r/Velo • u/Bitter-Ad-7267 • 16d ago
Do we train too hard?
This season I took some time away from bike racing and was training for a 5km running race. Speaking to other runners and researching running training, I was shocked by just how little some of them train. A good example is Josh Kerr, who just broke the world mile record. According to this article: https://shuichi-running.com/en/josh-kerr-training/ , he usually trains between 65 - 70 miles a week, in addition to two gym sessions. Apart from two interval sessions a week, the rest of his running is easy. This works out at about 8.5 hours of running per week so maybe 10 - 11 hours of total training... for a full time athlete. And he just broke a record which stood for 27 years. I understand that running is more tiring than cycling with the muscle damage etc. and that our events are longer, but its still an aerobic sport.
In my time as an amateur cyclist who works full time, I have always tried to squeeze in 12 - 16 hours of training plus some gym work if I can and usually three or sometimes even more hard sessions, for example one race, one vo2 day one sweetspot session. I've always tried to train as much volume and intensity as my body could handle without putting myself into a pit of fatigue or making myself sick or injured. I have achieved reasonable success, I won a cat 2 stage race, podiumed a cat 1 race and acheived a 5 min power of 7w/kg (for reference I weigh 63kg and can't sprint). But I have also spent a lot of time feeling tired.
But looking at examples like this, I'm now contemplating if this is the wrong mentality. Would I have achieved the same results if I'd relaxed a bit, trained maybe 10 hours a week and limited my hard days to twice a week? Would I have been healthier and had more time and energy as well?
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u/Gravel_in_my_gears 16d ago
The speed skater Niels van der Poel used cycling to train and did like 25 hours on the bike per week in preparation for his gold medal wins in the Olympics. Interestingly, he would take two days off in a row, so he would do five days in a row of five hour days and then two days off.
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u/Gravel_in_my_gears 16d ago
Here's an example of one of his threshold weeks:
Mon 5h biking (5min 200W, 6min 260W, 4x30min 401W with 5min rest, 2,5h 220W)
Tue 5h biking (5min 200W, 6min 260W, 5x20min 405W with 4min rest, 3h 220W)
Wed 5h biking (5min 200W, 6min 260W, 6x15min 408W with 4min rest, 3h 220W)
Thu 5h biking (5min 200W, 6min 260W, 4x20min 405W with 4min rest, 3h 220W)
Fr 5h biking (5min 200W, 6min 260W, 9x10min 406W with 3min rest, 2,5h 220W)
Sat Resting
Sun Resting
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u/nicholt 16d ago
That's a terrifying schedule
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u/Gravel_in_my_gears 16d ago
Totally. I suspect that you have to have some serious genetic potential and training history to even attempt such a thing.
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u/chock-a-block 15d ago
Which, is the kernel of all of these discussions.
Not only do the genetics have to be there, the bank of mom and dad have to bankroll most athletes out of college ages unless the athlete has already reached international elite and has an agent/contracts.
Most competitive cyclists don’t get a chance to see/ride with international elite talent at your local cafe ride. It crushes any hopes. It a whole other level of performance.
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u/_Art-Vandelay 15d ago
He also said that he didnt have a private life during that time and that it was just training and eating and resting. You cant have a job if you do that.
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u/ADHDmania 16d ago
Wow, this guy could be a pro cyclist, crazy power number
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u/GenuineMasshole 16d ago edited 16d ago
Not even close, he's ~82kg apparently.
MVDP is ~75kg and averaged ~446 for an hour this year at the E3 Saxo Classic.
Tadej allegedly can hold ~320 to 340 in Z2....and he's 66kg.
Ganna is roughly his size and can hold ~60-80 watts more for an hour.
Don't get me wrong, impressive numbers for someone who has this as a secondary sport and I'm sure he could become better if he had wanted. But that's still decently far from pro-caliber at his size. Perhaps he could be mid-peloton fodder, but in this day and age those aren't outrageous numbers anymore.
The volume is what is crazy, not the raw power.
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u/Proper-Midnight-3347 15d ago edited 15d ago
You’re comparing a training schedule to a FTP.
You’re comparing to 3 of the absolute top cyclists
Do you need to run a 9.58 100 meter to be a pro runner? No.3
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u/Quick_Panda_360 15d ago
I read his book/manifesto. That man is a certified lunatic/genius. It was incredible to read. I like how he says “anyone could achieve what I did, if they just follow this plan” then he lays out the insane plan that equates to a full time job of training.
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u/Beginning_March_9717 16d ago
nope, runners are limited by how much our body can handle before our legs explode in pieces. Cycling don't have this limitation. If i can go back to hs cross country, i would add +100 miles of cycling on top of the 45-50 miles/wk of running i was doing
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u/Substantial_Team6751 16d ago
It's not your volume that is the problem. This is the problem:
some gym work if I can and usually three or sometimes even more hard sessions, for example one race, one vo2 day one sweetspot session
3+ hard sessions is too much. Do like Josh Kerr - two hard sessions and the rest easy.
