I was doing a bit of running 'research' this morning, ok I was wasting time reading about running on the internet because the wind chill is once again in the @#$%ing miserable level and I'm supposed to be starting a workout. Anyway I came across a quote from Rob De Castella in an interview back in 1983 talking about how to that point in his running career he had only missed 10 total days of running due to injury.
Deek said, "You've got two levels- skeletal strength and physiological fitness. If the latter surpasses the former it means you can push the body further than it is really able to sustain. I think that's when you get injured." * This is something I have thought about through my long injury history and never been able to sum up nearly so concisely but it really drives home a simple point that I believe is largely missing from our current conversation about training.
It is no secret I have had a long and extensive injury history. I think that some of this can be simply attributed to my habit of always wanting to push harder and not listening to my body. Still I think there is more to it than that.
Separately I have long felt that my limiting factors in performance had become muscular more than aerobic. This is part of why I felt I didn't have success in my short stint at altitude. In fact I had the opposite. I think most americans, most first world runners, are undertrained aerobically and go to altitude where the stress on the aerobic system is inherently increased greatly and they see a jump in performance as a result of this redistribution of effort. Where as I went up there and put even more stress on the aerobic system and even less on the muscular system and saw a loss of fitness. Now this isn't to say I or someone else like me couldn't find great success training at altitude just that it would take a well thought out plan to address this balance but that is for another blog.
I think that most of your good training schedules have a good balance between muscular and aerobic development but I don't think that most coaches put enough specific thought and focus into creating this balance. Most often I think the balance that is being thought about is aerobic and anaerobic work. Further more I think too often we think of muscular and anaerobic work as the same thing. I know when I started out I did.
The problem with hard intervals lead to severe fatigue and under fatigue our form falls apart so instead of taxing our muscular system in a nice balanced way and teaching good strong muscular pathway our form falls apart and we build bad habits and imbalances. Anaerobic workouts can be great muscular sessions but only for a very developed athlete who has spent years building great muscular strength so their form doesn't break down under stress. For the rest of us the solution is to do work that is specifically targeting fast dynamic motion while maintaining relaxed control so that we are teaching good form and balanced muscular development.
From the beginning of our running we should be doing daily work to build our muscular skeletal system to excel at the specific demands of running and running fast. How? Mostly with fast relaxed running. This can be in the form of strides or short hills. It can be fast relaxed tempo running. This can be repeats at all sorts of distances AS LONG AS THE EFFORT IS CONTROLLED! This is what is always missed. Also you can do running specific drills, skipping, lunge walking and other dynamic running and core exercises to build a muscular skeletal system that can stay healthy and deliver on all the aerobic power you can build.
I honestly believe that my biggest failure as an athlete was a failure to develop a strong dynamic muscular skeletal system from the beginning. I believe if I had done more aerobic work sooner I could have been more successful at a younger age but that it would not have improved my overall development. However if I had started out doing strides daily, controlling my effort in 99% of my workouts to maintain form and doing dynamic general strength work, like the type of stuff you see from John Cook or Jay Johnson, I honestly believe I would never have had the injury problems I had in college nor do I think I would have developed my coordination problem. I honestly believe my failure to do this work from the beginning of my running cost me a career as a at least high level national class marathoner.
I do much more now to try and develop the muscular strength. I do the yoga for general strength and when I'm not banged up I do strides daily or close to it. I have also developed a lot of strength over the last couple decades so my workouts are now a means of building strength as well. Still if there is one area that I need to do more for it is specific muscular strength and endurance. So often in my training I am strong. I can run miles on top of miles and feel fine I can run quickly, say 5:20 per mile or even faster and have it feel like walking but as soon as I need to get just a little bit more muscular sub 5:00 at time, sub 4:40 per mile most of the time, I struggle, sometimes to hold these paces for even a few hundred meters. It may sound crazy but it is not uncommon for me to find myself in a place where I can run for an hour or more feeling relaxed at 5:20 per mile but I struggle to run even a kilometer at 4:40 mile pace. In the stretches where I have been able to do all the muscular work I start to see huge improvements in my middle distance racing. So often I find myself very fit but racing fairly slowly. Where as if I was maintaining my muscular training better I could be running much much faster, if not quite national class certainly much closer. Specifically I should often be running in the 23's for 8k instead of 24's and 29's for 10k instead of 30's. sub 14:40 for road 5k instead of sub 15:10. Now you can sharpen up and run faster with anaerobic work but that isn't what I'm talking about in this instance. I have run sub 30 for 10, sub 24 for 8k and sub 14:40 for a road 5k without doing much if any real anaerobic work. I can run those times off good balanced aerobic and muscular training. Too often I fail to do the muscular work to make running relaxed enough at those paces to hold them without good anaerobic fitness. This slowed my overall development and means I have a lot of decent races in my history but few very good ones.
I cannot encourage you enough to plan for muscular development as specifically as you do aerobic development. These two things are the foundations of all running success. You can always do race specific and anaerobic work later but if you don't build a great foundation of muscular strength and aerobic endurance all the race work in the world won't be worth a bucket of piss.
* P.S. a bit of an aside but the article the quote comes from is in the August of 1983 Runners World. It is mind blowing to me that they would run an article like this complete with discussion of his racing career, a sample training week and intelligent conversation about his thoughts on his current training and where he would like to take it in the future. I just can't imagine coming across the same type of article with one of the Geoff Mutia's in this August's Runners World. link to article http://www.juanjosemartinez.com.mx/files/deek_training_log.pdf
Showing posts with label 5k training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 5k training. Show all posts
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Monday, March 16, 2015
Tempo Tuesday; Moderate Progression Runs
This week Tempo Tuesday is about moderate progression runs. I have been using these more this cycle but historically I haven't done a ton of these. I tend to like to hammer my progression runs but that said these sessions are a awesome way to build great relaxation at a quick pace and great aerobic strength.
These are not a killer session, it is right in the name, moderate. You might even do this session the day before or after a harder track session if you are a very quick recover and have a long history of heavy training.
I think for most people however it is a great stand alone workout. I see a lot of folks who go hard once or twice a week because they are trying to build their miles and they can't go more than that. This is fine but why just do all regular pace runs? If you do and run 10 times a week with 2 hard efforts that means 80% of your runs are the same. That simply doesn't bode well for a well balanced training cycle. Instead mix in some moderate efforts that don't take much more out of you than a regular training run but do target systems a bit differently. The two big things I would suggest are a session for speed, i.e. diagonals, 100's session or short hill reps and second a session for aerobic endurance.
The moderate progression is a perfect run for aerobic endurance. Basically this should be a run that is as long or slightly longer than your normal training run, should start at about the fast end of your normal training pace and should progress steadily over the run to about 20 to 30 seconds per mile faster than you started. For me this means a 10 to 15 mile run starting at 5:50 to 6:00 per mile. I generally average 6:00 to 6:20 per mile for a regular training run and finish with my last few miles in the 5:50 to 6:00 range. In order to start my run at this pace I need to do a mile or two warm up and some drills but I have a lot of miles under my belt so you may not need that warm up. Over the course of the run I work down to about 5:20 pace. In a marathon phase I will often run the last mile at goal marathon pace which is a bit faster but this is pushing the envelope on keeping the session moderate and I wouldn't suggest doing it most of the time as you really don't want this session to get to hard and have them take away from more important sessions.
