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Nov 2018
2:32pm, 29 Nov 2018
65,478 posts
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Gobi
Always an interesting read, I don't comment much as can't be bothered with upsetting anyone. Happens too often so easier to keep my views to myself.
I think Gene will get the marathon record next time out if he stays injury free but he is very aggressive so injury is possible and at that age how easy will it be to come back ?
It's hard enough now :`0
Personally - I'm still very much in the polarized camp as a runner and a coach probably more extreme than a lot of people as I use a lot of Z1/ border Z2 rather than pure Z2 and my % is more 90/10
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Nov 2018
8:58pm, 29 Nov 2018
1,255 posts
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DavidFenlandRunner
My training pace has dropped by well over 10% but my 5k times are almost unchanged, if you add the getting older fudge factor they are probably improving.
It is total and utter bollocks than train slow makes a slow runner.
Probably it is the reverse, a person that trains too fast is probably only training their ego.
Gobi, 90%/10% sounds good to me 
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Nov 2018
8:44am, 30 Nov 2018
65,485 posts
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Gobi
it's all about appropriate speed in my world
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Nov 2018
10:05am, 30 Nov 2018
34,300 posts
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Hills of Death (HOD)
I still like 80/20
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Dec 2018
8:34am, 19 Dec 2018
1,920 posts
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Canute
Gene Dykes managed to capture the M70 marathon world record on Saturday in Jacksonville, Florida, with a time of 2:54:23. after just missing Ed Whitlock’s record of 2:54:48 in Toronto in October.
Both Ed and Gene did a very large volume of training but with a differing mixture of low and high intensity running.
Ed did multiple 3+ hours runs each week at a very low intensity. He did not record training distances. He also raced 5K’s and 10K’s frequently but did little other speed work.
Gene has run an amazing 2800 miles per year in the past two years. He runs several 200 mile races per year at an average pace of around 2 miles per hour (3 mph average moving pace). Typically he runs multiple ultras and then spend eight to 12 weeks converting the fitness from that base training into the speed required for the marathon. Even during this period of sharpening-up he still runs some ultras. Not uncommonly he runs an ultra within the week preceding a marathon.
After recording 2:55:18 in Toronto in Oct (30 sec outside Ed’s record), Gene ran the VisteVerde 50Km ultra on 1st Dec; the California International Marathon on 2nd Dec, and then less than two weeks later, 2:54:23 in Jacksonville.
Although Gene does a huge amount of low intensity training, I doubt that one can really claim that Gene’s training is a typical polarised program. He appears to do a moderate amount of threshold running.
To me, the really interesting question is how long can he maintain the apparently tremendous amount of stress he imposes on his body.
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Dec 2018
8:55am, 19 Dec 2018
10,032 posts
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Cerrertonia
Very interesting. I wonder whether the only conclusion we can draw is that we're all an experiment of one and the ideal training regiment for one person may not suit another?
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Dec 2018
9:14am, 19 Dec 2018
13,683 posts
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Chrisull
One quick thought is that calendar age is not a great marker for assessing our body's biological age if you see what I mean. So while there are general milestones across human life span, such as puberty, or eyesight detioration after 40, or losing muscle mass, one 70 year human could be biologically speaking a lot younger than another 70 year old. Perhaps that is the case here that Gene is particularly young biologically speaking and able to tolerate a training regime an average calendar age 70 year old male could not?
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Dec 2018
9:16am, 19 Dec 2018
1,681 posts
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J2R
Looks to me like he must be some kind of extreme outlier genetically. I can't imagine many 70 year old bodies standing up to that kind of mileage. One point, though - I assume he must be walking, rather than running, most of these ultras, if 3mph is indeed his average moving pace. I simply could not run at that speed, or if I somehow did, it would be a grossly inefficient movement by comparison with walking.
Having strained a glute muscle in a 10 mile race ten days ago, I'm currently avoiding speed work but continuing the easy stuff, which doesn't hurt it. I'm actually running the easy stuff at the fast end of the range, though, in the hope that this will reduce fitness loss better than my normal slow pace. Still below 80% HRmax though. So, not polarised training as such, but still focussing on recovery and avoidance of too much stress on the central nervous sytem.
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Dec 2018
9:17am, 19 Dec 2018
20,587 posts
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Wriggling Snake
I've always thought whatever I change in my own training is an experiment, and any coach worth his salt will work out different things to do for different people depending on how they react.
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Dec 2018
9:33am, 19 Dec 2018
416 posts
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SSLHP (Shoes smell like horse piss)
I think our individual reaction to training stress is the key..and making mistakes in the process of finding out is inevitable. I'm 58 so i'm finding that I have to make lots of adjustments along the way now
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