The training characteristics of a SA state junior 5,000m record holder (U18)

Being a high performer in endurance running is difficult and often sometimes you can have long periods of time where you, as the athlete, go unrewarded. I think it’s fair to say, coaching in this sport is difficult for similar reasons. A lot of time and patience is required from the athlete and coach, and when the team stick at, things can come together to culminate in a result that offers a reward that make it all worth it.

Coaching is a privilege and I am lucky to have coached young Cael for 5 years (since he was 12) in his chosen sport of athletics. His dad, Paul, ask me if I would assist Cael from the early days - and that essentially was my first exposure into ‘coaching’ so to speak. I already know a few reading this will be questioning whether someone so young should be specialising in one sport, for the risk of burning out, injury risk and ultimate drop out. However, from even this age the motivation to do the sport was there for many reasons including the inspiring influence of his own dad (SA state record holder for the 5,000m O45’s) along with the great social interaction of a traditional club culture that existed at the Adelaide Harriers AC at the time and now at our Adelaide Milers Crew.

Training history and Overview

To cut a long story short, the main goals with coaching this young athlete for me were tick the following boxes 1. Enjoyment of the sport 2. Sustainability (education on sustainable training) 3. Continue to see improvement (performance times and an added extra of improved physiological markers (lab testing came later on)). Enjoyment was not really an issue, especially later on as many of his peers continued to join the running group, and this remains as strong as ever. I know many people may have their own ideas of sustainability, but for me, this means: consistent training dose through the year that is periodised to the athletes goals and providing the least amount of dose to see continued improvement (especially at younger ages)… not a dose that increase the risk of overtraining, lack of enjoyment and/or increased risk of running related injury. Already at 12, he had exposure to a club culture of interval training a couple times a week with a senior group (maybe too much) with less exposure to easy running and how to add that work into a weekly regime. No doubt this is tough, with many school sport commitments blended into life at the time. So over the past 5 years, our major focus has been creating organised training that involved increasing duration/distance of easy running as our predominant focus to improve physiological attributes in order to chase his goals (of being a national class [or better] long distance runner). This required actually a decrease of frequency of harder workouts on weekly basis (moving from 3 back to 2 x week max) to achievement perceived sustainability from the runner (feedback). We found this meant the quality of those 2 workouts are often performed on legs that felt good, and consequently more time between the workouts and long run meant a more enjoyable long run (we put emphasis on our longer runs) allowing us to collect a bit more duration on that run progressively over the years. We still often kept a complete day off for recovery (and other physical hobbies - such as bouldering), however this last 6 months we have moved to 7 days a week for at least 2 weeks on and day off every 3rd week.

In relation to the specific workouts over this past 12 months, our winters had a more direct focus on training around the moderate and heavy intensity domains (i.e. not going to the Well in workouts so to speak) for durations between 20-30 minutes on Tuesdays. Fridays or Saturdays often were a blend of work of mainly heavy intensity domain with a dribble of severe exercise intensity domains on the flat or over hills (more closer to key races/and end of track season into nationals). Most long runs were performed over hills (i.e 90-105mins and about 400-500m elevation) in national parks/forestries. These runs were key for our whole group. This training was ticking the boxes of enjoyment, sustainability (no injuries and minimal time loss to illness) and progression of performance.

With his strongest discipline being Cross-Country (5th in Nationals U16 2019) we were looking forward to the events being in Adelaide 2020/21, in which both were unfortunately cancelled here due to COVID-19. On the track, Cael gravitated to the 3,000-5,000m both for enjoyment and solid aptitude for the events. Progressions in the 5,000m have been as follows:

2019 - 15:40 // 2020 - 15.09 // 2021 (Nov) - 14.42 … so at this stage the U18’s state record held by Peter Haynes (1978) looked achievable, but not easy (running 14:43 at a windy Bendigo Feb 2022). A record that has been there for almost 45 years stands for a reason.

The last weeks leading into the national 5,000m U20 championships saw the volume remain a bit higher than previous summers (closer to 80-90km/weeks - some of his highest ove r the whole year), and the intensity of the workouts still closer to the heavy domain more so than the severe domain to keep the volume higher. We only shifted the last 3-4 weeks to a more severe intensity in the workouts including a couple track 1500m races (workouts between Bendigo and Sydney Nationals below).

