Training with no continuous runs, all intervals

I suggest you research the training of the only USA athlete to win Olympic Gold.

Edit: sorry, I meant the only USA athlete to win Olympic Gold in the 5000m, Bob Schul.

Bump. My thoughts are this depends on the event and could be ideal for a 400/800 runner, a lower mileage type with good speed. Also interested in other peoples thoughts. Traditionally, the best milers seem to put in solid mileage. Probably lots of strides and hills, things like 10-20x100m on easy days with a short 1-3 mile warm up and cool down could work, maybe higher volumes of cross training and lifting to make up for the lost mileage benefits? Aerobic capacity, durability, etc?

The interval is the rest period between efforts. A training plan consisting of "all intervals" would literally be all rest...

Yeah this type of stuff was popular for a while and you get things like 60x400. Lots of volume and MP type pace gets you in good shape. But you could also just do you distance runs.

It should work.

The best training is the one that you will actually do.

So if an athlete loves doing intervals only and is actively getting better numbers over time, id say keep at it, just make sure that progress is being made.

I did think about Igloi style training but I thought they did some slower intervals as basically a continuous tempo runs because they jog the rest interval. I'm talking about replacing easy runs with some equivalent effort where you run no rep longer than like 1200m (maybe a mile but that's pushing a continuous run honestly), then you stop or walk for a bit and then go again. If that actually is how old school Igloi training was then I'd like to know more!

I dropped the long run completely and my 5k stayed the same. Probably could drop down to 5 miles but I'd have to double.

Training specificity and injury risk concerns would say No.

Yeah, do you really think you are the first person to think of this?

Hint: it works, just not as well as "modern" training, otherwise we would have kept doing it.

Read something about Igloi or Zátopek

I don't know why people down vote this. You're right, it's true. The interval in interval training is the rest period between reps.

They downvote because its pedantic.

It can work. It does work. The key is that you have to be disciplined about the effort. Read up on Igloi, Zatopek, and Gerschler. Get Klaas Lok's "Easy Interval Method" and Bob Schul's "Speedwork for Distance Training".

Personally, I feel like such a plan can work effectively for people racing 5K and under if done correctly. Beyond that, you have to adapt some of Lydiard's thinking about long sustained efforts to succeed.

Well, although you are technically correct, you're probably getting voted down because you came across as a know-it-all.

Interesting. I hadn't actually intended to try this out but maybe I will if there are good books to use as guides. Everything I've seen about Igloi intervals is interesting but I would never be able to implement it on my own because the terminology is so specific and I just wouldn't be able to plan out sessions that well on my own.

As others have said, this sort of thing has been done before with varying degrees of success. Before 1960 or so it was very common for people to do almost nothing but intervals. I'm not going to do this, but somewhere online, maybe even here, someone put a copy of Fred Wilt's "How They Train; One to Six Miles." If you can find it you'll see a lot of samples of people who trained that way. I trained that way in my early years.

So much of that changed with Lydiard I think for the most part because his approach was more successful than the "nearly all intervals all the time approach." Schul's Olympic gold was one of the last hurrah's for that approach. Tracy Smith made the US Olympic team in 1968 training mostly on intervals. Mark Covert had a pretty good college career and got close to making the '72 Olympics in the marathon on an interval heavy approach. But I think as time went on most people found that they ran faster and enjoyed training more by doing steady runs with some interval work in the mix.

A big problem I see with interval work is that it's very tempting to turn every session into a race. You're timing nearly everything and it's discouraging when you're getting splits that aren't as fast as they were the last time you did this session so you push yourself a little harder to get the times you want. But I do think if you really understand training principles you should be able to put together a successful program where you're doing almost nothing but interval sessions.

this wanders towards my general critique of mileage obsessives. while he occasionally does a 3200 or 3k race, the kid generally specializes in running the 1500 or mile. why does he need to run more than 7 miles at a time?

my theory is work ethic concepts maybe work game/meet 1 when teams have differential fitness. by a week or two into competition x and y running mileage cancels out as teams that eased into the season get fit. "oh, but the taper." you mean when you run less you magically do better? hmmm.

it also comes across to me as trading early season success for health and success at the end.

Not sure what the question is as the intensity hasn’t been defined.

Are the intervals being run at a pace that means the run is shorter than otherwise? Or is this a means to run longer?
Is the pace under aerobic threshold or above?

I never do a continuous run, as every run has at least 3 or 4 traffic stops, plus maybe a stop for a pee, drink etc.