Vin Lananna had his Oregon runners doing double threshold in 2006, John McDonnell (RIP) at Arkansas had his team doing double threshold on the golf course for Chili Pepper back in the 90s until his retired a few years ago. Double threshold is nothing new.
At no time was McDonnell ever prescribing double threshold sessions- not once- not ever.
OP, the big thing people miss when they hear Jakob is running 26 miles of threshold per week is that he & Norwegian runners in general define threshold differently than Daniels. Where Daniels defines threshold as 1 hour pace (on average 4mmol/l of lactate) Ingibregtsen defines threshold as somewhere between traditional T-pace & M-pace (3mmol/l of lactate or less). When you cross the lactic threshold, the consequences are dramatic, requiring exponentially longer recovery & allowing you to sustain much smaller volumes of the pace. By backing off the pace just a bit, he can run 2-3x as much "threshold" in a week.
Also, I have never seen the Ingebrigtsen's run a continuous threshold run, always interval style as this is much less demanding on the body. Even when they run 20-25x400m=5k pace for their afternoon session on double threshold days, they're keeping lactate levels relatively low despite the faster pace because of the frequent, short breaks & can recover from the session quickly.
That said, notice Jakob has lost the 1500m world championship twice in a row. My suspicion is that this high volume, threshold model is great for producing even-pace runners who can time trial to world records in non-competitive fields. However, I wonder if Jakob has been outkicked for gold by Josh Kerr & Jake Wightman because the Norwegian threshold model deprives runners of the finishing speed that more traditional approaches provide middle-distance runners.
I'm interested to see if Jakob can continue to win at the Olympics/World Championships as people understand that he lacks the finishing speed of many other world-class middle distance runners. Personal bests & world records do not win championships.
Quite a lot of “speed” is begun in early May with more specific sessions advancing as needed throughout the summer.
If you race 40-50% more than your competitors, you can probably do a little less pure speedwork in training. And obviously, he must have a made a STACK of cash this year
This Is a very generic program by my standards. Meaning, it is not fundamentally different than how almost all other competitive runners train. The only reason anyone takes notice is because of Jakob’s success— if it was just his brothers, who are much slower for genetic reasons, no one would care. Runners are a dumb group of people. They just look at whoever hit his fastest at the moment and blindly imitate whatever that person is doing.
I went through 10 miles during a half marathon in 1:01 (6:10 pace), but my 5K is 18:05 (5:50 pace) so for me threshold intervals are pretty difficult. I couldn't do more than 6-8 miles in one week.
Then you're probably running them too fast or doing a harder long run as part of what you do. Running 6x1000 or 8x800m at threshold 2x a week is not that hard if you run the proper effort. You can also adjust the rest accordingly.
This Is a very generic program by my standards. Meaning, it is not fundamentally different than how almost all other competitive runners train. The only reason anyone takes notice is because of Jakob’s success— if it was just his brothers, who are much slower for genetic reasons, no one would care. Runners are a dumb group of people. They just look at whoever hit his fastest at the moment and blindly imitate whatever that person is doing.
The argument has been had ad nauseum at this point, despite the many, many ppl that have had success copying this program and tailoring it to there discipline, there's still people like you that come along and go 'its only this one guy, that's why people care'
They define their "threshold" intensity by a lactate value, not a pace. So as the intervals get shorter, the pace can be faster without accumulating more lactate. Keep lactate controlled and you'll develop more aerobic adaptations at a variety of speeds. After several years of this kind of work, you can run quite fast with low lactate values! This is why Jakob seems to have a great kick even though he would probably get smashed in an open 400 in the same field of world class 1500m runners.
I saw the below sample taken from Reddit. Two doubles a week of two threshold workouts, totaling about 26 miles of threshold per week. And little else quality-wise. No Interval or Repetition pace (Daniels). Obviously it's worked fantastically for them but I'm super curious about this plan and the thinking behind it (some basic background here)
It seems to fly in the face of logic of multiple other training systems - that's 25 percent of more of your weekly mileage coming from T pace. The 26 mile figure doesn't even count something called "easy threshold" on Saturday night (threshold is a set pace at a set effort, it is neither easy or hard so I don't understand this).
Does anyone have any experience with their methods, has anyone incorporated them into their training, and is their a book or more comprehensive look at the ingebritsens which shows their entire schedule? The below sample is relatively early season (Phase II, maybe early III, in Daniels - later on they get into more traditional race pace efforts)
Monday. AM: 10k, PM: 10k Tuesday. AM: 5x6 min (threshold) 2 min recovery, PM: 25x400m (threshold) 30s recovery Wednesday. AM: 10k, PM: 10k Thursday. AM: 5x6 min (threshold) 2 min recovery, PM: 10x1000m (threshold) with 60s recovery Friday. AM: 10k, PM: 10k + weights Saturday. AM: 2x10x200m hills with jog down recovery, 3 min rest between sets, PM: Easy threshold Sunday. 20km long run + weights
This Is a very generic program by my standards. Meaning, it is not fundamentally different than how almost all other competitive runners train. The only reason anyone takes notice is because of Jakob’s success— if it was just his brothers, who are much slower for genetic reasons, no one would care. Runners are a dumb group of people. They just look at whoever hit his fastest at the moment and blindly imitate whatever that person is doing.