What it does. This will build your aerobic endurance and your muscular endurance. The first few times you do this you may be pretty sore or heavy the day after and your stomach may be upset in the hours after the session but with time you will soon find that you feel fine the next day and your going to find yourself running along on this session feeling VERY easy and you will find your other endurance workouts improving greatly and when you fall apart in races and workouts you will find you can salvage better and stay much closer to pace.
Where in your training to do it? This is a session that can be fit in throughout your training cycles. As a complimentary session it works great in the earliest training to start dipping your toes into faster running. Then in the early base it is a great workout to supplement the heavier tempo work you are doing in the special and specific phase it is a great light session that can be used to maintain aerobic fitness while not taking too much out of you.
Hope you enjoy it!
These are not a killer session, it is right in the name, moderate. You might even do this session the day before or after a harder track session if you are a very quick recover and have a long history of heavy training.
I think for most people however it is a great stand alone workout. I see a lot of folks who go hard once or twice a week because they are trying to build their miles and they can't go more than that. This is fine but why just do all regular pace runs? If you do and run 10 times a week with 2 hard efforts that means 80% of your runs are the same. That simply doesn't bode well for a well balanced training cycle. Instead mix in some moderate efforts that don't take much more out of you than a regular training run but do target systems a bit differently. The two big things I would suggest are a session for speed, i.e. diagonals, 100's session or short hill reps and second a session for aerobic endurance.
The moderate progression is a perfect run for aerobic endurance. Basically this should be a run that is as long or slightly longer than your normal training run, should start at about the fast end of your normal training pace and should progress steadily over the run to about 20 to 30 seconds per mile faster than you started. For me this means a 10 to 15 mile run starting at 5:50 to 6:00 per mile. I generally average 6:00 to 6:20 per mile for a regular training run and finish with my last few miles in the 5:50 to 6:00 range. In order to start my run at this pace I need to do a mile or two warm up and some drills but I have a lot of miles under my belt so you may not need that warm up. Over the course of the run I work down to about 5:20 pace. In a marathon phase I will often run the last mile at goal marathon pace which is a bit faster but this is pushing the envelope on keeping the session moderate and I wouldn't suggest doing it most of the time as you really don't want this session to get to hard and have them take away from more important sessions.
What it does. This will build your aerobic endurance and your muscular endurance. The first few times you do this you may be pretty sore or heavy the day after and your stomach may be upset in the hours after the session but with time you will soon find that you feel fine the next day and your going to find yourself running along on this session feeling VERY easy and you will find your other endurance workouts improving greatly and when you fall apart in races and workouts you will find you can salvage better and stay much closer to pace.
Where in your training to do it? This is a session that can be fit in throughout your training cycles. As a complimentary session it works great in the earliest training to start dipping your toes into faster running. Then in the early base it is a great workout to supplement the heavier tempo work you are doing in the special and specific phase it is a great light session that can be used to maintain aerobic fitness while not taking too much out of you.
Hope you enjoy it!
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Fartlek Friday the 6/1
The 6/1 fartlek is a moderate effort. Really it can be a 5/1, 6/1, 7/1, 8/1 whatever. The idea is that you run 1minute hard every mile or so. In order to make things easier, i.e. you don't need to keep track of mile marks etc.. you simply do a hard minute on every 6th minute, or whatever whole number is nearest to your regular pace.
So on a half hour or so run you would go hard starting at the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th, 30th minute marks. In between you run at the fast end of your normal training pace. This is a GREAT way to mix in faster running when you don't have a lot of time or motivation for regular workouts. It is great for early in a season or when coming back from injury and your not quite ready for full workouts. To be honest you can do this run every day if you want and just get a touch of speed all the time.
So often we get in a rut of just running and not getting some faster running in. This workout is a great way of sneaking in a little speed when you aren't physically or emotionally up for a bigger effort. I use this sometimes after a crazy day at work when I am whimping out on a scheduled workout but rather than just slogging along at normal pace I can do one of these and the effort isn't that much different from a regular run but at the end of my regular 20k run I have done 12minutes of fast running so between 2 and 3 miles of quality work. Doing it once isn't a big deal but over time it can make a big difference.
I also love this one when I am traveling because you don't need to know how long the loop your doing is or how far you are going, or even where you are going. Just set the timer on your watch and start running.
The last great thing about this session is that if you are having a good day you can start hammering the rest minutes and it becomes a tempo with hammer intervals. Often I set out doing this because I'm lacking motivation and before you know it I'm running 5:20 to 5:30 pace on the recovery stretches and a salvage day becomes a great day.
So the next time you find yourself heading out for a run instead of the workout you should be doing try the 6/1 and you will at worst be a bit better off and at best save the day!
So on a half hour or so run you would go hard starting at the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th, 30th minute marks. In between you run at the fast end of your normal training pace. This is a GREAT way to mix in faster running when you don't have a lot of time or motivation for regular workouts. It is great for early in a season or when coming back from injury and your not quite ready for full workouts. To be honest you can do this run every day if you want and just get a touch of speed all the time.
So often we get in a rut of just running and not getting some faster running in. This workout is a great way of sneaking in a little speed when you aren't physically or emotionally up for a bigger effort. I use this sometimes after a crazy day at work when I am whimping out on a scheduled workout but rather than just slogging along at normal pace I can do one of these and the effort isn't that much different from a regular run but at the end of my regular 20k run I have done 12minutes of fast running so between 2 and 3 miles of quality work. Doing it once isn't a big deal but over time it can make a big difference.
I also love this one when I am traveling because you don't need to know how long the loop your doing is or how far you are going, or even where you are going. Just set the timer on your watch and start running.
The last great thing about this session is that if you are having a good day you can start hammering the rest minutes and it becomes a tempo with hammer intervals. Often I set out doing this because I'm lacking motivation and before you know it I'm running 5:20 to 5:30 pace on the recovery stretches and a salvage day becomes a great day.
So the next time you find yourself heading out for a run instead of the workout you should be doing try the 6/1 and you will at worst be a bit better off and at best save the day!
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Threshold Run
The threshold run is what is most commonly thought of when you talk about tempo runs. The name refers to the idea that you are running very close to or right at your anaerobic threshold. That is the point at which your body begins to produce more lactic acid than it can use as fuel and the PH of the blood begins to rise sharply. It is a bit of a false hood in that the exact pace will change as you tire but essentially the idea is to run at this pace.
There are a number of ways to determine this pace for yourself ranging from blood tests during activity and VO2max testing to calculators and charts based on workouts and race performances. The best guideline I have found is that it is roughly the pace you would expect to RACE for a 1 hour race. For me I use half marathon pace, All my halves have been in the 1:04 to 1:08 range. For someone else this might be 10mile race pace or 10k. The thing to remember is the pace varies a good bit with level of exhaustion as well as changes in weather or terrain so always trust feel over the watch.
These runs should be run steady or with a slightly negative split, but if your last mile is more than 5 or 10 second faster than your first mile than you are doing a progression run and that is fine but it is a slightly different stimulus. The threshold tempo is about the steady pressure on the cardiovascular system. These runs can vary in distance greatly. It largely depends on what kind of an effort you can get out of yourself in a non-racing situation. I myself can almost never go more than half an hour like this. In contrast a few years back Ritz ran a 10 mile tempo run at his half marathon pace a few weeks out from running 3rd at the World half marathon championships in 1:00:00. So he was doing 45mins. That is about the max you see and most people cannot produce an effort like that in a workout without a taper, race day adrenalin etc..
