What is 'slow pace' 80/20 etc

The thing is, the science changes all the time. If you listen to a lot of what the Norwegians are doing, Iden and Blummenfelt are pretty open that they just work harder than most people out there. And they’re getting results to show for it.

A lot of their strava workouts tend to revolve around race pace efforts…

Obviously they’re helped by doing huge volume as well. But I think that’s the point. As others have said, “it depends”. You need to factor in all the parts of the puzzle. Just doing a few hours a week of easy stuff is not a going to give a great return on investment if that’s all you have time to do.

It doesn’t change dramatically all the time. It usually alters slightly, occasionally, as research is published. Step changes are rare. People have been pushing easy effort training for decades.

What Blumenfelt or any other individual is doing, you have no way to ratify or put into a realistic context…so how you can extrapolate any reliable meaning for yourself?

Easy aerobic training does have big benefits - it trains the systems and muscles you will primarily be using all of your race. And low risk training is surely a benefit of itself.

I’m not sure why this message seems to be getting lost but you’re the second person to say it. Nobody on this thread is saying ‘just run easy’, why is that bit being missed?

I’m not refuting any of that. I do a chunk of easy running myself.

I’m not missing that. I know it’s saying supplement easy with a small amount of hard. What I’m countering is that I can agree with that off big volume. Off 5-7hrs per week, I’m just not sure that’s going to give the return on investment. 5hrs total training time of 80:20 would mean 30mins of intensity when you factor in the point of half a hard workout will be easier recovery.

It’s a fairly consistent message on the trainerroad podcasts than for the time crunched, it’s recurring intensity that’s key. And you can make big gains on their low volume plans which have basically zero easy stuff. It’s when you get to the higher volume plans that easy makes an appearance. From what I’ve seen, not much changes with the hard workouts, they just fill the extra volume with easy stuff, which I understand to be for all the benefits joex refers to

Ah gotcha. So what constitutes ‘big volume’? I’m curious because I’m trying to take a significant step up in my volume consistency (thinking of doing on again/off again weeks) and am never sure how/when to work the speed in.

All depends (Haha) on your target I think FP.

I, personally, would say you need around 100km weeks to be considered high volume. Iy first mara was done odd an average of about 60km I think, but that was considered quite low, and had a bit of easy (about 14km most days) bike commuting which I think helped.

When i did my big, big volume I ran multiple 160km+ weeks.

Holy shit! I did a 103km week last week and that nearly killed me!

Right, and that’s why TR has taken that approach - it’s main demographic is the guys and gals who don’t have the time, or don’t think they have the time anyway.

On a paltry 5h per week that 30 mins intensity could be a session with 5x3min @ vo2 max and another session with 30x30s all out sprints, easy effort in between. So not nothing, enough to stimulate those systems, then you have 4.5h to work on your most important system - the aerobic.

Over on TR people are constantly surprised, or refuse to believe, that the Low Volume plans are often more successful than Mid and High. But there’s too much icing in there and not enough cake for most people.

Most of the pure cyclists will be putting in long weekend rides that have far more easy time in them, they come to TR for the intensity.

Their science base - if it’s fair to call it that - is on the physiological adaptations Coggan and others researched that found best bang for buck at sweet spot, which might be true but isn’t the whole story. You will get improvement, but you won’t get optimal development of endurance, vo2max or anaerobic elements. But that’s the trade off you’re making.

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5-7 hours per week is actually spot on for me, mainly running at the moment. With a 80% pace of 12-13 kmh and a 20% pace of 15-17kmh this gives 63-95 km of running per week. Feels like plenty!

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Sorry I haven’t contributed much - been very busy with work.

The reason I am looking at this more closely is that I’ve found over the past 2-3 years (on the wrong side of the 4-0- …) tempo pace (I would include anything between marathon to a smidge slower than 10km as tempo pace) wears me down and even runs/rides at high zone2 (on 4-5 zone scale) require more recovery than they did. I used to be able to do a 4-5 hour ride on a Saturday and a 2+hour run on a Sunday at high zone 2 (I guess ironman pace) and feel fresh on a Monday. That is no more.

So I’m looking at doing far fewer of these - obviously in the 2months leading up to a race I would bring some in - and concentrating on a couple of hard sessions a week - with the rest very easy, below IM pace. (chit chat pace). It does feel abominably slow though, if I want to nose breath I am slower than 6.30km running and below 2W/kg on the bike and HR less than 120.

I think this will work very well for feeling good and consistent fitness. On the flip side of the coin, I’ll be worried that I am not used to longer race pace efforts - half IM pace is hard, it hurts! (by the time you get to the run.)

Yes, sorry my “paltry” comment was with Ironman training in mind.

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In the 3 months before running 3:07 in Lucerne Marathon, I ran just under 300km in total, around 25km per week. However, I did a lot of volume on the bike, hence my question whether cycling your easy miles is a reasonable substitute to running

I think that’s fair. As part of this marathon build, I’ve subbed in quite a lot of the traditional “easy runs” for fairly comfortable bikes (i.e. 60mins at 75% FTP). That has left me feeling fresher to deliver some harder, higher volume tempo runs.

Basically, I asked my coach to structure the marathon build as a triathlon plan, rather than as a traditional run plan

I think this works really well, because on the bike you can get a lot more time at a fairly easy aerobic effort than you would be able to on foot, for much lower impact on the body

I’m not sure the science does change that much in terms of what peaople are saying.

One thing to note for Seiler 80/20, is that his becuase of his 3 zone model, the first zone (upto 75% HR Max, 80% FTP) goes into Coggan’s seven level model, level 3 which is tempo (starting at 75% FTP). So you could do a lower end tempo session and that would still sit in the 80% low intensity work as modelled by Seiler.

I think a lot of what he says isn’t that different to what a lot of coaches have been saying for a long time. I know Gordo Byrne and Alan Couzens were advocating this type of work when I first took an interest in doing triathlon. Alan is a big fan of Lydiard, amongst others.

Edit to change Coggan’s zones to levels, he hates people writing zones for his levels.

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Is there anything Coggan doesn’t hate? :roll_eyes:

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Misery.

:joy:

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The 3 zone system is just based on the 2 lactate thresholds, LT1 and LT2. below LT1 is typically Z1/Z2 above LT2 is Z4. the “grey area” many speak off would be somewhere between the two. A scientist will go into much finer details but there are basically 2 points on the graph where the line jumps up, they are around (not at) 2mmol/l and 4mmol/l not the best image but to give some idea

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Yeah I get that, it was more that people generally think of LSD as being Coggan L1-L2 where as Seiler’s model takes ‘Low Intensity’ up to the lower part of L3, assuming you have good aerobic fitness. It’s science is just confirming what coaches have known for a long time IMO.

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Yo bitchez. As I’ve been at home tending to our ill son (luckily I don’t have my Tonsils), I’ve had to cram in some fairly #intenz turbo work, in order to maintain my CTL. As a result my predicted VO2 has ‘shot’ up to 62 this week. I even did 2 sessions without any music or Zwift! proppa #oldskool.

I’ve done this twice: w/u, 10*2min @105-110% (60s RI) c/d. Plus a short Zwift race which was 23 mins plus w/u & c/d.

Now where’s my #80%?

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