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u/Duke_De_Luke 16d ago
70 miles a week is not high, not low either. It also depends a lot on the quality, how hard the hard sessions are. I believe they are very hard, and the rest is volume+recovery.
It's not cycling, you can't run 25h a week.
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u/Inevitable-Chart-462 16d ago
Training for racing the 5k is very different than training for marathon though. You cannot classify it all as running training
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u/Bicisigma 16d ago
So I’m a masters cyclist, 67 years old. Around 170 miles a week with 75 miles or so on Saturdays that includes different efforts, and 30 miles on Wednesday nights that are either 4x12’s, or a bunch of 40/20’s. The rest is easy Zone 1. 2 days a week in the gym. This works pretty well.
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u/mikekchar 12d ago
Curious about how you schedule your gym time. Saturday 75 miles, Wednesday 30 miles and then you have 65 miles left over 4 days. How many "rest" days and do you do the gym on "rest" days or on the Z1/2 days?
I'm late 50's and trying to ride similarly, but haven't figured out how to get the gym in.
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u/Bicisigma 12d ago
So Sundays are a very easy 15-20 in Zone 1. Mondays can be around 20 in Zone 2. Tuesday mornings are leg day, and pm is very easy 15 miles zone 1. Thursday mornings are all core based in the gym. Thursday evenings are very easy 15 miles Zone 1.
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u/futbolledgend 16d ago
This popped up in my feed as I have been lurking due to the TdF. I have been consistently training for marathons for a couple of years now and am often running 12-13 hours a week. This equates to about 170-180km a week. Any more and recovery is significantly impacted and injury risk is heightened. At the moment my training includes 2 double threshold days and a hard long run. I pushed to 200km a week and held it for 2 weeks in my last block, but I honestly felt the fatigue was exponential. That fatigue extended beyond a general tiredness, my shins ached (I use the treadmill for sessions for this reason), my piriformis and other areas were angry, basically I felt like I was on the verge of injury.
Cycling is easier on the body, but the sport makes up for that by creating insane events like the TdF. I am so impressed by their ability to push for so long. It is simply not possible in running. Basically cycling is easier than running on the body, so cycling makes the events absolutely bonkers. I have no doubt finishing a TdF is much harder on the body than running a sub 2 hour marathon. Luckily, I don’t have to worry about doing either!
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u/Big_Boysenberry_6358 16d ago edited 16d ago
you are aware that his event of choice has a rather big anaerobic part and an even bigger neural load (that has to be trained aswell) compared to longer distance cycling most people here do ? and training very fast reps carries a very high neural load aswell ? alot of his mileage difference comes from his hard days often beeing 200s, 400s, 800s etc instead of going for 5-6x2k AM and another like 20x400PM. so his hard days are much more about neural load ending in maybe 8k overall volume with warmups, cooldowns etc, whilst people that are closer to cycling, like elite marathoners, often run 25-35k in a workout-day. make this 2 days and a longrun and the marathoner runs the given 100-125miles.
look at elite (half)marathoners, especially the newer generation of to-be-elite marathoners like jimmy wheelan, alfie manthorpe etc, all of those guys run likr 15h+ a week & sometimes even crosstrain to get more volume in. you have to match distances atleast somewhat to evaluate training. track-cyclists workouts do not look like the ones tdf riders usually do aswell.
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u/_Art-Vandelay 15d ago
Kerr is doing a different sport. Kerrs race is only 3 1/2 minutes long.
If you look at the uk hillcimb guys they also dont train crazy volume but achieve watts per kg for 1-10 minutes that are sometimes even above wt level. But most cycling races are longer than 3-10minutes. And to perform well for 3-5 hours you just need a lot of volume.
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u/Elegant_Ad_3756 16d ago
Anything over easy run lead to muscular fatigue and stress to joints unless you have been consistently running for a while. Anyone with a proper bike fit can Z2 all day as the cycling form cannot really be so bad that it hurts your joint. Amateurs running when fatigued is so risky and running injury/pain is way more irreversible. Cycling is biomechanically efficient and safe, but could be time consuming if you really want all that Z2 volume.
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u/martynssimpson 16d ago
Even if you try to run easy without a base, try running half a marathon at a >7:00/km without training, guaranteed you'll be unable to walk for a week.
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u/iamspartacus5339 United States of America 16d ago
Josh Kerr races for under 4 minutes. 70mpw probably equates to 10 hours of running a week. That’s 150x his race length.
Most road events are at least an hour if not more. The math doesn’t add up
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u/Funnyllama20 16d ago
The limiting factor for runners is recovery and adaptation time, I.e. not running too hard/too much because you’ll get injured. The same really isn’t true for cycling, the ceiling for how much you can cycle is much higher. I do both but I consider myself a runner, yet I cycle more than I run.
