Knut Kvalheim : Can you please describe your training with Susanne Wigene, 14.53 5000m runner from Norway?

This is great stuff! I didn`t think much of consistency, mileage, patience or two sessions a day.. I have got to try this. But I must agree, this isn`t sophisticated, I´m kind of disappointed. It would seem like the other norwegians are preoccupied with doing things the smart way. Something no one has done with success. Less milage, more speed, lots of rest between repetitions. A quick fix. Thats how we do it in Finland these days. We don`t care for the ways of Viren or other oldies. Though we`re struggling going sub 4 for 1500, we won`t give up.

I mean, I´m white, fat and spoiled. Why should the skinny kenyans and ethiopians get all the breaks? We can`t be bothered with all this unsophisticated training. We´re smart and we should be able to find the shortcut!

It might seem like the sons of Norway are terrified by the thought of mr Kvalheim being right and they being wrong. If that`s the case, it would seem like they weren`t as serious in their training as they like to think..

On the other hand they wish miss Wigene the very best. Sons of Norway seem(s) like a nice bunch/person.

finnished wrote:

Less milage, more speed, lots of rest between repetitions. A quick fix. Thats how we do it in Finland these days. We don`t care for the ways of Viren or other oldies. Though we`re struggling going sub 4 for 1500, we won`t give up.

I mean, I´m white, fat and spoiled. Why should the skinny kenyans and ethiopians get all the breaks? We can`t be bothered with all this unsophisticated training. We´re smart and we should be able to find the shortcut! .

if this wasn't so true it could actually be funny

That`s why it`s funny! Stupid extremely white men, the finns.

bump

Excellent post! Hyva!

Susanne’s training

A piece of warning in the start: I was asked to outline Susanne’s training and this I have done. This is not intended as a general program I suggest you start following.

If I get the time I will make another post where I comment on some of the posts in this tread. (I will just comment on posts I believe are given out of interest for our sport and a want for information or serious discussion.)

Some background info on Susanne:

She is from Haugesund on the south western coast of Norway. She has a very good background in endurance training from training with Jon Udal up until she moved to Oslo to get her education as a teacher.

Being from a coastal town in the south western part of Norway also means that Susanne does not have a background of skiing. Contrary many other Norwegian runners she never uses skiing as a training. I mention this because the two great Norwegian female runners Grethe and Ingrid as well as many male Norwegian runners have used skiing for training. Ingrid was actually in the national cross country ski team before she was an international runner and even during her best years of running, skiing was a large part of her winter training.

After getting her teaching certificate Susanne has worked full time as a teacher in an elementary school in Oslo. Around Christmas last year she was able to reduce her workload to 80% giving her Thursdays off from teaching. The more rest she achieved by this has proved to be very valuable for her training.

Working in Oslo means that nearly all her training is done in Oslo. This means no soft surface from October to April and a constant possibility of need to change sessions for weeks in a row due to snow and ice or cold weather during the winter. The last winter in Oslo was very good for running and we never had to make significant changes to the program because of the conditions.

Around Easter she stayed 14 days in Italy.

Some background info on me as coach.

My coaching is not based on a deep understanding of the physiological processes in the body. The basis for my coaching is my experience as a runner in the 70s. This you will also see through this description of Susanne’s training.

I was fortunate to be coached by some very good coaches: Arne Nytrø in Norway (helped me run 3.41 when I was 20 and in the 50s he coached Norwegian running legend Audun Boysen who ran 1.45,9 in 1955). Later Bill Bowerman and Bill Dellinger coached me in Eugene. I learned a lot from these coaches.

Even with coaches like these the one person who probably influenced my ideas on training most was Lydiard. When I started building my own programs in 1973-1974 I used ideas learned from him and this improved my running drastically.

As a coach I have later tried to add some other aspect to the program but gradually they have all been taken away after evaluating the results. Today I am pretty much back where I started with some important adjustments in the track session during spring.

Some general comments on the program

Periodisation based on Lydiard ideas but not a Lydiard-program in any strict sense.

Susanne trains in a group with 10-15 runners.

Structure most weeks the same:

13 sessions a week

Longest run of week is run on Sunday, but only one session that day.

Hardest sessions of weeks almost always run on Monday and Thursday. These days we have most athletes in the group in one session, but they do their work in smaller groups of 2-3 runners. These are the only sessions I regularly attend.

Periodisation

Startup period

Basic period

Transition period

Competitive season

Rest period

Startup period

This was just 4 weeks of easy running building up to full training.

Basic period

From 1.11 2004 to 1.4.2005.

