W40 miler Aeron Arlin Genet made a big splash in 2008.  Now we know her secrets. Her old coach, Joe Rubio, stole the best ideas from a book called  “Better Training for Distance Runners” by Dr. David Martin and Peter Coe (Seb’s dad). Coach Ross Dunton found a long discussion of Aeron’s training and sent it out in his newsletter last week. It’s reproduced (in part) below. Joe wrote: “These real-life examples illustrate pretty clearly that, even though there is a significant difference between a mile and a marathon, the training programs for each contain the same training elements.These real-life examples illustrate pretty clearly that, even though there is a significant difference between a mile and a marathon, the training programs for each contain the same training elements.” Joe’s philosophy also is summarized here.

Here is Joe’s section on Aeron:

In the fall of 2002 and spring of 2003, I had the pleasure of working with a female middle-distance athlete named Aeron Genet. Aeron ran for Cal Poly at San Luis Obispo in the late 1980s, focusing on the 400 and 800 meters.

She was a solid runner, garnering NCAA Division II All-American honors in the 4 X 400-meter relay, 800 meters, and 1,500 meters in her senior year. When she finished her eligibility, she did what most college athletes do: She stopped competing.

Eleven years later, she watched the 2000 U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials in Sacramento and decided that she wanted to qualify for the 2004 edition.

This was an athlete who had become quite a surfer in the decade-plus since college but had not run much during this time. She decided that she wanted to become a miler. She ran cross country events in the fall of 2000 and followed that up with a full track season in the spring of 200l. That year, she recorded a best of 4:27 for 1,500 meters (approximately a 4:47 mile). Not a bad start.

In the fall of 2001, she decided that racing and training for cross country was not much fun; coaching high school kids and watching them hurt instead seemed like a better option than toiling in the mud and slop herself. She did little serious training from June of 2001 through February of 2002. She was running a bit to stay in some sort of shape, but there was very little intense training — anything in the anaerobic-conditioning, aerobic-capacity, or anaerobic-capacity zones — to speak of in her fall or winter program.

In February, with track season looming a month away, she started working out on the track with zeal. She performed workouts consisting mostly of fast 200s, 300s, and 400s. She did very few 800s, 1,000s, or mile intervals at 5K to 10K race pace.

Her long runs amounted to roughly 70 to 80 minutes; double days and tempo runs were not a part of her program. Focusing primarily on the single training element of 200s, 300s, and 400s at faster than 5K pace, she ran 4:34 for her best 1,500m of the 2002 season (approximately a 4:54 mile), seven seconds slower than the year before.

Aeron and I sat down during the summer of 2002 and came up with a routine of workouts for September 2002 through March of 2003. Mainly, we addressed the components that were missing from her previous season. First, we scheduled consistent workouts of mile intervals, 1,000s, or 800s at 5K to 10K race pace. A sprinter at heart, Aeron didn’t like these workouts at all, but she ran them.

Next, I asked her to add a second workout, an easy run, several days a week. She didn’t like this idea either, but again, she followed through. The duration of these easy morning runs started at 20 minutes so that Aeron could comfortably establish them in her training routine, and eventually she worked up to 30 to 40 minutes consistently.

Additionally, we scheduled a tempo run every week or two. These she absolutely hated, but again, she did them anyway. Added to these new elements were the familiar workouts she loved, such as 200s, 300s, and 400s at faster than 5K race pace.

Given that Aeron was shooting for a fast mile, her 200s, 300s, and 400s were run at 1,500-meter race pace, and she occasionally added 200s at 800-meter race pace. In addition to the 800s, 1,000s, or 1,600s at 5K to 10K race pace, the double days, the tempo run, and the middle distance-specific pace work at faster than 5K race pace, she included a standard Sunday long run of 90 to 105 minutes.

We scheduled runs of 45 to 90 minutes the other days of the week and scheduled a recovery day every Thursday or Friday, which amounted to one or possibly two easy runs of 20 to 40 minutes followed by light strides. In some cases it was a complete day off.
 
After following this revised training schedule for seven months, Aeron ran her first 1,500-meter race of the year in 4:22. Although there were slight modifications in the scheduled workouts to account for increases in fitness level, the six training elements remained the cornerstone of her training program.

This personal-best performance — a good 14 seconds faster than her time from nine months earlier-was enough to win her heat of the prestigious Stanford Invitational. This was also her first victory ever at 1,500 meters, which enhanced her confidence greatly and showed that her training was on the right path. She would continue to improve to 4:18.10 by July, falling short of the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials B qualifying standard by just 0.60 seconds.