The most important thing with these workouts is that you are better off going too easy than too hard. If you push too hard and go into anaerobic running your body does not receive the message that the aerobic threshold failed. The idea is to lock in at a steady effort just below the threshold and exhaust that system. As to 'embarrass' it so your body will make growths there to address the problem. If you are a bit too slow this will mean you run a bit longer in the workout to accomplish this but it will be accomplished. If you are too fast than you simply won't see much improvement.
Like all tempo runs I suggest you improve the workout by increase the volume before the pace. I would suggest starting with about a 20minute effort and building up by 5 to 10 minutes each time until you are running 30 to 40 minutes. Than return to the original distance and increase the pace by 5 seconds per mile or so. You should find the effort is the same.
These tempos are most specific to 10 mile to half marathon racing for most athletes but the anaerobic threshold is the single most important marker of fitness for all distances from 3k to the marathon. In all those events your race specific fitness can be thought of as being built off of the anaerobic threshold. These workouts should be done throughout the training cycle and they should be a main focus of the pre- specific phase, or early season period of your training.
This workout builds the ability to run on the edge of disaster, pain, acid, oxygen debt while maintaining control. Effective distance running boils down to the ability to run fast without falling into those things so it doesn't take much imagination to see how key a session like this can be to your reaching your full potential.
There are a number of ways to determine this pace for yourself ranging from blood tests during activity and VO2max testing to calculators and charts based on workouts and race performances. The best guideline I have found is that it is roughly the pace you would expect to RACE for a 1 hour race. For me I use half marathon pace, All my halves have been in the 1:04 to 1:08 range. For someone else this might be 10mile race pace or 10k. The thing to remember is the pace varies a good bit with level of exhaustion as well as changes in weather or terrain so always trust feel over the watch.
These runs should be run steady or with a slightly negative split, but if your last mile is more than 5 or 10 second faster than your first mile than you are doing a progression run and that is fine but it is a slightly different stimulus. The threshold tempo is about the steady pressure on the cardiovascular system. These runs can vary in distance greatly. It largely depends on what kind of an effort you can get out of yourself in a non-racing situation. I myself can almost never go more than half an hour like this. In contrast a few years back Ritz ran a 10 mile tempo run at his half marathon pace a few weeks out from running 3rd at the World half marathon championships in 1:00:00. So he was doing 45mins. That is about the max you see and most people cannot produce an effort like that in a workout without a taper, race day adrenalin etc..
The most important thing with these workouts is that you are better off going too easy than too hard. If you push too hard and go into anaerobic running your body does not receive the message that the aerobic threshold failed. The idea is to lock in at a steady effort just below the threshold and exhaust that system. As to 'embarrass' it so your body will make growths there to address the problem. If you are a bit too slow this will mean you run a bit longer in the workout to accomplish this but it will be accomplished. If you are too fast than you simply won't see much improvement.
Like all tempo runs I suggest you improve the workout by increase the volume before the pace. I would suggest starting with about a 20minute effort and building up by 5 to 10 minutes each time until you are running 30 to 40 minutes. Than return to the original distance and increase the pace by 5 seconds per mile or so. You should find the effort is the same.
These tempos are most specific to 10 mile to half marathon racing for most athletes but the anaerobic threshold is the single most important marker of fitness for all distances from 3k to the marathon. In all those events your race specific fitness can be thought of as being built off of the anaerobic threshold. These workouts should be done throughout the training cycle and they should be a main focus of the pre- specific phase, or early season period of your training.
This workout builds the ability to run on the edge of disaster, pain, acid, oxygen debt while maintaining control. Effective distance running boils down to the ability to run fast without falling into those things so it doesn't take much imagination to see how key a session like this can be to your reaching your full potential.
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Workout Wednesday Alternations for the 5k Runner
It is no secret I'm a huge fan of alternations and similar workouts. Basically an alteration workout is a play on intervals where the rests are run at a quick enough pace to force the overall average pace into the range of a tempo workout. These sessions are the best of both worlds option that incorporate the positives of both interval running. Even more importantly they are more than the sum of their parts. Learning to recover at a quick pace leads to huge gains in aerobic fitness much more quickly than you can get from tempos or threshold intervals.
In this blog I'm going to focus on 5k specific alternations. Now in past blogs I have talked about Australian quarters, http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2014/12/workout-wednesday-australian-quarters.html and 400/400 alternations http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2015/01/workout-wednesday-400400-alternations.html both of these sessions are great for the 5k runner. Those workouts both work for the 5k runner and can be part of your prep. The 5k specific workout we are talking about here is just more directly focused on improving your 5k performance specifically.
For 5k specific alternations you want to run a total of 4 miles. You will run the fast portion of the alternation at your goal 5k pace and the recovery sections at 75% to 85% of 5k pace.
To find your recovery pace take your goal 5k pace per mile or kilometer write it in seconds and multiply by 1.15 for 85% and 1.25 for 75%. Finally convert back from seconds to minutes and seconds. For example if your goal 5k is 15:00 that is 3:00 per kilometer which is 180 seconds per kilometer. That gives you a slow end of 3:45 per k and a fast end of 3:27 per k.
Giving some perspective to those paces for a 5k runner capable of aiming for 15:00 running at 3:45 per k, which is a shade over 6:00 per mile, is a pretty easy thing. It is the fast end of what they would be expected to be running on a training run but it is not a tempo effort at all. 3:27 per K is about 5:30 per mile which is certainly faster than a training run but would be much slower than tempo work they do and with practice they will be able to recover at this pace.
Doing the workout- At the start you will run 400m at 5k pace and take 1200m at the slower pace. So the session would be 4x400m at 5k with 1200m recoveries after EVERY rep including the last one at 75% to 85% of 5k pace. This will be 4 total miles. For our example 15:00 runner if he runs his reps at 72 and his recoveries at 85%(3:27 per K/83 per 400m) he will cover the 4 miles in 21:24.
If you can not run the fast end of the recovery zone then your first job is to get faster on the 1200 recovery. So each time you repeat the workout you will still do the 400m at 5k goal pace but each time you will run that recovery faster until you get down to the 85% of race pace range.
Once you reach the point where you can run the 1200 recovery at 85% of goal pace, and for the aerobically well developed among you this will be your first time out, you start increasing your distance at 5k pace and reducing your recovery distance. Each time you repeat the workout you increase the distance at 5k pace by 100 to 200 meters and reducing the recovery by an equal amount.
So you would progress through 4x500/1100, 4x600/1200 up to a goal of 4x800/800 or for someone who is a real workout monster 4x1k/600- this would be 20:16. Which would be a very challenging aerobic test which forces you to relax during your 5k reps as well as your recovery. This is the great advantage of alternations. I can't tell you how often someone tells me they want to run a set time in the 5k and they regularly do 5x1k or even 8 or 10 x 1k at that pace. Heck even 3 or 4 x mile at that pace but they can not seem to hit the time in the race. Why???? The recovery! They are taking too much recovery and they are learning to run repeated races more than learning to run their goal pace at an effort level that makes maintaining it without any recovery for the full 5k possible. The genius of the alternations is that it is focus entirely on teaching you to run your reps at the right effort AND building the aerobic power needed to maintain it for the whole race.
In this blog I'm going to focus on 5k specific alternations. Now in past blogs I have talked about Australian quarters, http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2014/12/workout-wednesday-australian-quarters.html and 400/400 alternations http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2015/01/workout-wednesday-400400-alternations.html both of these sessions are great for the 5k runner. Those workouts both work for the 5k runner and can be part of your prep. The 5k specific workout we are talking about here is just more directly focused on improving your 5k performance specifically.