The goal for this period was to get as much endurance as possible. For a 5000m runner like Susanne this basically meant improving her ability to run fast over 45 – 75 minutes.

She ran lots of kilometers: averaged 175 from 1.11.2004 to 4.4.2005. The first three weeks of that period she ran 161, 151 and 161km. After this she never ran less than 165 km in one week and all but 3 weeks were above 170km, 7 weeks above 180km and one week above 190km. All these kilometers were run on roads with pavement except a very few treadmill sessions in March

Contrary to what some people in Norway seem to believe most of it was quite easy running. 120-150 km were covered on easy runs. Susanne normally ran these runs between 4.00 and 4.20 pr kilometer, but we were not concerned about speed on these runs. The main thing was covering distance and building background.

Nearly all weeks included either 2 hard and one medium session, or 1 hard and 2 medium sessions or 3-4 medium sessions. This was varied after what I felt was needed.

The hard sessions were basically close to all out running but we tried to make them somewhat progressive. These sessions were always run on Mondays or Thursdays. Saturday was often run as medium session. In weeks with 4 medium sessions the 4th medium session was run on Tuesday.

An illustration of the difference between a hard and a medium session the pace on a 50 min run works well. If run as a hard session Susanne ran this around 3.25-3.20 pr km while the medium sessions were somewhere between 3.45 and 3.35. pr km.

This gave the following weekly structure

Monday – Saturday she runs ca 45 min easy in the morning.

Monday 12 km run as repeats.

Either run as a hard session as 8 *1500m or a medium session with 3*3000m + a 1500m medium hard run followed by a 1500m run some 20 sec faster. 1 min jogg is always used as rest in these session. The 1500 and 3000 are not accurate distances but crude estimates of the distance run.

Tuesday 60 min easy or 60 min medium.

Wednesday 80 min easy.

Thursday’s sessions are usually run as either a hard session of 50 min hard running or a medium hard session 50 min medium running followed by 10 min in increasing paced finishing with 2 min strong running.

Friday 60 min easy

Saturday 60 min with 40 min medium included.

Sunday run most weeks in this period is about 28km run in about 2 hrs. Just one session on Sundays.

Transition period

The goal for this period was to add ability run relatively fast without straining and at the same time keep her high endurance level.

This period includes a transition to track running. She still ran 170 km most weeks and the 2 hr Sunday run was still there but not every week.

During this period she also moved from the pavement to the gravel on the roads in the forest around where she lives. These roads are covered with snow and used for skiing duringthe winter.

This period started with the inclusion of some drills in hills to get the legs prepaired for faster running. This was quite simple: kneelifts, heelkicks and triplings and was added in small numbers after medium sessions. This was done for a relatively short time during spring.

Susanne competed in two road races (7 and 10km) and one road relays (1900m mostly uphill) during this period. The competitions are treated as hard sessions but no extra resting or adjustment outside that is done.

All during this period she ran two quality endurance sessions weekly. This would typically be 2 medium runs of 35-50 minutes.

Susanne started on the track in the middle of April. In the beginning most sessions on the track were relatively short like 6*200 followed by 30 min hard running or 45 min medium running + 6*200 on track. During this period strides were also added after many of her easy runs.

Later in this period we included a couple of sessions of 20*200 with 200m jog/run as rest. Susanne covered the 200m rest in ca 50-55 seconds. From earlier I used to have 20*200 with 100m run as rest in many of my programs. The increased rest I tried out this year was suggested by Tinman in a exchange of mail we had during the winter. These were not hard sessions to Susanne and she never struggled on these sessions but ran it all controlled. They proved very valuable to her and was a very valuable part in moving to harder track sessions.

During the period was also two fairly hard track sessions. The first one was run in the last part of April and was 2*2000, 2*1500, 2*500 all with 3 min rest. The second was run in the middle of May and was 6*1200 with 400m jogg as rest. The first of these sessions was hard for Susanne while the last one was fairly controlled and proved easier.

The last of these sessions was also a clear sign that the transition period was over. She was ready to go into the next period where track competitions were included..

Competitive season

All the year we have planed for Susanne to be in top shape in the first part of August. This we did without knowing if she would reach the qualifying standard for Helsinki. If she reached it, as she now has, we just wanted our planning to make her ready to run as well as possible in Helsinki.

During the competitive season the schedule is set up to fit her racing keeping the overriding goal in sight all the time. It is impossible to give a standardised program during this period.

By end of May she ran a 1500m by her self in 4.21.

To give you an feel of her training in this period I give some examples.

Monday 23.05.05:

Am 10 km easy.

