Coaching Overview

Welcome

Welcome to the Iceberg Training Team and thank you for trusting me to guide you on your journey, no matter which level of service you have joined. This page is a more readable version of the training overview and charts included in the Athlete Workbook. I also intend for it to be a little more dynamic with references/resources than the athlete workbook will be. 

Welcome to the Iceberg Training Team and my 2023 coaching season. For coaching is influenced by the teachings of Arthur Lydiard and Greg McMillan. McMillan was the first coaching philosophy that drew me in. I found it approachable and flexible. He would simplify the complex science of it all. Interestingly enough, I'd later learn that McMillan was directly influenced by Lydiard. Lydiard is considered the father of modern coaching. Without a background in science he applied a fastidious attention to detail, logic, determination, and enthusiasm on his path to knowledge (and tremendous success with his athletes on the world stage) that was incidentally later backed up by thorough scientific evidence.

Five Principals of Training

Here are Lydiard's Five Principals of Training:

Look at the note at the top, schedule/plan's are just a guideline, follow principals, not numbers. Do not try to equate a training day to race day.

DEFINTION TIME: I'm going to use Lydiard's more simplistic definitions of running efforts (via Healthy Intelligent Training by Keith Livingstone) at this time. To help with talking about his principals.

• Aerobic Running: Exercise with oxygen. Running that is at an effort level and heart rate where the oxygen breathed in is more than the enough to supply the demands of the exercise. In practical terms, this sort of running can be maintained for many minutes or hours in a fit athlete. At slow rates, body fats (fatty acids) are used more as fuel. At faster speeds more carbohydrates are used. Fat fuels are abundant in the body, whereas carbohydrate stores are far more limited.

  • Aerobic capacity takes the longest to develop; but once developed it will not disappear quickly. Need to prepare you legs to handle race-specific training without breaking down. 

• Anaerobic Running: Running that is at a higher effort level where the blood supply and oxygen delivery are insufficient to meet all the demands of the exercise. Fuel is used without oxygen, but acidic by-products build up that eventually stop the exercise. This can happen very rapidly with high intensity running or build up gradually with very strong running over much longer distances.  

  • Anaerobic capacity and speed can be developed very quickly so we will not work on it until we really need to; and, if we do not continue to work on it, it can deteriorate quickly. We hit it with a short phase of specific training, then maintain it through the race-specfic training. 

Principal 1 - Aerobic Conditioning as a Foundation 

This is the most unarguable principal on this list. It's been proven in science and studies of athlete results, in order to maximize aerobic capacity, you need to dedicate a period of time to building it properly. 

You need to build your speed from the bottom up not the top down, meaning you improve it by getting stronger at running at an easy effort over time (lifting with your knees) rather than trying pull it up by doing constant race pace/fast than race pace efforts (lifting with your back). While you may appear to get the job done on a race, you've done it with significantly higher risk of injury and less long term development, as well as setting yourself up for a much quicker plateau. 

On the left are some of the sciency benefits of aerobic training; on the right is the layman's version. Your anaerobic capacity can change by very little, you just fine tune it, the ability to harness that capacity comes on a big foundation of aerobic capacity which lift that peak of the pyramid the greater heights. 

But I wanna race a 5K? That's all running hard! True, the effort will feel hard but look at the chart below, the speed you generate in that race is still 93% reliant on the aerobic system. 

But I wanna race a 5K? That's all running hard! True, the effort will feel hard but look at the chart below, the speed you generate in that race is still 93% reliant on the aerobic system. What we want is to build our training like a pyramid, standing high in the sky with a strong, sturdy base that can grow rather than a narrow tall tower, that looks impressive, but how much duress can it endure?

Principal 3: Feeling-Based Training

Yes I know, I've skipped Principal 2. I felt like it's better to talk about this Principal first. I will provide you guys pace charts/zones, I'll load them into Final Surge, but in the end, the key determinate of how you should run is how you feel. This isn't easy, especially for a new runner, it takes time to develop the internal feedback systems, but once there, they are the most reliable gauge for optimal training. 

All the gizmos we have to give us live data and feedback on our activities are great to help you get a handle on what your body is telling you, but do not become reliant on them, your body is built to provide you the most accurate information. I trust my body during a workout then use Final Surge to see what the outputs were. Pace ranges are guides to fitness, but forcing the body their main ruin the intended purpose of the workout. 

Final Surge can be very useful with this, and I want all runners to get used to doing this, after a run use visit your activity and answer two question: 1) How did I feel? 2) What was my perceived effort? The Final Surge FAQ will tell you to do this. 

A useful source to create the ranking is this modified Borg Scale of relative perceived effort. This is a great tool and you'll find it easily accessible on the Athlete Workbook. 

The reason I will not tell you a specific pace to run comes down to the variables that impact your body throughout the day:

• Quality of sleep

• Meals/nutrition

• Work/life stress

• Lack of recovery from prior workout

• Weather

If I want you to run 1KM intervals I'll typically say it should be a 5K Effort. I want you to run consistent 1KM intervals at a pace you could sustain for a 5KM Race. You slept bad last night though. While you want to be able to pace a 25 minute 5KM Race (intervals at 5:00/km), what feels sustainable is a little slower, so you stare at your watch and push yourself until you see that target you set for yourself. 

