Threshold Run Mistakes
Published June 25, 2025
This 4-minute email explains why threshold runs might not be the best assignment this time of year. If you don’t have time to read it now, make sure you come back to it when you have time.
The Threshold Mistake
While threshold runs are a powerful way to build the aerobic engine, there is a common mistake that athletes make when executing them.
Here’s a quick story to illustrate the point.
When I was an athlete at the University of Colorado, we’d do our “AT” workouts early in the morning.
I’m embarrassed to say I don’t know if AT stood for Aerobic Threshold or Anaerobic Threshold, but the goal was clear: run 8k (25 laps) at the fastest pace you can without accumulating lactate.
...having just consulted Running with the Buffaloes, it sounds like the assignment was at “85 percent of current fitness level”...
Regardless, we did it on the track and I loved it.
Why did I love it?
It was hard, but it wasn’t all out.
There was always a special energy running in a pack, but not racing. Grooving rather than grinding.
We’d wake up early and be warming up as the sun came up.
And perhaps most important, I likely wasn’t going to get dropped like I did on virtually every long run. ๐
“It wasn’t an AT for you.”
Fast forward a handful of years and I’m coaching at CU as an assistant.
In the first couple of days, Coach Wetmore explained to me that when we ran ATs, it “wasn’t an AT for you.”
While I thought I was controlled and cruising along, it was obvious to him that I was a bit past the threshold of effort I needed to be at to run without producing lactate. I had no idea I was past the correct effort, but obviously, the sage coach could tell I was.
Fast-forward to later weeks and months in the season, and I was barely hanging on to make the varsity XC team.
While this single workout wasn’t the overall problem – the problem was having less talent than my teammates and not being as calm-minded as I was capable of in some of the killer workouts – this workout likely “dug a hole” that wasn’t ideal.
This begs two questions:
- If a coach wants to assign threshold runs, how do they make sure athletes are running the right effort?
- Is there a better workout that gives the athlete the same or similar aerobic stimulus – that builds their engine in a big way – but is easier to execute?
Progression Runs
Simply put, progression runs build the aerobic engine and are easier to execute than threshold runs for most high school athletes.
John Sipple, the boys’ coach at Downers Grove North (IL), who has not only won state championships in Illinois, one of the 2-3 most competitive states in the country, but has also had a team finish fourth at NXN, said to me that it’s hard to get high school kids to run threshold runs properly.
In an interview a few years ago, he told me that it’s really hard to teach high school athletes how to run threshold pace correctly.
In this comment, he’s not saying they’re not useful, but rather that they’re hard to do correctly.
But a progression run – if the athlete can say the following at the end of it – is relatively easy to execute.
In a 25-minute progression, I’ll ask athletes to run 10 minutes steady, 5 minutes a touch faster, 5 minutes a touch faster, then 5 minutes fast, but controlled.
The Key: Farther or Faster (or Both)
If you’ve read my book Consistency Is Key you know that the principle of Farther or Faster (or Both) is the key to a well executed progression run.
They have to be able to say, “Coach, I could have gone farther at the last pace. I wasn’t running all out.”
If they can't say that when they finished the run then they ran too hard.
At a minimum, they should be able to say they had 3 more minutes in them, and ideally 5 more minutes, if not more.
But they don't need to be able to say they could have sped up. We save that for the long run (when they should be able to say they had 5 more minutes in them and could have sped up in those 5 minutes if needed).
Where Is Your Team Today?
It’s the last full week of June. Where is your team today?
If they’ve been running consistently for weeks, they can do some challenging workouts. Consider progression runs.
But if they’ve been inconsistent, simply focus on the four-part practice of:
- Intelligent warm-up
- Easy run or Workout/Long Run
- Strides (even on the long run days – do them within the long run)
- Challenging post-run work
You can learn about all of these elements in these two articles or in this concise – and FREE – course.
โArticle: A Comprehensive Cross Country Training Plan โ
โArticle: The Best Cross Country Workouts โ
โFree Course: Summer XC Essentials โ
Whether your team is rocking along, or in the midst of simply being consistent with attendance and effort, make sure you’re choosing the right workouts for them.
I hope you have a wonderful holiday planned and I’ll email again next Wednesday.
Jay
PS – Do you need help with your training plans? Are you starting to question if you have a plan that’s going to help your kids accomplish their goals by October?
The coaches in the XC Training System are rockin’ along and they are already seeing results, especially in the area of keeping kids injury-free.
Here's what a first-year coach wrote me this week...
"I've been diving into phase 1 and the XC training system as a whole. It's probably the most excited I've been heading into a cross country season in the last 3 or 4 years."
Here's what a second-year coach wrote this week...
"I appreciate all the help from the XCTS program—we made it to state for the first time in 10 years last year, and we’re hoping to be back again this fall!"
If you want a training system that will take your program to the next level, take 5 minutes to hear from your peers how this XCTS has kept their kids injury-free and leading to kids running their fastest the last three meets of the season.
Jay Johnson
