Assuming someone already has a good idea of what paces/efforts they should be training at from lactate, VDOT, breathing, etc, what specific improvements to training can be informed by knowing VO2max and CR? I'm not asking about the things we do with these aspects of physiology in mind, rather specific interventions that are made significantly more effective thanks to measuring VO2max/CR.
My current assessment is that the training needs of any of us non-elite athlete are obvious enough without VO2max/CR information that testing for these is a waste of time, energy, and money. A key theme of this tread is minimizing the waste of our limited resources on less helpful aspects of training so that we can make the most of what we can give to training.
If there's something I'm missing here I'd be keen to learn about it.
You haven't missed a thing dude. You have totally, 100% understood what the thread is about. I've enjoyed your contributions and put them up there with the top long term contributions. It's lexel , who has missed the point as ever. He wants you to try to understand things that he thinks are clever and will make you faster. Spoiler, 1. He is not clever in the slightest, in fact one of the last intelligent posters as he doesn't even understand the jargon he posts 2. He has no idea how to train. He has never broken 20 himself and as far as I know, hasn't run in a long time. The remarkable thing is we have complete tools like lexel, JS and Coggan post, yet still we have fantastic new contributions, the thread lives on and refuses to die.
I appreciate that haha. I don't think I've missed anything, but certainly want to remain open-minded. The framing of my last response is both to give lexel the opportunity to provide a practical answer and to generally point things back to real world training. I've certainly been guilty of getting lost in physiological jargon plenty of times so I try not to judge anyone too much for that.
My own experience with training hard and running fast has tended to show that simple works better most of the time and any deep dive into the weeds ultimately just points back to pretty basic stuff we already know we should be doing. It's disappointing that so much of the information out there tries to push recreational runners towards increasing (and imo counterproductive) complexity. The trick is figuring out the right execution of "simple" and I appreciate this thread because it formalizes simplicity in a way thats actually practical for the average person.
It's true when I say no runners ever went backwards coached by me. They all improved fast being sprinters, middle distancers , long distancers or ultra runners. This is 100% true and confirmed by one my best friends here mr Ghost 1 who has seen the coaching threads I still have left as a proof of what I have told here is 100% the truth.
This is 100% false and easy to verify. Sammy Nyokaye got slower, Letlhogonolo got slower. Slava got injured, Phil bombed. Go away. You are not wanted here.
Now... can I adopt any of the training in this thread to improve further? I'm 36 and get tired fairly easily, which is partly why I dropped the mileage and I no longer do a long run. I've done parkrun 3 times in the past month, running 17:40s, and I don't really feel any fitness benefit from it. The improvement seems to have come from the threshold session coupled with more overall recovery.
It's probably not fair that your question got so many downvotes. I think it may be because you are the only one who can answer your question.
Could adopting this method help you improve?
The answer honestly is "Try it out and see." It's not hard. E, Sub-T, E, Sub-T, E, Sub-T, Long(er). Lots of folks here use this general rhythm—adapted to the sweetspot of their current mileage and fitness—and have seen injury-free improvement. You might, too. If it doesn't suit you, you can just stop. After 3000+ posts, there's not much else to say.