Best case scenario here, you see diminishing returns (slower intervals) after a couple intervals of forcing a pace. Worse case scenario you end up with an injury. Overexerting yourself just leads to you feeling shitty and your body not getting the true benefit. Your body isn't looking at a watch, it just knows intensity and duration. So if you are doing a true 5K Effort, you'll still see the physiological benefits that are intended from the workout. It can benefit you to work smarter and not harder. 

The final comment here is also know when to modify or adjust a workout. Back to the comment before the principals, the schedule is a guide, but the athlete needs to know when to make the adjustment to the workout. Visit this training article here for a guide. 

Principal 2 - Response-Regulated Adaptation

This is the trickiest principal, because this blends so closely with Principal 3. While the athlete needs to provide regular feedback (Final Surge - Workout Comments) I also need to assess am I giving you too much workload or too little? Have you had inadequate recovery? While it wasn't in the plan is it time to focus move you into a different training block? It gets easier for me as you develop your feeling- based training.

Principal 4 - Sequential Development

The pure Lydiard model comes back to this prior talk of building your training like a pyramid. He had 5 distinct phases over 24 weeks to get you to peak performance for the key event. Aerobic Conditioning (Aerobic capacity and mileage), Hills (Strength), Anaerobic (Anaerobic Capacity/Speed), Integration (Race-specific training), and Taper (Balancing training and recovery to ensure peak conditioning for event). These phases are also referred to as periodized training. You will also see Health as the absolute base on the pyramid. Useless you dive into a pyramid if you are already injured/unhealthy. 

Now Lydiard was a pretty strict guy. In the overall marathon plan I had for the group in 2022, I set out to run a true pyramid, but ended up a little different:

• 12 weeks of aerobic conditioning - was to bring athletes to Tely 10, wanted to prove fitness had increased for that race just an aerobic capacity (damn heat);

• I cut hills to 2 weeks because we are running in Newfoundland;

• Anaerobic was only 2 weeks as well because as the chart at the top showed, less than 1% of energy used for a marathon is anaerobic, so I decided to reduce the risk of injury; 

• The Integration/Race Specific phase was 6 weeks. I did longer, but less intense anaerobic work along with the marathon simulation runs that I build up over the period of time; 

• Taper/Peak stayed at 2 weeks. 

These changes were made in part because of Principal 2, as well as looking at the needs of the target event. McMillan's books will typically present the plan from the Integration Phase to Race Day. He will then add the necessities to prepare you for race specific training. An athlete with a strong aerobic base may only need 6 to 8 weeks to sharpen it for example. 

My approach to building a training plan is to start at race day, build in proper Tapering, then the Integration phase, and so on back to the beginning of training. Pending the race, I ideally like to have 12 weeks at a minimum to work with. If you are a really good athlete, 6 weeks is sufficient, you have a base, go into Integration. If you ask me for a plan to run a distance you have never run before on 6 weeks notice, you are getting 6 weeks of Aerobic Conditioning to try to get you there without getting hurt.

The key is with each cycle we grow stronger. The classic North American approach of speed work, tempo work, long run each week over time, leads to quicker pleatues and less longevity. I thought I had reached my peak in 2018, but my change in approach in 2022 has me reaching even higher. 

 The images below out line the long term plan/benefits. Pay attention to McMillan's quote.

Principal 5 - Timing

This is just on me to get it right. Good feedback from the athlete will help, and doing the right workouts to get an idea of what you need is big. Fading late in a build up race? I need to get the athlete some more endurance work and steady state runs. Starting out too slow , needing a real long warmup, and before getting to race pace too late? Need to pop in some speed work, shorter race/time trials or low volume intervals. 

Integrating Coach McMillan's Teachings

Overview

Coach Greg McMillan was influenced by many coaches through his development. I thoroughly enjoyed his teachings for blending in a variety of approaches. At his core of his programs though you can see the Lydiard influence and his methods of modernizing the Lydiard approach, one glaringly obvious part is the focus on feeling based running. This really spoke to me when I read McMillan's book for the first time. He wasn't just prescribing one pace to be successful in a workout, he had a pace range because so many variables in a day could impact your performance, but the effort could still be there. 

I've had the chance to meet with McMillan and ask him questions that helped me reconcile both approaches. One of the things that I never comprehended when reading his books prior to doing the Lydiard program, was that the training plans he presents are basically just the race-specific/integration and taper/peaking phase of the pyramid. Elsewhere in his book he presented additional blocks you could add on prior to beginning the "closing plan." Base building, hills, speed, endurance. All the pieces of the Lydiard pyramid are there, he just applies them on as needed basis vs. the perceived rigidness of a Lydiard pyramid. 

In the early phase of a year, or if an athlete has not already gone through a building phase. My focus will look more Lydiard based. Later in a training season adjustments are made to focus on areas that need tuning.  

I also like McMillan's approach to the science of things. Once you understand his graphs, they make a lot of sense. They are dictated by your individual race paces.

