Yeah why do people just assume downhill like he went and did this at CIM or something?
By the way, CIM is net downhill but with the overall profile of up and down, it would be faster if it were flat. You don’t gain as much on downhills as you lose on uphills..
No. That is not how physics works. If a course is a huge net downhill (not necessarily CIM or Boston but like one of those Revel races) it will be faster and require less work output....even if it has some little rolling uphills in the middle. Now Boston is a "harder" course than CIM, but it can still be pretty fast....especially if you have good weather and a tailwind (which is actually kind of rare these days). Sure, hills cost you (especially the uphills) and the downhill gains are marginal. But CIM is a faster course than Chicago (depends on the runner a bit too and if they have trained for some hills). A lot with point-to-point courses depend on the wind vectors.
As far as CJ goes, I was amazed to look up that this guys 10km PR was still over 29-minutes? Now I'm obviously not nearly as fast as him at the marathon (my 2:16:52 best from 2011 in old EVA flats), but I did coach myself to getting 16th at Boston....so maybe I can have some input?
What he's doing is pretty insane from a classic marathon training standpoint (and a physiological standpoint given his personal bests). The treadmill runs are one thing...but why risk (what looks like) an all-out marathon race only 3 weeks before Boston? Why not just do a hard 20-22-miler with more pace changes (i.e. 105% MP for 5km repeats within a Long Run)? He seems to be recovering really fast though
Pretty close… exactly. The criticism is many think CJs is pretty much a race effort. Trust me with the money available to coaches, agents and runners if doing two hard marathons in a month was optimal we’d have seen plenty of Canova-trained runners do it with them running two spring or two fall Marathons. So my thought again is not that CJ is insane, but maybe he’s gone a little harder than he should. I’m sure he’ll be fine however.
So the local guy who’s been running for two years, never on a team but hired a coach six months ago…. Who is now a coach himself after reading Daniels once and completing VDOT certification…. Is not a good guy to hire as a coach?
It would depend on the guy of course, you've got the odd Peter Coe, but he'd probably not be my choice. If this guy presumed to know more about the sport than someone who's qualified for an Olympic trial, placed well in a major race or two, has nationally ranked times, or who has coached others who've accomplished things like this, not at all.
I forgot the /s but I appreciate the response. Just highlighting the fact that everyone is an expert.
As it applies to this situation, I’m comfortable saying it’s unorthodox and I wouldn’t risk that effort myself. I think he’ll have a solid showing at Boston that will not be negatively effected by this race
By the way, CIM is net downhill but with the overall profile of up and down, it would be faster if it were flat. You don’t gain as much on downhills as you lose on uphills..
No. That is not how physics works. If a course is a huge net downhill (not necessarily CIM or Boston but like one of those Revel races) it will be faster and require less work output....even if it has some little rolling uphills in the middle. Now Boston is a "harder" course than CIM, but it can still be pretty fast....especially if you have good weather and a tailwind (which is actually kind of rare these days). Sure, hills cost you (especially the uphills) and the downhill gains are marginal. But CIM is a faster course than Chicago (depends on the runner a bit too and if they have trained for some hills). A lot with point-to-point courses depend on the wind vectors.
As far as CJ goes, I was amazed to look up that this guys 10km PR was still over 29-minutes? Now I'm obviously not nearly as fast as him at the marathon (my 2:16:52 best from 2011 in old EVA flats), but I did coach myself to getting 16th at Boston....so maybe I can have some input?
What he's doing is pretty insane from a classic marathon training standpoint (and a physiological standpoint given his personal bests). The treadmill runs are one thing...but why risk (what looks like) an all-out marathon race only 3 weeks before Boston? Why not just do a hard 20-22-miler with more pace changes (i.e. 105% MP for 5km repeats within a Long Run)? He seems to be recovering really fast though
You are a smart person, and much respect to you for your running accomplishments and way you handle everything- fans, ridiculous detractors, adversity, all of it.
Do you agree that there must be a way to quantify the effect of elevation changes? Of course individual performance varies, but is there a way to express the effect of an elevation profile? We know that you don’t get as much benefit from downhill as you lose from uphill, agreed? so at what point does the slowing effect of X amount of up offset the benefits of Y downhill? We know that x is less than y.