Pm 16 km progressive hard run. Started at 3.35 and ended up running 11 min at ca 3.20 pace (on gravel road). 4 * 100 m. strides in spikes. Jog before and after ca 2 km each.

Tuesday 24.05.05:

Am 10 km easy.

Pm 14 km easy + 6 * 100 m strides i spikes.

Wednesday 25.05.05:

Am 10 km easy.

PM 13 km easy.

Thursday 26.05.05:

Am 10 km easy some strides

Pm 40 min medium + 6 * 200 m. Cut down from 34 to 30. 200m jog as rest. 3 km jog before and after.

Friday 27.05.05:

Am 10 km easy.

Pm 13 km easy + 6 * 100 m strides in spikes.

Saturday 28.05.05:

Am 9 km easy + short strides.

Pm 2000 m - 1600 m - 1200 m - 800 m - 400 m 400m jog in 2min 25 sec as rest..

( 6.02,8 - 4.48,6 - 3.33,1 - 2.19,2 – 65,1 )

3,5 km jog before and after.

(Hard workout moved to Saturday to fit racing plan)

Sunday 29.05.05.

20 km very easy in 94 min.

This week was essentially copied on the week staring at 20th of June.

Her times on the Monday run was in general 3-5 sec faster pr km, while her times on Saturday now was 5.56 - 4.43 – 3.28 - 2.16 -64 Rest wasnow 3 min.

Another example:

Monday 4.07.05:

Am 10 km easy.

Pm 13 km progressive medium run. Started at 3.45 and ended up running 11 min at ca 3.30 pace (on gravel road). 4 * 100 m. strides in spikes. Jog before and after ca 3 km each.

Tuesday 5.07.05:

Am 10 km easy.

Pm 10 km easy + 6 * 100 m strides i spikes.

Wednesday 6.07.05:

Am 9 km easy.

PM 10 km easy.

Thursday 7.07.05:

Am No running due to travelling

Pm 10 km easy + 8 * 100 m strides in spikes.

Friday 8.07.05:

Am 5 km easy + some easy strides.

Pm 5 000 in Rome 14.53

Saturday 9.07.05:

Am 14 km easy

Pm 14 km easy

Sunday 10.05.05.

28 km easy in 2 hrs

Rest period

Last year this was a month at the end of season with just some easy runs when she felt for it.

KnutK

Great reading, Knut. Very informative, thank you.

Could you please explain the statement you made about Susanne workouts in the base period- that is, her 1500m or 3000m repeats as rough estimates of the distance. Does that mean that she is not running on the track from October until the April? How does she monitor her progress then? Or is it always the same course on the road, wher she does the repeats? What's the pace of those repeats in say, November and then in February/March?

Thanks for explaining.

Ronin

Thanks for a very informative post, and a great read.

These runs are run one of two places.

If there is no snow or ice she will run them in a park in Olso. The course here is around 1450 m I believe but we never meassured it. The finish is slighthly higher than the start. In my earlier post I forgot that about half the distance here is on gravel. We do the sessions here mostky befor x-mas and seldom after x-mas.

After x-mas these sessions are meanly run at these flat road going along the wather. The distance here is probably som 1475 and then 2950 oir something like that, but again this is not accurate.

No Susanne did no track work till early april.

KnutK

Hard work pays off, way too many european "ladies" aren't willing to put in that kind of work, there are tons of talented "ladies", BUT they will only put in 80-110km a week. After all running is very effective, 2hrs a day isn't much if you compare to swimming, cycling and gymnastics.

A runner doesn't need to be professional to compete with the best, 2hrs a day....

She isn't even sponsored by a shoe-company? Is that right?

She could get an international contract now, making some money.

Thank you Knut, I appreciate it.

On the different note, if you don't mind being inquired, what does Susanne do for recovery- i.e. massages, taking supplements (what kind), sauna, ice bath...etc. It's pretty amazing to handle that kind of workload AND (almost) full-time job without injuries and illnesses.

Knut,

Thanks for providing the schedule. It's very interesting reading it and learning from it.

Just a question, does she ever do any hardcore shorter anaerobic intervals at faster than race pace? For example 400's at mile pace? I didn't see any shorter repeats in the schedule at fast paces.

Also how fast are those 20x200's done at? I employ a similar workout in my schedule and it looks about the same as what she does depending on the pace of the repeat.

thanks.

If he took guidance from Tinman it is doubtful that he is having her do sessions like 10x400 at mile pace. Workouts like that will erode her aerobic efficiency. Too many people think that workouts like that are what make faster distance runners. That couldn't be further from the truth. It is the ability to hold a given pace for a long time that is most important for running distance like the 5k-marathon. Workouts like 10x400 at mile pcae will break you down too much. But a simple session of 4x200 at mile pace will make you faster without tearing you down.