For 5k specific alternations you want to run a total of 4 miles. You will run the fast portion of the alternation at your goal 5k pace and the recovery sections at 75% to 85% of 5k pace.
To find your recovery pace take your goal 5k pace per mile or kilometer write it in seconds and multiply by 1.15 for 85% and 1.25 for 75%. Finally convert back from seconds to minutes and seconds. For example if your goal 5k is 15:00 that is 3:00 per kilometer which is 180 seconds per kilometer. That gives you a slow end of 3:45 per k and a fast end of 3:27 per k.
Giving some perspective to those paces for a 5k runner capable of aiming for 15:00 running at 3:45 per k, which is a shade over 6:00 per mile, is a pretty easy thing. It is the fast end of what they would be expected to be running on a training run but it is not a tempo effort at all. 3:27 per K is about 5:30 per mile which is certainly faster than a training run but would be much slower than tempo work they do and with practice they will be able to recover at this pace.
Doing the workout- At the start you will run 400m at 5k pace and take 1200m at the slower pace. So the session would be 4x400m at 5k with 1200m recoveries after EVERY rep including the last one at 75% to 85% of 5k pace. This will be 4 total miles. For our example 15:00 runner if he runs his reps at 72 and his recoveries at 85%(3:27 per K/83 per 400m) he will cover the 4 miles in 21:24.
If you can not run the fast end of the recovery zone then your first job is to get faster on the 1200 recovery. So each time you repeat the workout you will still do the 400m at 5k goal pace but each time you will run that recovery faster until you get down to the 85% of race pace range.
Once you reach the point where you can run the 1200 recovery at 85% of goal pace, and for the aerobically well developed among you this will be your first time out, you start increasing your distance at 5k pace and reducing your recovery distance. Each time you repeat the workout you increase the distance at 5k pace by 100 to 200 meters and reducing the recovery by an equal amount.
So you would progress through 4x500/1100, 4x600/1200 up to a goal of 4x800/800 or for someone who is a real workout monster 4x1k/600- this would be 20:16. Which would be a very challenging aerobic test which forces you to relax during your 5k reps as well as your recovery. This is the great advantage of alternations. I can't tell you how often someone tells me they want to run a set time in the 5k and they regularly do 5x1k or even 8 or 10 x 1k at that pace. Heck even 3 or 4 x mile at that pace but they can not seem to hit the time in the race. Why???? The recovery! They are taking too much recovery and they are learning to run repeated races more than learning to run their goal pace at an effort level that makes maintaining it without any recovery for the full 5k possible. The genius of the alternations is that it is focus entirely on teaching you to run your reps at the right effort AND building the aerobic power needed to maintain it for the whole race.
Monday, February 2, 2015
Tempo Tuesday: Tempo Runs for the Young or Developing Runner.
Many of my posts about training certainly lean towards the more experienced athlete. This post instead is focused on the beginning athlete. It is most directly targeting the middle school or high school athlete but certainly could be extended to work for any runner who is fairly new to the sport.
Unfortunately partially because of ease of organization and partially because I don't think most youth coaches know any better beginning runners are often subjected to large amounts of anaerobic intervals of many kinds. This type of training is very easy to structure and very convenient when trying to monitor and manage large numbers of young athletes. Also it appeals to young competitive children who can turn each short effort into a little mini race. Finally athletes who do this type of work tend to make some very quick improvements, at least in the beginning. Sadly for real development this is probably the worst type of training a young runner can be doing.
Why is it so bad? Well three issues really. First when you run hard your form breaks down and in young developing runners you are building their form habits and if they are constantly straining you are bringing out all their worst form habits. For the short term this will only make them less efficient which means a bit slower but not noticeably. The long term damage however is that as this runner begins at some point in their running life to start and try to build their mileage they will have all sorts of underlying form issues that will cause injuries and be very hard to fix.
Second though you see short term gains you do not develop the aerobic engine which is where long term development comes from. By focusing training on short term gains we rob ourselves of real development. Aerobic improvement can be a little slower but it is much more limitless and you can always sharpen that fitness up with anaerobic work later, where if you get anaerobic fitness first and then move to aerobic you actually will get slower for a time because you are losing that anaerobic sharpness while slowly increasing the more real and lasting aerobic fitness.
Third the interval trained athlete is going to have a real hard time transitioning to the individual runner lifestyle. For the athlete who develops into a competitor this is not a real issue. When they finish running for their middle school or high school team they simply go onto join a team at the next level but for the mid packer who will not compete at the next level the most often only run for a short while after their competitive days are over. The reality of hard intervals as a main training method is that when you start doing them without a team around you they get old very quickly. Simply put you aren't teaching the young runners a running lifestyle that is going to be naturally maintained for a lifetime.
So my solution is that the three main training sessions for the young runner should be easy steady running, strides (EVERY DAY) http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2015/01/strides.html , and Tempo Runs.
Tempo runs for the young runner should be short. They need not be structure very much. At this age the athlete is improving very fast and picking a pace based on goal or current fitness can leave you shooting at a moving target. The best option is to teach the correct effort. It is easier said than done but it is worth while both as a running life skill as well as because of the competitive results you will see from it.
The effort. As fast as the athlete can run well still feeling relaxed. I describe it as an effort at which you could talk if you had to but you certainly wouldn't want to. You should feel like you are on the edge of your legs and lungs starting to burn but not go over that edge. You will gain more by going a bit too slow than you will by going too fast so it is ok to err on the side of going a bit slow. It isn't whimping out, it is training smart!
The distance. The key to running tempos for the beginning athlete is that they should be quite short. 15 to 20 minutes is ideal. Any longer and the runners inherent lack of endurance is going to greatly harm the quality of the work. You are obviously doing regular running with some form of long run to build that endurance over time but that can take a few years so in the mean time the tempo should be right in the athletes wheel house. I have purposely put down a time not a distance on these. I realize that for some beginning athletes a 15minute tempo run may be barely more than a mile. That is fine! What matters 100% on this session is internal effort.
For teams of athletes I would suggest doing loops around a flat area. This way a coach can monitor to make sure athletes are not going too hard. Also this way there is not a pressure to set up a loop of 2 or 3 miles that now everyone covers the same DISTANCE. You want them covering the same TIME.
The way to progress these runs is to increase the time. So you work through them in cycles. Start with a tempo of just 12 to 15 minutes and then repeat this effort every 5 days to one week increasing the time by 2 to 4 minutes. The key is to try to maintain the same effort. You will find that though you were quite tired at the end of the last tempo you are able to hold it together for a couple more minutes and within a few weeks you are running 20 to 25 minutes at the same pace you held for your first tempo and that you feel quite fresh and relaxed as you pass that original 12 to 15minute point.
Once you have reached the 20 to 25 minute range you go back to the beginning of 12 to 15 minutes but you will find the same effort you used the first time out will allow you to cover greater distance in the time. In short you will go faster for the same effort.
The young athlete should be doing this pretty much every week of the year that they train. I was not the most talented athlete and as a young runner I struggled. I needed aerobic development and so I struggled as an athlete until I got it. Some would say I was a late bloomer and that is possible. However I would say I had comparable talent to a guy like Charlie Spedding but in HS he ran the equivalent of about a 4:12 mile and did well in English national cross country races. The difference? As I stagnated from my freshman through junior years, 10:20 down to only 10:06 for 2 miles in those three years, Charlie improved greatly in the same time period. Our training volumes where similarly low. Our racing schedules were similarly over stocked. Our interval workouts were similar in similarity, if mine were much more often done. However Charlie's bread and butter was a very fast 15minute run. I doubt he would have called it a tempo but that is exactly what it was and he learned very quickly to run fast with control and his aerobic system grew greatly in that time period.