Any attempts to answer this question by ignoring elevation and instead using results, that does not factor in the effects of wind, temperature, and humidity, will be way off (unless we get lucky and the weather was exactly the same for all races analyzed).
The thing about being orthodox is that it cuts way down on innovation and can stuff an athlete into a box that maybe isn't the best fit for him individually. All of what we read about training and race preparation now suggests a particular model that's "correct" (yeah there are various takes on what "correct" is supposed to look like) and the idea is to have the athlete follow that model.
But the idea here is that by and large everyone will respond optimally to the model. It doesn't really allow for individual differences. The art of coaching, or of self coaching, is not just about learning all these good ways to train and maybe about the physiology behind them, but also learning about the individual athlete.
Lydiard used to prescribe a hard marathon time trial three weeks before your marathon so what Albertson did is not unprecedented. Over time people got away from doing that at the full distance but good marathons have been run that way. Yes, for some people it's probably too hard and too close to the race but there are likely some people for whom it's a good idea. And the only way to know if something like this is a good idea for a particular athlete is to try it.
Maybe it flops, maybe it goes great, but either way you've learned something for future races. But a lot of people who post here with their ideas and critiques of other's training and racing don't seem to understand anything other than what they learned from reading things like Daniels, some articles, etc. so you find posts where people will look at guys like Ryun or Clayton and say "Think how fast they'd have been if they'd trained properly."
All which lends itself to the idea that reading a book and taking a certification exam is far from a qualifier to being a coach: it involves much more experience and is very nuanced. It shouldn’t be taken lightly if this sport is something you or your athletes care about. I know that CJs approach is not for me, but I don’t know what’s right for him. Neither do the rest of the posters here
All which lends itself to the idea that reading a book and taking a certification exam is far from a qualifier to being a coach: it involves much more experience and is very nuanced. It shouldn’t be taken lightly if this sport is something you or your athletes care about. I know that CJs approach is not for me, but I don’t know what’s right for him. Neither do the rest of the posters here
Pretty close… exactly. The criticism is many think CJs is pretty much a race effort. Trust me with the money available to coaches, agents and runners if doing two hard marathons in a month was optimal we’d have seen plenty of Canova-trained runners do it with them running two spring or two fall Marathons. So my thought again is not that CJ is insane, but maybe he’s gone a little harder than he should. I’m sure he’ll be fine however.
Usually their appearance contract says they can't race another marathon for a period of time before and after. Maybe that norm will change in the future... we already saw Bekele do it last fall.
CJ Albertson, a professional athlete from Fresno, has been reinstated as the winner of the 2022 Modesto Marathon. Albertson, winner of the last in-person Modesto Marathon in 2019, was following a Modesto Police Department mot...
You are a smart person, and much respect to you for your running accomplishments and way you handle everything- fans, ridiculous detractors, adversity, all of it.
no
no one who is actually smart chooses to spend their entire adult life being a running bun
Love the EVA shoes humble brag! Based on his splits and running post-race this was clearly not an all-out effort. I'm not saying this was particularly the smartest idea 3 weeks out, but I would argue that if we had more public training insight into top marathoners, we would see similar stuff.
I'm personally not a big fan of the idea given how I know my body would respond, but if it works for CJ and he knows he can recover from it in time then more power to him. As Sage mentioned I'm not sure why he just didn't do something like a 20 miler at roughly goal pace (which even then is a little aggressive for my liking), but at the very least this has to be a huge confidence booster leading into the marathon knowing that he can run sub 2:11 without tapering.
The main reason why I don't like this for him is that it gives him an out if he blows up at Boston. But I'm sure we'll give him a lot of grief on here if that happens ;)
Usually their appearance contract says they can't race another marathon for a period of time before and after. Maybe that norm will change in the future... we already saw Bekele do it last fall.
Yeah I know there's definitely a belief with the supershoes that you can race more. You see this at more like doing a marathon and then tackling one just 8-10 weeks later. I don't think 3-4 weeks between will ever be conventional ~ Renato hard effort notwithstanding. But CJ is unorthodox, and he bounces back quick.