The quality of the U20 distance runners currently in this country is as good as I have seen in my time. The U20’s had 2 world junior qualifiers from this distance in the event and others knocking on the door. The conditions were still, but quite humid. The race was very consistent from the gun, and Cael positioned very well throughout the whole race and was able finish strong to run 14:30.76 to equal Peter Haynes time from 1978 (14:30.7m). Due to the quality of the field, this run resulted in 4th place with the 2 victorians Archie Noakes (winning in 14.15 and also has a WJQ time), Janetski second in 14.22 and Sprott (QLD in 14:27 - also has a WJQ PB of 14.06). Just to show how hard this sport can be, this epic run didn’t result in a medal. While a medal means people can relate to the result a bit more, those involved in his team (and the sport) realise how big of a result this was. However, to see him satisfied with the effort and the result is enough reward for all us who worked with him.

There are so many subjective characteristics that make Cael a successful athlete. His patience, leadership, his consistent dedication to prioritise the ease days as much as a the hard workout days and his passion to get a bit better each week, month and year as seen him move amongst the ranks… and which will most likely see him to continue move even further up. However, this article is a lot about what the objective training characteristics look like that has taken him to a place that only one other south Aussie his age has over 5,000m.

Training Load

This graph shows the last 3 years of estimated training dose (trainingpeaks). Each red dot is a training stress, while the blue dots are his ‘relative’ intensity (measured via relative pace using the vDOT [daniels formula]) in this graph. The blue fill line is his chronic load (fitness - CTL), while the pink line is his acute training load (fatigue - ATL) and the yellow his form (training stress balance).

The main increase in CTL was mainly due to increase in volume/duration and frequency of training each year and you could argue the relative intensity remained relatively similar (in fact if probably dropped a little compared to 3 years ago). However, in a nutshell, these last 3 years, we’ve safely managed to increase the training stress over the last few years.

Mileage

The past 3 years has seen an average of around 65.4km/week, with the last 12 months around 75km/week (maximum volume just a tick over 100km for 1 week). But it’s clear, the last year Cael has been able to handle more mileage but subjectively as well as he handled mileage he did the years preceding it.

Training Intensity Distribution (TID) - intensity delineation methods used (varied)

Controlling intensity is one aspect of training I put a lot more time into as a coach compared to when i was an athlete myself. I often prescribed easier days via Rate of perceived exertion (RPE - BORG CR 1-10 scale) to make sure these are easy, I prescribe track workouts more often by time/pace (relative to their ability - using either the vDOT or previous performance and sometimes intermittently paces we are aiming to feel comfortable at for future race goals) but for sustained efforts (especially winter) I will prescribe intensity via heart rate for tempo/threshold workouts and sometimes for longer runs over hilly terrain. So, it’s clear when objectively looking at TID via different methods of measurement, the distribution may vary.

We can delineated training zones via pace algorithms, but we can also do this via testing in the lab. We were very lucky to have this done by world class Exercise scientist Clint Bellinger at UniSA (pic below).

Clint was able to give us some good data regarding his training zones related to his LT 1 - 2 turn points, all exercise intensity domains, to guide training prescription (test results below). It also gives us insight of physiological strengths and weaknesses of the athlete (this is a whole other blog though). Like I mentioned previously, training a lot around the LT 1 - 2, bordering on the LT 2 turn point allowed us to handle a bit more training duration on workout days, but not compromised total training load via tissue soreness or to red line the cardiovascular system too much (i.e. not overcook the athlete).

Time in zone (pace)

When assessing TID via time spent in training relative pace zones, most the duration is spent in zone one (<4:30min/km) or zone 2 (<4.05min/km)… in fact that made up 92% of his training exposure was in these 2 zones. Zone 6-7 are paces that around his 3-5km paces in which over the last 12 months, less than 4% of his training was run at those paces. However, context is important. With just over 300 hours of running for the year completed, that means he ran his 3-5km pace for around 12 hours over the year! A low percentage of the total training duration, but none the less not an easy task, and this paints the picture of the consistency of weekly training to allow one to reach these numbers. Objectively, time in pace zones, shows a Polarised model. For more on this, follow Dr Stephen Seiler on Twitter.

Time in Zones (Heart rate)

Wearing a HR strap (Garmin HRM Pro) was a new feature this year. Cael used it almost religiously (intermittent inaccurate wrist optical HR was used if he forgot the strap - but this was rare). Since we had a focus on the moderate and heavy intensity domains, but not trying to creep too often into the severe domain, we felt this was best achieved via heart rate (especially after the lab testing provided by Clint) for longer sessions, warmer temperatures and hilly terrain runs.