Coach Kvalheim:

Thanks for the detailed info on Ms. Wigene's training. I do have one question out of curiousity: If I interpreted correctly, you used to do 20X200 with 100m rest and later increased the rest distance to 200m. Why did you prescribe shorter-than-fast-section recovery distance in the first place? What was the problem, if any noticably, with shorter recovery distance that triggered you to switch? After you "lengthened" the recovery distance, what positive, if any (hopefully), improvement did you experience?

Lydiard himself, and most of his runners but perhaps not all of them, like to just do the recovery jog the same distance as the fast portion. Peter Snell seems to think that this is the way to do it (same distance). Lydiard himself, in fact, was moving more toward taking longer recovery period (as, suggested to him, Morroccans are doing). I would think, with more recovery, you cana run the fast part faster (not necessarily suggesting it though) and also you can maintain this type of workout longer and avoid completing it prematurely. I have discussed this issue with Lydiard himself as well as Dr. Snell and, without the use of any scientific terminology, this may be a better way to approach "anaerobic training".

Any comment from your practical experience?

Bump.

It would be great to have more info, very interesting Mr. Kvalheim.

I promised to give some reaction to some of the commets in this tread so here we go.

I also see there are some new questions asked. I will come to these also but donot know when.

Comments like 14.53 is jogging, 50 sec improvement in 2 years on the 50000m is not improvement, and top 20 is nothing are beyond me (I should probably rather say the people making them are beyond me). I for one is very impressed by Susanne and her running. To me she has run some very good races this year and has improved greatly from last year and the years before that.

ANTON who obviously must be running or coaching on an extremely high level made one comments I will add some remarks to. He states that Susanne cannot run alone. This added requirement to what is needed to be a good runner would certainly change most people’s rankings of runners. As for Susanne she has run 5000m 3 times this year. The fastest was in Rome and she was hanging on to the best of her capability most of the way. In both her 15.05 race in Ostrawa and 14.57 race in Heusden she lead about half the race from some time right after 2000m. In Heusden she took the lead at about 2400m and lead the rest of the race and outsprinted Wami over the last two hundred. While these two performances do not qualify in this new “run alone” category it shows that she is at least capable of running in front and still turn in a good performance. This she has never done before and shows a rather new capability in her.

Norwegian2 states that “Wigene is a huge talent and probably not a product of a special program.” Susanne is obviously very talented. I happen to believe that some of her talent is product of a program. This is not my program but the very sensible training she was exposed to as a young runner in Haugesund under Jon Udal’s coaching. She did achieve good results but not on the expense of her future as a runner and her joy of running and competing. As for me helping Susanne I obviously like to believe that it has been important to her, but I do not believe that I’m the only coach who could have helped her or anything like that.

DONALD DUCK informs us that her training is nothing special and that she still has far to go. I think I agree to both those two statements. I never claimed to be a coach of “special” knowledge or having a secret recipe I can pull out from a drawer or anything like that. I have some experience and use that. I also “steal” from other peoples training when I see or read about things I like and believe would help. I also happen to know some people with good insight I ask questions every now and then. That’s about it.

Susanne is not the worlds best 5000m runner. Both Susanne and I know that. The goal this year has for a long time been to reach the finals in Helsinki. Neither Susanne nor I think this is easy going for her. But we also think it is a realistic goal that is within her capability on a good day. As for years to come we have not started thinking beyond Helsinki so that’s to early to say.

As you have seen by my earlier post some of Sons of Norway’s description of Susanne’s training is partly correct but also somewhat misleading. One statement he/they make is that my program is “Simple and not very sophisticated!” Yes my programs are very simple. I am not a great believer in making simple thing complicated. If simple means get the job done use them even if more complicated means also work.

As to sophisticated to me that is another scale. A program that takes the proper aspect into account and include different aspects of training at the proper time and in the right dose I call sophisticated. I do not know what Sons of Norway means by sophisticated but since an earlier discussion on a Norwegian site gave me the impression that many Norwegian runners equate sophisticated to the use of gadgets to monitor your training I will give some comments on that.

I do not believe that how you control your training has anything to do with how sophisticated you program is.

Susanne uses stopwatch she can save 20 lap times on to time her running. In the program I state what I want to achieve in a session and what effort they are to use. On the day of a session I usually suggests times the session is to be run in, but the effort is the more important. The scale we use on effort is very simple: Easy, medium, and hard. She reports back on her reaction during the sessions. This is most often again very simple statements like: “Felt good, but a little sore in my left calf” to give you the flavour. With Susanne this has gotten the job done so I see no use to change it.

