The Distance vs. Intensity Debate

Anyone who has been running a while knows of the multitude of training models out there. New theories are seemingly introduced daily, so there is a lot of information to sort through. Until I recently read this active.com article, I didn't realize there was actually a debate: high-mileage vs. high-intensity training for endurance runners. In the study that is reviewed in this article, the "threshold" runners, who did an ubelievable amount of high intensity running each week (but only one more threshold run than the control), did not improve their 10k times by as much as the control group, although both groups improved. They were probably overtrained! Charlie and I were recently discussing the merits of track workouts at this point in the season. In my mind, they have several benefits: work on lactate clearance, VO2max, running economy, form, AND I get to run with people-- very motivating (and that psychological aspect is huge). But are they really beneficial to an Ironman athlete?

This is a great article about Ironman marathon training, by Kevin Moats, who is a Hawaii age-group winner. I love this training plan partly because I have done very similar programs to this over the years and partly because it involves running just 4 times per week. Of course, this is for the race season. In another article, he talks about off-season running, specifically training for a late spring marathon. He incorporates 2 higher intensity workouts per week, and it doesn't seem to hurt him in his "base" training. In fact, I found the following in an article, on the CrucibleFitness.com website, about off-season training:

"Base building training and lactate threshold training are not mutually exclusive. They exist along the same range of ways to invest your training time, with LT on the short end and base training on the longer, higher volume end. In a perfect world we would be able to put in large aerobic volume during the off-season. However, REALITY is winter, indoors, family, holidays, and an upcoming 6-9 month training season. Reality dictates that you adopt a training method that is extremely time efficient and does make you faster. Interval training at or near lactate threshold fulfills these requirements."

I think the problem with too much intensity in the off-season would be the increased chance of injury or overtraining; oh yeah, and burnout (there's that psychological part again). For people who have a large base and have been running for many years, I don't see that this would be too much of an issue, unless intensity and mileage were both increased quickly and simultaneously. As far as the burnout is concerned, I follow the rule in the off-season (or this early in the season before my November Ironman), that if I don't feel like doing a workout, I don't do it. I make sure to enjoy it.

In the end, you really have to (figure out and) do what works for you. Of course if you don't know what works for you because you haven't ever tried to reach this particular goal before, or you have tried and failed, you may be looking for other options. Just trust your body, and don't forget to recover and sleep!