Via Heart rate, this paints the picture of a pyramid model. This matches the research of Phil Bellenger who published a paper on how TID can vary depending on the method utilised to measure intensity (pace = polarised, while HR pyramidal). This makes sense though, many of our jogs (longer durations) were through the hills (low pace = zone 1, but higher internal stress to climb = zone 2-3 demand). Other factors such as some of our shorter reps not a long enough duration to allow the HR to rise but still some moderate demand of the Heart during the recovery between intervals. Still, once again, close to 90% of his internal training load measured via HR was in the lowest 2 zones over his 300+ hours of training exposure. This no doubt is key when discussing sustainable running (years).

Look, the idea of the article is to give insights into the training habits that are attached to Cael using retrospective data collected over 5 years. It gives insight into what I feel is a sustainable running protocol for a young endurance runner. The training protocol is quite simple, but it isn’t easy. Often people relate really high intensity (such as HIT classes/workouts) as the ‘hard work’, when in fact monotonous large training durations at easier intensities on a very regular basis is probably more arduous (definitely less understood by the general population), otherwise more people would do it.

Cael has room to increase his running volume/frequency quite substantially and no doubt even later on, perhaps more intensity. It’s great to have ‘room to move’ in regards to his training characteristics to chase further adaptations. He will certainly have to do so if he is to continue to progress in this sport as the shift from U18 towards seniors isn’t always straight forward. However, the goal is to keep moving through the ranks as we have been. These last 5 years have allowed a good base that has seen improvement, enjoyment and balance in his life, yet allowing for a lot more room for growth.

I understand there a caveats with all this data, Cael is obviously talented and gene pool is strong (his father Paul at 46 continues to run close to 15:30-40 for 5km consistently still, but also trains consistently). Nonetheless, his journey has seen him slowly move through the national ranks as a quality endurance athlete (the original goal).

I’m not sure the approach Peter Haynes took when he achieved this same record in 1978, there are many ways to skin a cat. I’m unsure if he went on to continue to improve in the sport either (as the SA records in the older age groups are quick, and don’t include him). No doubt each coach/athlete has their ideas to reach goals, but collecting this 5 years of data has been very useful for reflection on ‘how we got here’. It allows us to guide the future in sustainable fashion also.

We look forward to continuing to progress Cael’s training (mixing it in with year 12) with the great group of athletes around him at the Adelaide Milers Crew with the main goal to add a bit more volume once again along with adding more racing experience to his CV. He’s one to keep an eye on coming into the Cross Country season, with the World Cross Titles being held in Australia early 2023.

Coach Nitta

KEY WORKOUTS LEADING INTO THE NATIONALS (POST BENDIGO 5,000m)

12/2/22- 5,000m race Bendigo (track) - windy but paced 14:43.09 (emptied the tank)

15/2-?4 x 400m on (mile pace), 200jog recovery, 200m mile pace - rest was on a 4min30 cycle (i.e - if someone took 2.30 to complete the rep - they get 2min recovery)… shoe change (3-4min break) 4 x 200m at 800m pace off 60s rest

19/2 - State 1500m U20 Champion (4.02)

22/2 - 20min Threshold to HR, 2min jog, 3min above Threshold HR

25/2 - 6.4km - 1km at ‘estimated Critical pace’ off 600m float recovery, 4-5min rest/shoe change, 4 x 200m (walk back recovery)

1/3 - 6 x 1km on a 4.30min cycle recovery // shoe change rest // 4 x 400m off about 60-90s rest (varied due to different athletes in and out of reps) —> this was emptied the tank sorta stuff

8/3 - Deeks quarters 8 x 400m at around 5-10km pace off 200m float (15.10min for 4.8km) + shoe change, 2 x 400m (off 60-90s rest) + 2 x 200m (1min rest i think).

11/3 - 6km pick up run, 200m jog, 800m solid

15/3 - 2km THT, 45s rest, 200 mile pace, 2min rest, 1600m CP, 45s rest, 200m mile pace, 2min rest, 1200m 5k pace, 45s rest, 200m mile pace, 2min rest, 800m at 3k pace, 45s rest, 200m mile pace (also a hard workout).

17/3 - 10min sub threshold HR, shoe change rest, 6 x 250m (about 1500-3000m pace) off 60s rest

19/3 - 1500m (tired) but 3.59 (SB)

22/3 - 6 x 400m on a 2.15min cycle, shoe change rest, 4 x 200m on 75s cycle.

26/3/22 - 5,000m nationals U20’s (track) - humid but no wind - well paced 4th in SA record (50 years old) - 14:30.76