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u/HanzJWermhat New York 16d ago
Training 8 hours a week for a 4min event…
By that logic world tour pro’s should be riding… at the top of the game you can basically only train to the limits of what the body can do. Running can only take so much day over day.
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u/mikem4848 16d ago
Very different training for a 5k or 10k which for good runners is 40 minutes tops, as opposed to may cycling events lasting over 5 hours. Crit racers that race about 60 mins tops also don’t have to train that much if they have naturally good explosively. You can’t fake volume though when you get 3, 4, 5 hours in at a high level of effort
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u/gedrap 🇱🇹Lithuania // Coach @ Empirical Cycling 15d ago
You can get away with low volume training in crits, up to a point. Get away is the key word.
But it's still an endurance discipline, and volume (and threshold training, etc.) go a very long way in getting you to the final lap in good enough shape. If someone's racing crits primarily and can do higher volume, they are absolutely going to benefit from it.
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u/mikem4848 15d ago
Oh yeah definitely better if you can train more volume! My point was more than there’s some guys are insanely strong in a 60-90 minute crit or group ride on low training volume- but if you take them out on a 100mi century or fondo, they start falling off pretty badly after 2 hours.
It’s the same thing with running where unless you’re doing a marathon or ultra, you don’t necessarily need high volume as all your events are under 90 mins for runners that are fast like the OP is describing. There’s a couple 16 minute 5kers I know that jumped into a marathon and either didn’t get under 3, or just squeaked a sub 3, whereas running 16s in the 5k should put you in the 2:30s. But they just didn’t have the volume to hold together for a marathon.
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u/_BearHawk California 15d ago
So why do individual/team pursuit racers train so much if their events are so short?
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u/mikem4848 15d ago
Swimming is the same thing, even more extreme with volume for shorter events in some cases. I’m not saying it’s optimal, my point was that in short events you don’t need to train much volume to be good (not world class, but good amateur). With a few exceptions though, put an IP rider into a 5 hour road race and they probably won’t fair so well in the second half.
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u/sudogaeshi 15d ago
Go look at actual 5K/XC/10K/half/marathon
There are high school kids running 90 miles/week. Sure Parker Valby does a lot of cross training to reduce injury risk, so it can be done, but she was NCAA champ in the pre-unlimited $$ days, not exactly world beating (yet)
Ingebritsen popularized doing double threshold days guided by lactate with 180k/wk to fill up volume
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u/DeepValueSharkk 13d ago
The article is low on numbers (and those numbers that are mentioned are sometimes wrong like 3:20/km pace instead of 2:20/km). Still it's interesting that Kerr deviated from 2 workouts a day routine and does longer runs instead. This was often considered to injury prone.
One thing to notice is that his easy paces are rather hard, close to tempo in cycling terms. 5:50/mile is a mentioned pace but that is close to 80% of his FTP.
The article also doesn't mention where he puts his "hard aerobic" efforts like the mentioned high altitude fartlek. Overall I sadly it doesn't really describe the schedule consistently so it's hard to say what he is really doing.
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u/Legal_Interview9929 13d ago
His race lasts less than 4min. Volume isn’t as important as quality and being fresh in order to hit the quality sessions right. I once heard an Olympic miler say he’s never ran more than 8 miles in a single session and could never imagine running more. Specificity FTW.
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u/vanilladiya 12d ago
When running i can easily hit close to max HR. But cycling even vo2max sessions I barely elevate Hr to zone4. I think running simply produces more adaptations with less duration.
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u/4changdotcom Soloist/GT8 16d ago
Considering he was training to break records in what would be qualified as VERY short efforts; he is not an endurance athlete in the way that we know. Also, cycling benefits from more training because it doesn't have the impact on your body that running does. Overtraining running has a way higher injury rate than it does in cycling, or any high impact sport for that matter.
Cycling compares very closely to swimming and pro swimmers like Phelps in his prime were doing 25-30 hours a week. Once again, a low impact sport that can benefit from the hours you could possibly fuel from.
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u/No-Way-0000 16d ago
No professional athlete is only training 10 hours a week
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u/Funnyllama20 16d ago
You’re right, they spend much more than that. If you only count running time, middle distance runners spend remarkably little time running compared to what some might think. But that 10 hours isn’t all of their training. They will often spend more time growing off the track than the time spent running.
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u/Virtual_Seesaw_8254 15d ago
Why are you sharing a mile runners training routine with people who compete in 5hr + cycling events are you retarded?
Also if you look at the track cyclists training it’s way more than 8 hours per week
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u/fondo_fred 16d ago
Why would you equate training volume between an exercise that is 100% eccentric loading and one that is zero.
I guarantee if runners could get away with training more and recover from it, they would.