Jason Ryf’s Hard Every Day Training program
Running Times featured an article discussing distance runner Jason Ryf’s training patterns of running hard everyday. With a marathon best time of 2:21:40 (5:24 pace) he runs the majority of his miles at a 6:00 pace. Even Olympic Marathoner Ryan Hall doesn’t run his easy runs that fast. Hall’ marathon PR is 2:04:58 has him at a 4:46 mile pace and his easy runs are at a 7:00-7:30 pace as described in his book Running With Joy.
I will agree that what works for some does not work for others, but I have to disagree with the idea that going hard everyday is good for you, or even right for some. There is definitely truth and success behind the Lydiard training principles which incorporate speed in the weeks leading up to a race after a strong base has been established. I can’t imagine there is a physiologic benefit to running hard every and not incorporating rest for recovery. We know the benefits rest has in terms of recovery and rebuilding. Ryf had a stress fracture in his leg and foot with his type of training which is a classic overuse injury from lack of rest. He only claims two years of running injury free. While he is without a doubt producing incredibly fast times, avoiding injury is more important and could potentially bring even faster race times. There even is argument that Alberto Salalzar’s training regimen of constant hard running produced chronic inflammation leading to his myocardial infarction.
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About The Author
Dr. Nick Campitelli
Dr. Campitelli is a podiatrist in Akron, OH specializing in foot and ankle surgery with an interest and enthusiasm for running as well as helping runners with injuries. For the past several years he has been treating running injuries in patients by fixing their form and transitioning them to minimalist shoes. Having treated runners with all types of injuries through conservative measures with orthotics and shoe gear changes to reconstructive foot and ankle surgery, Dr. Campitelli has brought what works best and is most current to his practice as well as the Akron and Cleveland running communities.
My thought was that Running Times was kind of over exaggerating how hard he actually trains.
6:00 per mile is 10% slower his marathon pace. Looking at his paces vs mine, if I cut down on some of my recovery runs I’d be averaging 110% of my marathon pace for my total weekly average pace. And I certainly don’t feel like I’m training crazy hard.
While that average pace may sound fast to us, it’s roughly a full minute slower per mile than his 10k/13.1 pace.
I do agree it’s a bit excessive, but I don’t think it’s as bad as the article says.
I now Jason and this is not exaggerated at all. It is not fun warming up with him! That seems like a workout alone!!
Pretty funny to list Ryan Hall as a counterpoint, when he seems to be constantly injured! High volume/high mileage training as Lydiard advocated comes with a high risk of overtraining and injury as well. Just because you run “slower” doesn’t mean you won’t get hurt, if you’re packing on the miles, you are exposing yourself to injury risk. Many of Lydiard’s “boys” were running near 6 m/m (or faster) themselves most of the time once they were fit. In the article he mentioned 2 stress fracture injuries “in his 30s” – that does not mean or imply that he’s only had 2 years running injury-free – he said he’s been running this way since post-college, which would imply to me that he’s been training for something like 20 years, and had 2 injuries… that’s pretty awesome in my book. It seems to me that the problem is people (men) claiming they know how everyone should run/train… and then you follow their way, and you get hurt, or don’t get good results. Finding a way to train that works for you, and gets results, is what matters, and it sounds to me like Jason’s method works pretty great for him!