Parker Valby has just won the NCAA National Championship, leading the Florida Gators to their best ever finish in the women's NCAA competition at 5th. It is an exceptional feat- coupled with the fact that earlier in the year she also won one of America's most prestigious races, the Nuttycombe Invitational, over the hard running Katelyn Tuohy.
But the most interesting thing with Valby is her training regime. She runs only two to three times a week, and every other day is spent on the elliptical. She has said that she has run a maximum of 30 miles (48km) at most in a week. In perspective other NCAA runners may lay down 100km+ weeks. The times that she does run are the days that she completes her workouts- such as reps or threshold work. It is stated that Valby is quite injury prone, and working on the elliptical isn't as stressful on the body as running is. It's quite extraordinary- think about it from the other side, for example if you go to the gym and only go twice a week and cross train every other day. Progress would be slow, right? But Valby just continues to get better and better.
An argument is that this only works for distances longer than 6km/8km, the distances that the women's NCAA run in. Anything longer, like 10km that the men's NCAA cross country run, her regime of regular elliptical and less running would not work. Another argument is that Valby has insanely gifted genetics. It's an interesting conversation. Could this be the future blueprint for 1500m, 3000m and 5000m specialists in the future?
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