Clayton Young & Connor Mantz's Fatigued Mile Repeat Workout

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bump..bump...bump.....bump....SOMEONE PAVE THE ROAD WILL YA!!!!

And they're at 4600 ft altitude, warm temps. Very strong workout. Maybe preparing for an extended surge in the later miles to pick off the maximum amount of casualties from the early lead pack. Do they have a site to take questions about their training?

They're practicing running hard while tired AKA building strength and teach the body to recover on the go. It's a great marathon workout.. some people do 5k workouts with 4k of threshold and then 10x400 at race pace to practice running tired. It's a common move. Their's just seems more epic because it's more volume

It is hard to simulate the marathon race condition of needing to perform at or above MP after having already run 10 or 20 miles of MP, except by running a whole damn marathon. One way to try to get around needing to run a whole damn marathon to do highly race-specific marathon training is to introduce substantial fatigue with a long segment of threshold pace running, followed by mile repeats faster than MP.

Will this workout accomplish what it's trying to do? Well, considering Mantz and Young finished 1-2 in the Olympic trials, it might!

Can you adapt this workout to shorter distances? Undoubtedly, although race conditions for shorter distances aren't nearly so hard so simulate. 3 miles T + 4 x 200 isn't exactly a big secret.

For them that's not very hard- almost a maintenance workout. All out in the 8 miler, they can avg 40 secs/mile faster. Mile repeats, they can go minimum 15 secs faster if going hard.

Just read they were at 4800 ft altitude. So I'll edit a little. But still believe they could go faster.

They have done it across multiple of Clayton's videos.

Gut tells me it serves Clayton more than Connor, as Connor's decisions and ability are unchanged regardless of how he feels. As evidenced by his return from injury and running the US 10000m trials mid-training no taper. Clayton is the more likely athlete in need of making the practices harder than the games, as his ability to outperform expectations in Paris will rely on "feeling" good to go with the moves of the 2nd pack.

I still maintain the both odds for both of them rest with forming and maintaining a deliberate reserved chase pack that works as a collective and runs down the bronze runner that falls off the leaders after 30-35k.

No. Clayton Young is not running 3 x mile in under 4:05 at 4,500 feet.

Believe it or not you needn't fabricate a sciolistic "reason" for every training session.

For the marathon in particular, as one poster already acknowledged, this can be a useful approach for running a type of specific intensity after accumulating fatigue.

This isn’t necessarily a workout focusing on marathon intensity but can serve as valuable training tool by doing a certain amount of “work” and then running a type of intensity specific to the race being prepared for.

It reminds me a bit of cycling long ride workouts where riders will accumulate “kilojoules” of work and then do a hard climb once they’re fatigued. In running it’s harder to try and gauge that type of energy expenditure.

I have athletes I work with do a similar sort of session for marathon prep, getting a specific type of exertion done like 5 miles warm up, 2 x 4 Miles at Marathon to slightly slower than marathon with 1 mile moderate between, then 2-3 x 1 Mile at Marathon Pace to slightly faster. Worth noting we’re also around 5k feet.

Another session I’ve had people do is longer warm up Then 2 sets of: 4mi @ Marathon, 4mi of :30 hard / 1:00 float. To be able to do specific types of quality responding to surges later in a race type environment.

It is not just about training the body to go when it is tired but also training the mind . ( Dellinger's callousing effect) Part of having the confidence to really push hard in a race is knowing you can do it because you have already done it. You don't have to think about it you just automatically go. Less mental stress/ glucose brain expenditure thinking about it I would imagine..

Imagine a miler or 5k guy doing like a 4 mi tempo the. 4x200 at faster than race pace. This is exactly what they did but more tailored for the marathon.

Yeah so? Eyestone and others routinely did workouts like this in the 80's.

If you look up sweat elite’s video of canova’s special block, he does something similar

5:19 isnt their threshold pace and 4 min isnt full recovery!