Before I begin, let me note that this is not a knock on anyone in particular. I've subscribed to this myth in the past, and may in future succumb to the tendency again.
What I call the workout myth is the belief that afflicts all runners some of the time (and some runners all of the time, with a nod to Bob Dylan's Talkin' World War III Blues where I first heard this general phrase) that the way to improve is to drop some hard workouts into their week. 400s with short recovery, after not doing anything quickly for months. The qualification is crucial. Sometimes 400s with short recovery or long recovery are just the thing you need—I know I neglected them a little last year. The workout myth is this, that when you're unfit the way to get fitter quickly is to do some intervals.
As I say, I've done that. Here's my example of falling prey to the workout myth. After getting my weekly mileage up into the 70s in summer 2003, owing to the demands of travel and study my weekly mileage fell back to 30-50 for about six months. Sad story, weight increased, times went up. When I got back into it I threw myself into six weeks of winter base training moving the long run from 1:30 to 2:10 in 3 weeks, weekly mileage from 40 to 75 in a couple of weeks, and some "run to the barn" tempo runs. Good standard base building stuff, which I did because I know that "rule" about adding 10% a week to be too conservative. Then I had two weeks back at 50 miles, and my first race back was over 20km where I didn't run anything outstanding, but did run the same pace I'd been racing 5km at just two or three months earlier. Now, here's how the workout myth starts. I thought, "wow, that was decent with six weeks of base, what could I do if I did some speedwork?"
So I added some speedwork, VO2 max stuff like 8 x 3 minutes with 2 minute recoveries, and 15 x 1 minute with even recoveries. This was April/May in Minnesota where you know that you have the most ideal racing weather you're going to get until that 10 day stretch that surrounds the Twin Cities marathon. To accommodate the fatigue of doing this speedwork and trying to race at least every 2nd weekend the mileage stopped going up. It fell back into the 60s. It's not like I was racing well, relative to the benchmark I'd set at the 20km race I was doing worse every time.
I persisted with this foolery for a couple of months, before realizing what I was doing, put in three 75-85 mile weeks with only tempo runs, and was instantly rewarded with taking a minute off my season's best for 10km. Of course, the VO2 stuff was ultimately helpful, once I'd done the mileage. I was certainly doing better with my 60 miles and crappy workouts than I was with 35 miles and no workouts.
It's easy to fall into the workout myth, I did it just two short months after reading Lydiard. How quickly fools forget what they read. The workout myth is similar to the idea that you can spend money to advance a little quicker. The joy of running is that it's so simple, and that up to a point you can probably get the most out of your natural abilities by just going out and piling up the mileage. And in the miles you spend by yourself in that very simplicity you start to wonder if you couldn't get just a little better by doing something more complicated. More complicated, more structured must be better, no? Well, actually, no. Not all the time. Not to mention that workouts sound organized and precise, like you're more in control of your training. It's just not nearly as remarkable to say that your plans for the next 10 weeks are to gradually increase your mileage, and throw in some strides and fartlek when you feel good.
The other irony of adding in workouts is this, unless you fold them into a normal, everyday, training run out on the roads, trails and bikepaths they can be a lot more time consuming. All the time you spend driving to the track (if you have to), changing into spikes (if you want to), etc ... it all adds up to maybe 10 extra easy miles a week you could have run.
So, I hope that when I next am recovering from unfitness and get to that point after a few weeks of rebuilding the miles and think "What could I do if I added workouts?" that I pause and remember that the question should probably be "How long should I keep building my miles for?"
Posted by robe0419 at March 16, 2006 3:59 PM