What is better is that work like this sets the athlete up for success in the future. You are building with tempos, and strides, the ability to do more training and to build improvement on top of your current fitness. So often I hear coaches proudly touting that there young athletes are under trained. Meaning generally that they have done low mileage. The problem is this usually means they have done a ton of workouts and hard races without building the underlying structures needed to train harder later on. As well meaning as the coaching has been the athlete has been done a disservice. They have been built up in such a way that they are more likely to get hurt and they are underperforming in anything longer than a mile because they simply have no real aerobic development.
Far better to focus early training on three things.
(1)Steady year over year increases in volume. If an athlete can run 30 miles in his/her 3rd week of training for a team they damn well should be doing a lot more than that 4 years later. I view the idea of weekly volume averages being 25 to 35 per week as a frosh and then increase around 10 miles per week each year, 35 to 45 as a soph, 45 to 55 as a jr and 55 to 65 as a senior. Obviously some athletes will progress faster an others slower but the idea is simple. Each year you will be stronger then the year prior so the training should progress with this.
(2) These tempo runs done with incredible regularity year round- if you can add in progression runs of similar durations nearly as often all the better!
(3) strides, form drills and short hill sprints to build great smooth powerful form and great running specific muscular strength.
So there you have my tempos for new runners and a bit of extra as well.
Unfortunately partially because of ease of organization and partially because I don't think most youth coaches know any better beginning runners are often subjected to large amounts of anaerobic intervals of many kinds. This type of training is very easy to structure and very convenient when trying to monitor and manage large numbers of young athletes. Also it appeals to young competitive children who can turn each short effort into a little mini race. Finally athletes who do this type of work tend to make some very quick improvements, at least in the beginning. Sadly for real development this is probably the worst type of training a young runner can be doing.
Why is it so bad? Well three issues really. First when you run hard your form breaks down and in young developing runners you are building their form habits and if they are constantly straining you are bringing out all their worst form habits. For the short term this will only make them less efficient which means a bit slower but not noticeably. The long term damage however is that as this runner begins at some point in their running life to start and try to build their mileage they will have all sorts of underlying form issues that will cause injuries and be very hard to fix.
Second though you see short term gains you do not develop the aerobic engine which is where long term development comes from. By focusing training on short term gains we rob ourselves of real development. Aerobic improvement can be a little slower but it is much more limitless and you can always sharpen that fitness up with anaerobic work later, where if you get anaerobic fitness first and then move to aerobic you actually will get slower for a time because you are losing that anaerobic sharpness while slowly increasing the more real and lasting aerobic fitness.
Third the interval trained athlete is going to have a real hard time transitioning to the individual runner lifestyle. For the athlete who develops into a competitor this is not a real issue. When they finish running for their middle school or high school team they simply go onto join a team at the next level but for the mid packer who will not compete at the next level the most often only run for a short while after their competitive days are over. The reality of hard intervals as a main training method is that when you start doing them without a team around you they get old very quickly. Simply put you aren't teaching the young runners a running lifestyle that is going to be naturally maintained for a lifetime.
So my solution is that the three main training sessions for the young runner should be easy steady running, strides (EVERY DAY) http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2015/01/strides.html , and Tempo Runs.
Tempo runs for the young runner should be short. They need not be structure very much. At this age the athlete is improving very fast and picking a pace based on goal or current fitness can leave you shooting at a moving target. The best option is to teach the correct effort. It is easier said than done but it is worth while both as a running life skill as well as because of the competitive results you will see from it.
The effort. As fast as the athlete can run well still feeling relaxed. I describe it as an effort at which you could talk if you had to but you certainly wouldn't want to. You should feel like you are on the edge of your legs and lungs starting to burn but not go over that edge. You will gain more by going a bit too slow than you will by going too fast so it is ok to err on the side of going a bit slow. It isn't whimping out, it is training smart!
The distance. The key to running tempos for the beginning athlete is that they should be quite short. 15 to 20 minutes is ideal. Any longer and the runners inherent lack of endurance is going to greatly harm the quality of the work. You are obviously doing regular running with some form of long run to build that endurance over time but that can take a few years so in the mean time the tempo should be right in the athletes wheel house. I have purposely put down a time not a distance on these. I realize that for some beginning athletes a 15minute tempo run may be barely more than a mile. That is fine! What matters 100% on this session is internal effort.
For teams of athletes I would suggest doing loops around a flat area. This way a coach can monitor to make sure athletes are not going too hard. Also this way there is not a pressure to set up a loop of 2 or 3 miles that now everyone covers the same DISTANCE. You want them covering the same TIME.
The way to progress these runs is to increase the time. So you work through them in cycles. Start with a tempo of just 12 to 15 minutes and then repeat this effort every 5 days to one week increasing the time by 2 to 4 minutes. The key is to try to maintain the same effort. You will find that though you were quite tired at the end of the last tempo you are able to hold it together for a couple more minutes and within a few weeks you are running 20 to 25 minutes at the same pace you held for your first tempo and that you feel quite fresh and relaxed as you pass that original 12 to 15minute point.
Once you have reached the 20 to 25 minute range you go back to the beginning of 12 to 15 minutes but you will find the same effort you used the first time out will allow you to cover greater distance in the time. In short you will go faster for the same effort.
The young athlete should be doing this pretty much every week of the year that they train. I was not the most talented athlete and as a young runner I struggled. I needed aerobic development and so I struggled as an athlete until I got it. Some would say I was a late bloomer and that is possible. However I would say I had comparable talent to a guy like Charlie Spedding but in HS he ran the equivalent of about a 4:12 mile and did well in English national cross country races. The difference? As I stagnated from my freshman through junior years, 10:20 down to only 10:06 for 2 miles in those three years, Charlie improved greatly in the same time period. Our training volumes where similarly low. Our racing schedules were similarly over stocked. Our interval workouts were similar in similarity, if mine were much more often done. However Charlie's bread and butter was a very fast 15minute run. I doubt he would have called it a tempo but that is exactly what it was and he learned very quickly to run fast with control and his aerobic system grew greatly in that time period.
What is better is that work like this sets the athlete up for success in the future. You are building with tempos, and strides, the ability to do more training and to build improvement on top of your current fitness. So often I hear coaches proudly touting that there young athletes are under trained. Meaning generally that they have done low mileage. The problem is this usually means they have done a ton of workouts and hard races without building the underlying structures needed to train harder later on. As well meaning as the coaching has been the athlete has been done a disservice. They have been built up in such a way that they are more likely to get hurt and they are underperforming in anything longer than a mile because they simply have no real aerobic development.
Far better to focus early training on three things.
(1)Steady year over year increases in volume. If an athlete can run 30 miles in his/her 3rd week of training for a team they damn well should be doing a lot more than that 4 years later. I view the idea of weekly volume averages being 25 to 35 per week as a frosh and then increase around 10 miles per week each year, 35 to 45 as a soph, 45 to 55 as a jr and 55 to 65 as a senior. Obviously some athletes will progress faster an others slower but the idea is simple. Each year you will be stronger then the year prior so the training should progress with this.
(2) These tempo runs done with incredible regularity year round- if you can add in progression runs of similar durations nearly as often all the better!