So you don’t think you are a little shallow when you call his brothers “much slower for genetic reasons” -Filip ran 3.30.01 in his second season not completely dominated by sickness and injuries, and Henrik was fifth in the Olympics as a 21 year old, some tenth of a second shy of bronze and silver..?
His threshold pace is around 4:30 pace. It sounds really fast, but for him it's pretty controlled. He's not maxing out in his workouts. It's a sharp, but under control pace that he can do for a really long time. To put it in numbers more people could understand, it's like a 16:00 5k runner running 5:35 mile pace, perhaps several 2:47 800 meter reps.
Working out at this pace builds the engine. The ability to hit even faster paces (race pace for shorter distances) comes from lifting weights, plyometric exercises, and doing strides. Basically you just stress the body 'enough' without destroying it every workout in practice by working out too hard. Too many people do their workouts as fast as they can, even sprinting the last rep. That's not a workout, that's a race. Racing multiple times per week prevents you from getting better, you never fully recover and build back stronger.
To the OP, here goes the thinking behind the plan (as far as I can tell, others might quibble with some of the details).
They (and the people like Marius Bakken that pioneered this style of training) were thinking critically about how to build the most race-relevant fitness over long-term.
They were searching for a system that would be sustainable (so they could keep piling up fitness month after month, year after year) while still keeping them pretty close to race-specific fitness (so they could, again, spend a lot of the year accumulating pretty durable fitness - race specific fitness tends to be less durable).
They encountered this basic idea (it is not universally perfect, especially at very fast paces, but you'll get the idea) - on a per-mile basis, the faster the pace, the more stimulus/adaptation, BUT the stimulus/adaptation is also a product of the volume of work/duration spent at that pace, and the faster the pace, the less volume/duration the athlete can handle. They were searching for the combination of pace(s) and volume/duration that athletes could handle while maximizing the long-term fitness benefits. They discovered that they could effectively run two sessions per day in the neighborhood of lactate threshold pace, and do so a couple of times per week (lots of sample workouts have already been referenced). These paces were fast enough to produce good stimulus/adaptation, yet slow enough so they could handle A LOT of it, thereby producing "the best" results.
Like any good training program that has a focus, they realized that to support the core of their work (the LT sessions), they needed some work below (faster, higher intensity, higher lactate, more neuro-muscular demands - hill sessions!) and above (weekly long-but-not-too-long run of sustained easy effort) that pace, so they incorporated both into the weekly schedule.
I went through 10 miles during a half marathon in 1:01 (6:10 pace), but my 5K is 18:05 (5:50 pace) so for me threshold intervals are pretty difficult. I couldn't do more than 6-8 miles in one week.
Then you're probably running them too fast or doing a harder long run as part of what you do. Running 6x1000 or 8x800m at threshold 2x a week is not that hard if you run the proper effort. You can also adjust the rest accordingly.
Yep. 6 - 8 miles between 2 - 4 mmols is not a huge deal for someone who runs 18 Minute 5k.
In addition: it really is interesting how short most of JI's other runs are (10k ~ 40 minutes, a 70-80' longrun). So LOTS of short easy runs.
Plus: I wouldn't advise to go off by JI's mileage for the hard sessions. When JI runs 5 x 2k morning and 20 x 400 afternoon it is more like 5 x 1500 morning and 20 x 1' afternoon for a 18'-5k runner. Same goes with overall miles. JI runs only 75ish minutes most days and is a pro. Someone with a job might end up with cutting some doubles and only 2 x 7-8k instead of 2 x 10k.
It is seeing the training principles. You cannot 100 % copy world class training load for a 40 year old father of 2 with a 9-5 job IMO.
Real world example: I train a couple of people. I zoomed down Canova training a bit. It got all those guys huge PRs (50year old from 35:30ish to 34:02, a mid thirty with 45 hour job from 3:02 marathon and always failing on sub3 down to 2:53; both within 1 year).
I went through 10 miles during a half marathon in 1:01 (6:10 pace), but my 5K is 18:05 (5:50 pace) so for me threshold intervals are pretty difficult. I couldn't do more than 6-8 miles in one week.
Then you're probably running them too fast or doing a harder long run as part of what you do. Running 6x1000 or 8x800m at threshold 2x a week is not that hard if you run the proper effort. You can also adjust the frest accordingly.
Then you're probably running them too fast or doing a harder long run as part of what you do. Running 6x1000 or 8x800m at threshold 2x a week is not that hard if you run the proper effort. You can also adjust the frest accordingly.