With a few of the other runners I coach we feel a need to use a hart rate monitors. This does not add to the sophistication of the program but for different reasons this have felt helpful for some of them. We simply say something like: easy – stay below 130 medium stay below 150 hard Stay below 170 most of the session but give it what you have at the end. The numbers obviously vary from runner to runner.

Non of my runners use lactate meters. This is not because I ‘m against it or anything like that. If they want to try it out fine. I would have to build some experience with these meters and their results, but that’s fine with me. Again this does not add to sophistication of the program but is just a different gadget to control your training. To the runners using hart rate monitors I still require that they tell me how thing feel during the sessions and this would also be the case if a runner used lactate meter.

Gadget like hart rate monitors or lactate meters are sure no guarantee for success. I’m sure we all have seen many examples of that at least I have. To overstate it a little I would say that if there is something fundamentally wrong with your program gadgets like hart rate monitor and lactate meters will only make your failure a little more expensive.

Sons of Norway also states: “The key for her sucess is the consistent training and patience over years. Mr. Kvalheim have made her thougher, thats is the main difference, not a special program!”.

Susanne has been consistent in her day to day training and she has been consistent over years. This obviously is a very important factor behind her success. These things are a prerequisite for success in our sport but no guarantee for success. There are no simple easy ways to go. It takes lots of running and some of it will be hard and it will take years if you want to reach to a high standard in this sport. We might feel sorry for choosing such a tough sport but that is the way it is. Any coach who tell you differently or who’s program does not reflect this you should question.

The idea that I have made Susanne thougher I do not subscribe to. I have not known Susanne for many years, but after getting to know her outside watching her racing it did not take me very long to realise how tough she is and this I believe is something Susanne always have been. What I have done is challenging her every now and then and what you see today in races is her reaction to hose challenges in day to day training.

As to if our program is a success or not I will just say that I am not overly concerned about what anonymous posters on “lets run” or other sites mean about this. If my goal was to get a good “ranking on these sites I would certainly not been a club coach but either tried to build a group consisting just of athletes I consider having high talent and stay outside the club system or I would have tried to become a national coach. I do what I do because it is fun and I enjoy working with serious runners of all quality and try to help them. When something like Susanne comes around it is great for the whole group and it gives us all great inspiration to see what she achieves. The ultimate judge of the success of a program is the stop watch and the only opinion that really matters are the opinions of the runners themselves. So comments to whether the program is a success or not I will not go into outside one aspects that has been mentioned. This is the injuries we have had and I agree we have had far to many injuries in the group.

First I will qualify this a little. My son. ran very well at the beginning of the season but has not raced a lot since beginning of June. This is not due to an injury but rather from some kind of allergic reaction that also has . The same is true to the other girl in the group but she never got any good racing done. For these two injuries have not been a part of not racing to their ability.

I have been asking myself what aspects of the program that has brought this situation. Injuries has never taken out many runners from my programs before so it is natural that I look at new aspect of the program that might have contributed. I have not reached any final conclusions o this yet but there seem to be two main factors. One is that people tend to get injured when they change shoes and the other is that for the first time in my coaching career I have asked people to run sessions on the track without spikes. So far it seems to me that in most cases the injuries in our group has happened after one of these two things.

KnutK

She has done one session of 15*400m in 69 with 50 sec rest.

She started out running her 20*200 in ca 33 sec, but later started in 32 and gradually ran them down to 31 and right under.

I must point out that she never struggeled under these sessions. We did not see them as hard sessions. Her running form was always smooth and it was definitaly what you call "hardcore shorter anaerobic intervals" even though they were faster than race pace. One aspect of these sessions I noticed is that the higher your aerobic base is the more valuable they seem to be. I now believe that runners with lower aerobic base should probably run longer in their rest period.

KnutK

Like I stated my decision to increase the rest period was after an mail discussion with Tinman. The descission was made from the fact that when we used 100m jog as rest this was a hard session and after a while it took away some of the edge in the aerobic work done in the days that followed.

By increasing the rest period it is not a hard session but she runs a considerable distance faster than her current 1500m speed all through the session her running is smooth and relaxed. She has not run an all out 1500 this year, but it seems to me that she has improve drastically on that distance since she easily runs 4.13 and obviously can run a lot faster. Still 4.13 is a 4 sec pr from before. This prograss I think theses 200m has contributed to.

KnutK