(3) strides, form drills and short hill sprints to build great smooth powerful form and great running specific muscular strength.
So there you have my tempos for new runners and a bit of extra as well.
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Strides
I love strides! Love them, love them, love them. Is this clear. I am seriously the worlds biggest fan of strides. There are a few reasons for this not the least of which is that strides are awesome and that they are more awesome if you lack much natural speed and therefore need to keep working the speed you have in order to run anything at a decent pace.
For the uninitiated strides are simply short sprints of 10 to 20 seconds on flat ground. You tend to accelerate up into them a bit slower than you would a max out sprint and to slow down more gradually. Very often people do not get up to their top speed in strides. I assume they have been around as long as running competitively has existed. I imagine in the mid 19th century when kids first played Hare and Hounds some of those kids were doing short acceleration and sprints before the actually game started to get ready. They are a ubiquitous part of almost all warm ups and have been a part of almost every major coaches program since before Paavo Nurmi started tearing up the track and trails.
Why are they so common and so wide spread? Two simple reasons. Simplicity and effectiveness. They are so basic and yet they can be used in so many ways to have so many positive impacts on our training outcomes.
You probably already do strides before your workouts and races. You should continue to do this. They are an integral part of a good warm up. Many of you probably do a few in the days before a major race, this too is good. I would simply suggest that you need to do them even MORE often.
In his seminal article "Anatomy of a Medal", where he discusses the training that brought Deena Kastor (Drossin) from a solid but not super start All American runner to an Olympic podium, Joe Vigil talks about how they did something for speed basically every single day for years. See the article here: http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_1/the-anatomy-of-a-medal.shtml Strides were a big part of how they did that. Recently after winning the Boston marathon Meb Keflezghi said in multiple interviews that one of the things he was doing now that he was older was making sure he did strides EVERY day as he couldn't do some of the speed workouts he used to without getting hurt or robbing himself of some of the longer workouts he needed for marathon success. Meb is coached by Bob Larson who is one of the finest distance coaches in American history. He is the quintessential "nobody's fool" If Bob has his athletes do something it is because it works. Flat out.
So when should you do strides. I would suggest that if you are really trying to get the best out of yourself as a middle or long distance runner you should be doing strides in one form or an other every single day if you can. Now we all have days when we are banged up or when the goal to get something done doesn't happen but that should be the goal. It is also wise to point out at this point that if you currently do about 5 strides a week and you go out and do 5 to 10 every day next week you are going to be very very sore and if you keep that up another week you are likely going to be very hurt. Use some common sense whenever adding something into your training program and build up sensibly.
How to use strides. First after your regular runs trying to mix in 2 to 10 strides is a great idea. They may not all be great efforts but they really go a long way in preventing injury. Improving and maintaining basic speed and building great muscular endurance and efficiency. I am for 'at least 4' after every regular run. Which means I do exactly 4 like 99% of the time. Don't judge I'm very tired before I start the run, never mind after!
Next up you can use strides as a muscular workout. 30x100m at 800m to mile pace with full recovery or near full recovery is an easy session that can help in a big way. When I set my 1500m PB I had not done any intervals or hard repeats. I had done some tempos and I had been consistently running 30x100m in 15 seconds each week and I got in a 1500 and was SHOCKED to run that time. It was a season opener and I was far from in the best shape but here was a PR and a time that compared well with my mile best. Thing is though out the race I felt strong and mechanically in control. Why? I had specifically trained the muscles through strides.
Another famous session is diagonals which are very similar and another great way to build up the speed. If you focus on a short event 800m to 3k or if you are a young runner making sure you are doing a session like one of the two above year round pretty much every week is going to be one of the best things you can ever do for your running.
Strides two most important contributions to your training are first that they teach the single most important skill in effective distance racing. Relaxed fast running. If you aren't relaxed you won't be going to long and you will always get beat by anyone who is relaxed who has built a similar sized engine. It is like if two people build car engines that have the same horsepower and one of them burns more gas than the other. That one will lose in any sort of longer race because it will run out of fuel. Second strides are a great way to sneak in a large volume of quick to very fast running over the course of a week and this builds muscular strength that helps you hold your form together and stay efficient in the later stages of races when you are getting fatigued.
Strides have some other side benefits, increased stroke volume from your heart, better access to energy stored in the alatic system, improved form, to name a few but they two above are the ones that you will notice the most. Best part is they are so simply you almost can't screw them up and as long as you do them often and in decent volume you will get all the benefits including the ones you aren't even targeting!
So suck it up and do your strides. Like brushing your teeth once they are part of the routine they are easy enough and man do they make life.. err running better!
For the uninitiated strides are simply short sprints of 10 to 20 seconds on flat ground. You tend to accelerate up into them a bit slower than you would a max out sprint and to slow down more gradually. Very often people do not get up to their top speed in strides. I assume they have been around as long as running competitively has existed. I imagine in the mid 19th century when kids first played Hare and Hounds some of those kids were doing short acceleration and sprints before the actually game started to get ready. They are a ubiquitous part of almost all warm ups and have been a part of almost every major coaches program since before Paavo Nurmi started tearing up the track and trails.
Why are they so common and so wide spread? Two simple reasons. Simplicity and effectiveness. They are so basic and yet they can be used in so many ways to have so many positive impacts on our training outcomes.
You probably already do strides before your workouts and races. You should continue to do this. They are an integral part of a good warm up. Many of you probably do a few in the days before a major race, this too is good. I would simply suggest that you need to do them even MORE often.
In his seminal article "Anatomy of a Medal", where he discusses the training that brought Deena Kastor (Drossin) from a solid but not super start All American runner to an Olympic podium, Joe Vigil talks about how they did something for speed basically every single day for years. See the article here: http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_1/the-anatomy-of-a-medal.shtml Strides were a big part of how they did that. Recently after winning the Boston marathon Meb Keflezghi said in multiple interviews that one of the things he was doing now that he was older was making sure he did strides EVERY day as he couldn't do some of the speed workouts he used to without getting hurt or robbing himself of some of the longer workouts he needed for marathon success. Meb is coached by Bob Larson who is one of the finest distance coaches in American history. He is the quintessential "nobody's fool" If Bob has his athletes do something it is because it works. Flat out.
So when should you do strides. I would suggest that if you are really trying to get the best out of yourself as a middle or long distance runner you should be doing strides in one form or an other every single day if you can. Now we all have days when we are banged up or when the goal to get something done doesn't happen but that should be the goal. It is also wise to point out at this point that if you currently do about 5 strides a week and you go out and do 5 to 10 every day next week you are going to be very very sore and if you keep that up another week you are likely going to be very hurt. Use some common sense whenever adding something into your training program and build up sensibly.
How to use strides. First after your regular runs trying to mix in 2 to 10 strides is a great idea. They may not all be great efforts but they really go a long way in preventing injury. Improving and maintaining basic speed and building great muscular endurance and efficiency. I am for 'at least 4' after every regular run. Which means I do exactly 4 like 99% of the time. Don't judge I'm very tired before I start the run, never mind after!
Next up you can use strides as a muscular workout. 30x100m at 800m to mile pace with full recovery or near full recovery is an easy session that can help in a big way. When I set my 1500m PB I had not done any intervals or hard repeats. I had done some tempos and I had been consistently running 30x100m in 15 seconds each week and I got in a 1500 and was SHOCKED to run that time. It was a season opener and I was far from in the best shape but here was a PR and a time that compared well with my mile best. Thing is though out the race I felt strong and mechanically in control. Why? I had specifically trained the muscles through strides.
