a 2nd plan is more like 20-60 minutes depending on the number of days per week, time before the "A" race, and time they have available to train. The more time they have the more complex the plan gets.
I've always thought that if I were to start a business around writing training plans, that I would charge returning customers less than new customers. New customers require a lot of work. But the returning customers aren't nearly as much work. I feel my pricing of such would need to honestly reflect that.
What books/research/etc. do you think informs your training plan most? I read Hansons' Marathon Method just before Dopey and a lot of what was discussed there seemed to echo your training plans. I was wondering if there was any other literature you would recommend. Maybe you could just write your own book though.
Jack Daniels, Hansons, Seiler, Fitzgerald, and Gaudette all follow a very similar line of thinking. This makes their plans similar. But they all have different twists on their ideas that make them unique. At their core, they all follow a periodization on a weekly basis around 80% easy/20% hard. But what makes up the 20% hard makes them different.
Daniels - Rather then using races as training paces he uses physiological basis. R pace, I pace, T pace are based on things that occur physiologically at those paces rather than specifically being 10 mile, 10k, or HM Tempo. He believes in a 25% long run cap and typically caps his longest training run at 150 minutes.
Hansons - Focuses on races as paces. So they use M Tempo, HM Tempo, 10k Tempo, or 5k Tempo often. Their plan focuses on engraining a set pace into your memory so that you know what it feels like on race day. For their "book" plans, they offer standard long runs maxing usually around 180 minutes. However, their non-book plans offer a more advanced long run with the "hybrid" I discussed earlier. Advanced plans offer little recovery weeks based on weekly mileage or intensity. They believe in a 25-30% long run cap.
Gaudette - A Hansons disciple. His belief is that aerobic gains are maximized at 120 minutes. Anything beyond 120 min has diminishing returns. However, he believes that training beyond 120 min can be beneficial if the pace is faster than "long run". So he incorporates a lot of fast finish or hybrid long runs that Hansons reserve for their elite plans.
Blaser - What makes me different than them?
-I regularly schedule "blind" runs. I'm a big believer in internalizing the pace. It can be an extremely useful tool on race day. But you don't want to abuse the use of blind running because it can offset the goals of training. So it takes some days, others weeks, and others years before they really can decide on a pace and then without looking at GPS data just run it. I don't think any of them would disagree with this technique, rather they just don't regularly schedule it.
-I believe in scoring workouts. How many intervals did you get within a pre-scheduled window? Are you consistently not hitting either 80% for workouts or 70% for weeks? If so, a pivot may be necessary.
-I make more of an effort to periodize the high and low of weekly mileage to ensure proper recovery throughout the plan.
-I make plans for continuous running and run/walk based on the same principles. Relative current fitness pace and duration.
-I make a concerted effort to focus on the psychobiological model of endurance from Marcora.
-Additionally, I'm really big on custom plans. Again, I don't think any of them would disagree with me. But the key is that when a plan is pre-written in the book, then most users will default to that whether it's appropriate or not. For my system which is pace and duration based, it's really hard to pre-write any plan. Because then it wouldn't be custom to the user. But the opposite end of the spectrum is a book like Magness (Science of Running) which contains no plan at all. It makes the user really confused when trying to design their own plan (I know I was) because there's no minimal backbone to follow. Most people don't like math. So that means a custom plan based on pace and duration would be hard to get across in a book version without the back and forth with someone vested in it. Take for instance the Hansons 60/80 mile plan. A person could look at that and say, yea I want to do this plan because I finished the Hansons Advanced and felt good. Maybe the Hansons Advanced was 8-10 hours of running for them. Then the 60/80 plan might be 11-12 hours of running. Maybe those easy days go from 60 min to 90 min. It would be my belief that the person might be setting themselves up for some unintended consequences based on the duration of certain segments of training. Some people can handle that training load, but most can not.
These are some of my biggest influences for designing training plans:
Hansons - Principles of pacing, training plan design, during marathon carbohydrate calculations (
Hansons Marathon Method)
Stephen Seiler - Principles of balance in training plans (80% Easy and 20% Hard) (
Seiler; and Fitzgerald -
80/20 Running)
Jack Daniels - Principles of maximum duration training per session, 5K training (
Daniels Running Formula)
Arthur Lydiard - Principles of Specialization
Steve Magness - Principles of Adaptation and Principles of choosing what type of training is best for an individual (
Science of Running)
Jeff Gaudette - Running technique (foot strike, breathing, shoulders, arms, eyesight), Principles of Aerobic and Anaerobic running and why warm-ups are important (runnersconnect.net;
podcast)
Samuele Marcora - Psychobiological Model (motivation and perception of effort) (Countless scientific articles; or Fitzgerald -
How Bad do you want it?)
Benjamin Rapoport - During marathon carbohydrate calculations (
Rapoport)
Timothy Fairchild - Western Australian carbohydrate loading procedure for pre-running carb loading (
Fairchild)
Hadd - Principles of choosing what type of training is best for an individual (
Hadd's Approach to Distance Running)
Pete Magill - 5K training (
Runners World)