I've written an article already explaining this chart and the Pace Zones McMillan uses previously. It also details which zone specific workouts focus on, and if you want to dive into the more science based understanding, visit McMillan's Six Step Training System.

How Will I Use McMillan's Six Steps?

Step 1: Linking the Lab with the Runner & Step 2: The Four Key Training Zones are linked. Step 1 outlines the zones and the physiological responses as you hit them and Step 2 helps you see the purpose of each run. In Final Surge, I use these Zones to sort my workouts and the athletes can see this. Helps make the connection on what I'm trying to accomplish.

Step 3: The McMillan Calculator. This is a key tool of McMillan. It'll help you determine what your various race pace times are, as well as provide a general guide to the paces that put you in each of the Zones based on your current estimated fitness. I use this tool with every single athlete. It'll be part of the intake, it's way I like to have race information. That's our starting point. I'll use the McMillan Calculator (and you can to) to create a spreadsheet that I'll load into your Athlete Workbook. I've detailed this "Pace Chart" below in Other Resources. I've incorporated this into Final Surge as well. 

Step 4: 12 Key Workouts. Detailed in both mine and McMillan's article. All things we see regularly in a training cycle. Just putting them together at the right times. 

Step 5 and Step 6: Building Your Plan Part 1 & 2. A lot of this is athlete knowledge, which is why I have a questionnaire. Final Surge will help me collect chunks of this data as well. The key is flexibility. It's a plan, a plan is only effective until you get punched in the face.  

At the very least, read my article. If you are into the science of it, read the McMillan's. 

Other Resources

Recovery Indicators

Everyone thinks it is the workout that makes you better, but it is the recovery. You put body under duress with the workout, then the recovery period is where your muscles heal stronger than before, with a period of supercompensation. You do this cycle over and over again to make our gains. 

Understanding your recovery is a important thing for the athlete. The image below outlines the 3 easy indicators as well as a whole pile of minor ones. 

Pace Charts

A fantastic tool for runners to measure the their fitness and predict race times is the McMillan Calculator. You enter a recent race time, enter an upcoming race goal time, and you get an estimate of training paces and race predictions. I always use the McMillan Calculator when talking to an athlete about their goals. 

They have a recent 5K and now want have a 10 mile race coming up and want to set a reasonable goal. The output will show us current fitness estimates based on the recent event, and the pacing equivalents required for the target event. From here, as a coach I try to apply the knowledge of my athlete along with factors such time to the event, to determine if this is a reasonable goal or not, and how should I focus their training. 

The calculator will also provide estimates of training paces for the various types on McMillan runs, under 4 main energy zones with nicely simplified names (Endurance, Stamina, Speed, and Sprint). I loved these pacing charts early on in my coaching time because they were a flexible range. They factor in that everyday, isn't an "A-Game" day. Even if you can't achieve a specific pace you can still achieve positive result in a range. 

I personally don't like to even be limited by those ranges as I am strongly behind feeling-based running, but I understand the need for a guide. I do caution the ranges are still most applicable when you hit the Integration/Race-Specific phases of a training plan. 

I've integrated these pace charts into Final Surge to pre-load running zones. I was limited by only being able to put in 5 to 6, and also the Zones can't overlap, so I had to create broader zones and make some assumptions. 

Time spent in zones can be reviewed post run, and I'll look at it again just for simple guidance of how a workout may have gone. I can also pre-prescribe them for a Final Surge workout, but testing that in 2022 created two issues:

1. I say athlete's looking at their watches too much and forcing paces on harder effort workouts; and

2. All the beeping and vibrating notifying you if you are in or out of the zone is really annoying and I personally found it took me out of my run. 

Below is a sample pace chart template for an athlete that I include for each athlete based on the McMillan Calculator. 

The left section is the "true" McMillan Pace Zones, and the right section would be the zones I input into Final Surge. The center is the Race Prediction portion. In this case the athlete, a newer runner, did a spring 5K race in 24:27 and wanted to run a fall marathon in under 4 hours, so we set 3:55:00 as the goal. 

Right away, I could see the 5K results were only slightly slower then the 5K equivalent at the fitness level to reach their goal, 20 seconds. Close enough to likely be beaten by just an improved base. The 5K also predicted the runner at 3:58:14, just over 3 minutes away from the goal time. In a race like a marathon, this is a very reasonable fitness gap to make up over a training program, especially since they were a newer running. Key would be building up this to handle the distance of the race, a heavy focus on endurance. 

Pace Reference Charts (Minutes per KM and Mile)

Quick lookup chart to find out race results with varying race paces as well as distance references to kilometers or miles.

Training Articles

Articles I've gathered or written related to relevant training topics. All articles are available HERE. The Injury Protocol is a key one to point out. Articles will be added as I have time and find something good. Often they may be triggered by athlete questions. Keep an eye on the site, and I'll always announce new ones in my athlete emails. 

Race Course Previews

I have a series of course previews for most of the local races as well as any destination course I have experience in myself. Click HERE. 

Weekly Messages

Access available to coached athletes.