She continued training in this fashion, and in 2004 she made the Olympic Trials B standard with a 4:15 performance at the 2004 Stanford Invitational, an improvement of seven seconds from the previous season as well as another three-second PR.

The lesson? The elements I had used to run my personal marathon best were the same elements that Aeron used to run her personal best at 1,500 meters. Even though there was a difference of more than 25 miles (40 kilometers) in our respective race distances, our personal-best performances were the result of the same six training elements.

During the same time that I worked with Aeron, I was also fortunate to work with two athletes pointing toward the 2003 W odd Track and Field Championships in Paris. Jill Gaitenby (now Jill Boaz) and Linda Somers Smith were both scheduled to represent the United States in the marathon. In setting up their training schedules, I took the schedule that had brought me marathon success and incorporated much of what Jill had learned from her time in the Fila Discovery Program.

The training used in the Fila program was a carbon copy of the training that many of Kenya’s top marathoners used to achieve their success. In the Fila program, a few basic workouts form the backbone of the training. One of the primary harder workouts was “minutes” -60-second repetitions at faster than 5K race pace followed by a 60-second recovery, which addressed anaerobic capacity.

They also performed 1K, 2K, 3K, or 5K intervals at roughly 5K to 10K race pace, thereby addressing aerobic capacity. “Progression runs” in which athletes ran each 5K segment of a 14- to 22-miler (23- to 35-kilometer run) at an ever-increasing pace, covering the last 5K at a fast clip, increased anaerobic conditioning. Double days were scheduled most days of the week.

I modified Jill’s program slightly so that it fit the parameters of my training scheme. I included her previous training elements of 1K and 2K intervals at 5K to 10K pace. Some days, Linda and Jill ran these repetitions on the track, while on other days they ran them on a 900-meter dirt field known as “the cornfield.” At other times, Jill ran this workout as a fartlek, or variable-pace run, on dirt trails or roads.

To accommodate the “minutes,” some weeks Jill and Linda ran 400s at faster than 5K race pace on the track, while in other weeks Jill ran her minutes on a road or on the trails in a local state park. Linda and Jill also ran 14- to 16-mile (23- to 26-kilometer), and sometimes even 20-mile (32-kilometer), progressive tempo runs.

On most weekends that didn’t include a progressive long run, they ran a standard Sunday long run of 18 to 22 miles (29 to 35 kilometers). The remaining workouts of the week were usually 45 – to 90-minute runs, plus a second run most days of the week. Finally, I included a recovery day in Jill’s training-one that had not been scheduled during her time in the Fila program.
 

To review, Linda and Jill’s training schedule included the following training elements:
         1. A weekly long run of 90 to 120 minutes
         2. General training runs of 45 to 90 minutes and consistent double days
         3. Progressive tempo runs
         4. Intervals of 1K to 2K at 5K to 10K pace
         5. “Minutes” or 400s at faster than 5K pace
         6. A recovery day each week
 

Jill used this schedule-which was based on the same elements that Aeron used to run her 1,500-meter personal best and that I used to run my marathon best-for about two months, following this with a three-week taper. She finished as the top American in the World Championship field in 2:34:54, a new personal record by 90 seconds.

Linda had a very strong performance as well, finishing as the second American with a 2:37:14, her fastest time in nearly five years at the age of 42 and following several years of injury. Here are Linda’s thoughts on the effectiveness of the training program:

More important, after five years of on-and-off injury, the program allowed me to train injury free for almost two years, which is a good point to make-getting to the starting line healthy is the primary goal for any runner, regardless of any other goal.

These real-life examples illustrate pretty clearly that, even though there is a significant difference between a mile and a marathon, the training programs for each contain the same training elements. And in the case of these three national-class athletes, combining these elements resulted in solid race performances.
 
Many distance runners try to make training infinitely more complex than it needs to be. However, successful training is surprisingly similar across the spectrum of distances from 1,500 meters to 3,000 meters to 5K to 10K to the half-marathon to the marathon.

The six elements form the cornerstone of all successful competitive distance runners’ training. If you get these right, rest assured that you are training as a majority of Olympians do. Miss one of them and you are, in effect, missing at least half the puzzle.

In my case, I slowed by 19 minutes — about 45 seconds a mile — in the marathon by leaving out the progressive tempo run.

 In Aeron’s case, she ran 18 seconds slower for 1,500 meters by focusing her training almost exclusively on the single element of 200-, 300-, and 400-meter repetitions at faster than 5K pace. If you start with these six elements and then branch out from there with solid ancillary training such as plyometrics (chapter 1), weight training (chapters 5 and 6), range-of-motion exercises (chapter 4), and so on, you can expect to race very well.