Another famous session is diagonals which are very similar and another great way to build up the speed. If you focus on a short event 800m to 3k or if you are a young runner making sure you are doing a session like one of the two above year round pretty much every week is going to be one of the best things you can ever do for your running.
Strides two most important contributions to your training are first that they teach the single most important skill in effective distance racing. Relaxed fast running. If you aren't relaxed you won't be going to long and you will always get beat by anyone who is relaxed who has built a similar sized engine. It is like if two people build car engines that have the same horsepower and one of them burns more gas than the other. That one will lose in any sort of longer race because it will run out of fuel. Second strides are a great way to sneak in a large volume of quick to very fast running over the course of a week and this builds muscular strength that helps you hold your form together and stay efficient in the later stages of races when you are getting fatigued.
Strides have some other side benefits, increased stroke volume from your heart, better access to energy stored in the alatic system, improved form, to name a few but they two above are the ones that you will notice the most. Best part is they are so simply you almost can't screw them up and as long as you do them often and in decent volume you will get all the benefits including the ones you aren't even targeting!
So suck it up and do your strides. Like brushing your teeth once they are part of the routine they are easy enough and man do they make life.. err running better!
Monday, January 5, 2015
Fundamental Tempo Runs for 5000 meters
The fundamental tempo run is a longer tempo run done mostly in the base phase of training. It is tweaked slightly for each event. Here I will discuss how to focus on how to use it for 5000m training.
The 5000 is a particularly savage event. There are events where you hurt more, the 800, and events where you hurt longer, the marathon, but for the cruel combination of leg and lung searing pain for an extended period of time it is hard to find an event more savage than the 5000m. Yet for all the wallowing in latic acid hell you do over the last 2k of the event it is at its heart an aerobic test. The fundamental phase tempo is a workout that done in the early in your training has the ability to force a huge jump in your aerobic fitness so that you can begin to compete on a new plain in your next 5000m season. It is not singularly going to get you ready for 5000m racing but it will build the aerobic foundation needed for great 5000m running.
When I was going into college I remember the realization that 15:00 was the sort of 2nd tier gold standard for male distance college runners. Comparable to what 10:00 for 2 miles was in high school. You wouldn't be a star if you broke it but you would be 'respectable'. I had killed myself for years to finally slip under 10mins in my last year of high school and I was very proud of that accomplishment. Now not only was I going to have to drop my pace down to 4:48 a mile but I was going to have to add an extra mile and a 200. It was a cruel kick in the pants for sure. I had worked out very hard and very often in high school and I just didn't see how I would ever be able to force my under even that mark of basic respectability never mind the crazy heights beyond it. Then my first college Coach George Davis taught me a very important lesson.
It was impossible to run any harder. So I needed to make fast running easier. The secret to that was aerobic conditioning.
Now back then we were doing this mostly the slow old fashion way with miles bloody miles. Which still have there place but think of the fundamental tempo as a way to speed up the process and take it even further.
Almost everyone these days who is training for a 5k is doing some form of tempo running. Most often I see a lot of 3 to 6 mile tempos. Generally speaking these are run at an effort and for a distance that I would consider a latic threshold tempo. These are a great tool and should not be dropped, to the contrary I would probably suggest you do them more often and for more parts of your training year than you already do, but what I am also suggesting in this post is something a little different. Fundamental tempos are a tempo that you will use in your base phase and then largely drop. Though for the high school or college runner racing 9 months out of the year I would suggest doing them at least once a month pretty much year round and picking one of the 3 competitive seasons to included them weekly or pretty darn close to it. For all runners it should be done once or twice a week during the base phase.
The fundamental tempo even for 5000m running is a relatively long effort.You want to start at about 45 minutes and build up 70 minutes. The pace should be 15% to 25% slower than your goal 5k pace. To find your pace take your goal pace in seconds and multiply it by 1.15 for the fast end and 1.25 for the slow end of the range.
For example I'll walk through the paces for a 5k runners with goals of 15:00 and 18:00. For a runner targeting 15:00 for 5k that is 3:00 per kilometer pace 3x60 = 180 seconds 180x1.25 = 225 seconds which is 3:45 per K which is just a shade over 6:00 per mile- Basically a quick training run for a 15:00 runner. For the fast end 180x1.15 = 207 or 3:27 per K which is around 5:30 mile pace which is certainly quicker than someone targeting 15:00 for 5k would be normally running on a training run.
For the 18min runner lets do the math with per mile paces. 18:00 for 5k is roughly 5:45 per mile pace which is 345 seconds. 345 x 1.25= 431.25 seconds, 7:11 per mile down to 345 x 1.15 = 396.75 seconds, 6:36 per mile.
As you can see that is a fairly large range. For most athletes running 45mins at the slow end of the pace range is really just a good day of regular running in terms of effort. That is exactly the idea. This is an area of pace that we often don't train at all and you can reap huge fitness gains but targeting this no mans land between regular training pace and threshold pace.
The key to these sessions is to start very easy right at the start of the base phase. Head out and do 45mins at 1.25 times your goal pace. This should be a nice light session. A week or so later go 50 to 60mins at the same pace. Again this should be fairly easy. Once you go 1:10 or so at this pace, week 3 or 4 you should drop down to 45mins again but pick up the pace. Ideal if you have the time to cycle through 3 times you can do 1.2 times pace for the second time through and after you build up to 1:10 at that pace you can drop down to 45mins at 1.15 times goal pace. If you don't have to do this if you don't have the time you can just jump down to 1.15 for the second cycle but you will find that to be a pretty decent jump in effort.
These runs in the base phase can really, as Bill Squires used to say, put the tiger in the cat. Once you are through the base phase it is a great idea to mix these in when you have a spot for a moderate effort during your specific training phase.
To summarize:
what is the goal of this session- big aerobic improvement, learn to run quickly relaxed.
What is the effort- all about control. You want to learn to run quickly for an extended time without working very hard. Tired after but smooth during.
When to do this session- mostly in the base phase though it can be mixed in to varying degrees at other times of the year depending on your exact needs and schedule.
When I was going into college I remember the realization that 15:00 was the sort of 2nd tier gold standard for male distance college runners. Comparable to what 10:00 for 2 miles was in high school. You wouldn't be a star if you broke it but you would be 'respectable'. I had killed myself for years to finally slip under 10mins in my last year of high school and I was very proud of that accomplishment. Now not only was I going to have to drop my pace down to 4:48 a mile but I was going to have to add an extra mile and a 200. It was a cruel kick in the pants for sure. I had worked out very hard and very often in high school and I just didn't see how I would ever be able to force my under even that mark of basic respectability never mind the crazy heights beyond it. Then my first college Coach George Davis taught me a very important lesson.
It was impossible to run any harder. So I needed to make fast running easier. The secret to that was aerobic conditioning.
Now back then we were doing this mostly the slow old fashion way with miles bloody miles. Which still have there place but think of the fundamental tempo as a way to speed up the process and take it even further.
Almost everyone these days who is training for a 5k is doing some form of tempo running. Most often I see a lot of 3 to 6 mile tempos. Generally speaking these are run at an effort and for a distance that I would consider a latic threshold tempo. These are a great tool and should not be dropped, to the contrary I would probably suggest you do them more often and for more parts of your training year than you already do, but what I am also suggesting in this post is something a little different. Fundamental tempos are a tempo that you will use in your base phase and then largely drop. Though for the high school or college runner racing 9 months out of the year I would suggest doing them at least once a month pretty much year round and picking one of the 3 competitive seasons to included them weekly or pretty darn close to it. For all runners it should be done once or twice a week during the base phase.
