Training plans, spreadsheet style - Daniels' Running Formula
Three weeks into Lockdown 3 and I think I’m just as sane as I was at the start, so there’s probably a win there. Currently expecting this to last into mid-March at least, but good to hear at least the vaccine effort is going well and cases are falling.
Review of the Week
I’ve always been interested in different approaches to training - it can be expressed as optimising a complex system (the body) for achievement in a fairly well defined task (racing fast), subject to constraints (injury, social life, work). But over the last couple of years I’ve stopped seeing it as an optimisation problem and started going off feel and what I fancy. Although I’m still fairly fit, I haven’t been able to reach the peak shape I was in Winter18/Spring19 (16:30 track 5k, 2:41.34 marathon). This has started to cause some soul-searching for why I’m not as fast, and my latest reasoning is that my training is not as scientific as it used to be - work sessions would be fairly random and speeds during hard work would be ‘as hard as I can handle’.
So with a Half Marathon penciled in in 12 weeks, I thought I’d start up a more rigorous approach. I turned to Daniels’ Running Formula by Jack Daniels, a title which understates the density of formulae and tables for coming up with a training plan.
The main idea of the book is that your speed over any race distance defines a VDOT value, which can be used to establish training speed at various intensities. So if I run a 5k in 17:33, this gives a VDOT of 58, which can then define my pace for marathon, threshold, interval or repetition training efforts. This can then be used to predict future race times, handy if you want a guide pace to set out at.
After having introduced the system and discussed his training philosophy, there are then 118 pages of specific training plans for 800m, 1500m-2M, 5k-10k,x-country,half marathons and marathons. There is also some flexibility within the sections - for example the marathon section has six(!) different plans.
To give an example of a plan, the half marathon plan splits into 4 phases of 4-6 weeks each (I’m jumping in at phase 3 given my winter training looks very similar to phase 2). Within phases 2-4 the structure is three quality sessions per week - a long run (maybe marathon efforts included) and two faster sessions. The remainder of weekly mileage is built up through easy runs. Loosely the phases differ in the hard work sessions:
- Phase 1 is optional and about building mileage back into a program
- Phase 2 is about rep workouts (the fastest workout over 200-400m) with the occasional threshold run chucked in
- Phase 3 is one interval (2-5 min sets) and one Threshold run per week
- Phase 4 is mostly threshold efforts, with a reduction to 2 quality sessions per week.
Should be fun if nothing else. Plus it’s nice to not have to think about what training to do next week, just follow the plan.
I guess an important question when reviewing something like this is - is it any good? If I follow it will I get faster, or is it just snake oil and pseudo-science? Now I don’t have enough knowledge to be able to give a definitive answer, but I found it chimed with ideas I’ve come across before and built a structure around them. I’d consider it a stamp of approval that I’m giving the training plan a go for the next 12 weeks (injury permitting). Plus I messaged a more knowledgeable friend and he rated it, which is encouraging.
I should add that there were several topics either skated over or not mentioned at all by the book which are common components in most training plans. In particular, rest days get only a passing reference, technique is mostly about strides per minute and breathing patterns, lighter weeks don’t get mentioned at all and the strength training section wasn’t great. I suspect this is because the book is aimed at a reasonably experienced athlete who knows these concepts, but it is still strange they don’t get any reference at all.
So overall, I’m glad I bought the book, and am optimistic to get some speed from it.
Training Thoughts
To set a milestone for the new training regime I ran a 5k round Battersea Park (17:40). Felt good whilst running it, went a bit soft in the 3rd km, but happy considering it’s still in solo TT conditions (no pacers/competitors). Excited to follow a new plan - should make life easy copying what’s in the book.
Coding Projects
Earlier this month I was tipped off by a colleague about Google HashCode, a team coding competition that I entered with the old Rectory Road gang in 2017. I then messaged the guys and everyone was keen to put a team together for the 2021 edition.
On Saturday we put in our first training session, tackling the 2015 Final over 2.5 hours (out of 4 allotted). My vague recollection of our initial effort is that it was a bit of a stressful mess, but I was excited and encouraged by how we performed this time round. It was also a fun thing to do, even remotely. It looks like the number of competitors ramps up after 2015, so it’d be interesting to see where we rank in those competitions in future practise sessions.
Top Twitter Follows
SimpsonsQOTD daily Simpsons quotes, often topical but always funny. Twitter doesn’t have to be all serious…
Other Thoughts
- I consider it a bit of a failure of imagination by people who supported remaining in the EU to at least admit that the vaccine effort has gone better for us outside of the EU than if we were in it. If we had voted to remain it feels very likely we’d have opted into the procurement effort and would have worse outcomes as a result. I say this as somebody who voted remain and regrets that we left.
- I’ve started doing a jigsaw puzzle over lunch breaks when I’m not cooking/shopping. It’s a nice mental break, would recommend.