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10 km program with coach Jeff

2065769
2 months ago 
hello, 
For the sprint race the program keeps adding repetitions. I arrived at 20 x 800m at an average of 4:05 per kilometer, which means that 
I run more than 2 hours and 23 km with the recoveries, and for the leisurely race the program suggests that I run 26 km with the warm up/down. 
In comparison, the hill repeats are just ridiculous (8x 15sec of hill).

Overall, I'm getting exhausted and my chances of achieving my goal are decreasing: my VO2mx has been decreasing for several weeks and my estimated 10km times as well.
Are we in the outline of the program? or the training offered must be recalibrated?


  • 0 2 months ago

    i can't recover from workouts anywhere near as fast as my watch tells me i should.... I take everything it says with a grain of salt. you have to use common sense. try another training programme.... 

  • 0 2 months ago

    Garmin doesn't publish how exactly the Garmin Coach program are working. That said, all programs use benchmark runs to evaluate your race prediction and use your time goal to calibrate your "goal repeats" pace. I am not sure whether the easy runs and speed workouts are using the benchmark run or your pace goal to pick their pace.

    For 10k and HM, 800m speed repeats are the crucial high intensity workouts. In his introductory video, Jeff tells us the repeats will go up to 24 times!

    The long easy runs are not supposed to be recovery runs, but zone 2 runs. For my HM, the long easy runs went up to 21 miles.

    Trust the process. If you cannot trust, use another training program you trust. You don't want to "blame" the coach for your (lack of) performance the day of the race, whether it is a human or automated coach :-)

    VO2 Max and race predictions are Garmin metrics that are collected in parallel to the training program. The best you can do for these is enter and accurate Max HR and use a chest strap when running.

    The watch does a decent job at estimating your Max HR if you wear a strap for all running activities. If you have a doubt about the current Max HR, take your peak HR from a recent 5k personal best, add 5bpm and leave Max HR auto-detection on.

    VO2 Max is estimated based on your Max HR, and the HR/HRV/Pace/duration relationship model that the watch builds based on your recent training data.

    Because estimating "at the max" is more accurate when you have "close to max" efforts, your estimates might decrease only because your feed the watch with more representative data. It is also could be because you are overtraining.

    You may be overtraining if your have set up a goal that is too aggressive, if you go harder than you should (in particular during easy runs).

    In the end, keep this in mind: you should be able to run your 10k about 0-5 second/mile faster than your threshold pace, or about 10-15s faster than your 5k PB pace.

    So don't worry too much about the VO2 Max changes, and make rather sure that your threshold pace capabilities are corresponding to your 10k performance.