The fundamental tempo even for 5000m running is a relatively long effort.You want to start at about 45 minutes and build up 70 minutes. The pace should be 15% to 25% slower than your goal 5k pace. To find your pace take your goal pace in seconds and multiply it by 1.15 for the fast end and 1.25 for the slow end of the range.
For example I'll walk through the paces for a 5k runners with goals of 15:00 and 18:00. For a runner targeting 15:00 for 5k that is 3:00 per kilometer pace 3x60 = 180 seconds 180x1.25 = 225 seconds which is 3:45 per K which is just a shade over 6:00 per mile- Basically a quick training run for a 15:00 runner. For the fast end 180x1.15 = 207 or 3:27 per K which is around 5:30 mile pace which is certainly quicker than someone targeting 15:00 for 5k would be normally running on a training run.
For the 18min runner lets do the math with per mile paces. 18:00 for 5k is roughly 5:45 per mile pace which is 345 seconds. 345 x 1.25= 431.25 seconds, 7:11 per mile down to 345 x 1.15 = 396.75 seconds, 6:36 per mile.
As you can see that is a fairly large range. For most athletes running 45mins at the slow end of the pace range is really just a good day of regular running in terms of effort. That is exactly the idea. This is an area of pace that we often don't train at all and you can reap huge fitness gains but targeting this no mans land between regular training pace and threshold pace.
The key to these sessions is to start very easy right at the start of the base phase. Head out and do 45mins at 1.25 times your goal pace. This should be a nice light session. A week or so later go 50 to 60mins at the same pace. Again this should be fairly easy. Once you go 1:10 or so at this pace, week 3 or 4 you should drop down to 45mins again but pick up the pace. Ideal if you have the time to cycle through 3 times you can do 1.2 times pace for the second time through and after you build up to 1:10 at that pace you can drop down to 45mins at 1.15 times goal pace. If you don't have to do this if you don't have the time you can just jump down to 1.15 for the second cycle but you will find that to be a pretty decent jump in effort.
These runs in the base phase can really, as Bill Squires used to say, put the tiger in the cat. Once you are through the base phase it is a great idea to mix these in when you have a spot for a moderate effort during your specific training phase.
To summarize:
what is the goal of this session- big aerobic improvement, learn to run quickly relaxed.
What is the effort- all about control. You want to learn to run quickly for an extended time without working very hard. Tired after but smooth during.
When to do this session- mostly in the base phase though it can be mixed in to varying degrees at other times of the year depending on your exact needs and schedule.
Friday, January 2, 2015
Traditional Fartlek
Around 1937 swedish coach Gosta Holmer, a retired decathlete who had won bronze at the 1912 Olympics in that event, invented a new type of workouts for his charges. Fartlek. Roughly translated it means speed play. This simple yet profound type of training would become the mainstay of his most famous proteges, Gunder Hagg and Arne Andersson, who would shatter dozens of world records and bring the mile world record from the mid 4:06's down to 4:01. Hagg would also become the first man ever to run under 14:00 for 5k producing a 13:58.2 in 1942. All this with the insanity of World War 2 roaring around them. Though 4:01and 13:58 are not nearly world class times today they are still, seventy years later, extremely exceptional times and when one considers they were achieved in the days before mondo tracks, before running shoes, heck before sneakers! It is really remarkable that two athletes could have reached the level they did.
There are now dozens of different structures of fartlek that have become famous. It is a type of training that has been part of nearly all the great coaches, from Lydiard and Bowermann to Canova and Salazar, recommended schedules. I will do many posts on fartlek but for this one we will focus on it in its most pure and simple state. The original speed play.
Fartlek done in its most basic and pure form needs no timing, no measurement, no plan and no specific surface, though I would suggest the most beautiful you can find and some decent footing for fast running. You do not need a watch. Heck if you really want to get in touch with your forerunners and be a full purist you can go without shoes. I often would do this on rainy days sneaking on a golf course for a barefoot fartlek on the grass.
Effort? The name tells it all, speed play, it is a game! You can play hard or play easy. Go how you feel. I have heard fartlek referred to as running animal style it could just as easily be called running like a child. Lydiard and Canova both like it as a light workout to transition into harder more specific sessions but for others, Steve Monaghetti comes to mind, it was a serous part of their hardest training. I suggest you use it in three different ways.
First Very light. Need to get in some strides and loosen up after a hard effort or in the days prior to a major race. Just let it rip a few times on a light run on soft surfaces. Open up and fly along but when it starts to get hard simply let up and recover fully before moving fast again. Your jogs between the efforts on these days should be light and slow.
Second moderate. Perhaps you want to mix in one more workout in a week but know if it is a real killer you won't be able to do your more important focus sessions for the week. Perhaps you are early in a cycle of training or you are returning from a layoff. Fartlek is perfect. You can vary the speeds and distances as well as the total time running. Easily stopping long before you are fully exhausted. Best of all you have no watch to tell you you aren't running fast enough or long enough. Your breaks between the fast efforts on these days should be at the pace of a fast training run. Not super fast but not shuffling along either.
Finally Hard. Go get it run short savage bursts. Long killing drives. Attack every uphill you see. Imagine yourself a cross country god or an ancient man hunting deer on foot. Whatever inspires you and push each effort until your lungs sear and your legs quiver. Then settle back into a jog until you are back in control enough to attack again. Go on like this until you can't go no more. Much like the moderate your pace between fast efforts on these days should be rather quick about as fast as you go on your fastest regular training runs.
How long? Until you FEEL you are finished. In future blogs we'll get into all sorts of structured fartleks but for this the pure fartlek you should not be wearing a watch or checking your distance. You are trying to communicate with your body. To tests its limits and to let it tell you how much is just right. How fast is fast, how long is long enough.
How fast? I do have a bit more direction for you here. DO NOT do just one speed! Mix it up. Your efforts should be all sorts of different distances and speeds. Vary from full out mad blitzes to just quick floating efforts, from short sprints to the next tree to long killing drives over significant distance. Really mix it up. Variety is the name of the game. Okay fartlek is really the name of the game but you know what I mean!
The fartlek in its pure wild form is not for everyone but it can be an amazing workout. You can never get the pace or effort wrong and you can develop a powerful connection with your body which is one thing you need to push it to great performances.
There are now dozens of different structures of fartlek that have become famous. It is a type of training that has been part of nearly all the great coaches, from Lydiard and Bowermann to Canova and Salazar, recommended schedules. I will do many posts on fartlek but for this one we will focus on it in its most pure and simple state. The original speed play.
Fartlek done in its most basic and pure form needs no timing, no measurement, no plan and no specific surface, though I would suggest the most beautiful you can find and some decent footing for fast running. You do not need a watch. Heck if you really want to get in touch with your forerunners and be a full purist you can go without shoes. I often would do this on rainy days sneaking on a golf course for a barefoot fartlek on the grass.
Effort? The name tells it all, speed play, it is a game! You can play hard or play easy. Go how you feel. I have heard fartlek referred to as running animal style it could just as easily be called running like a child. Lydiard and Canova both like it as a light workout to transition into harder more specific sessions but for others, Steve Monaghetti comes to mind, it was a serous part of their hardest training. I suggest you use it in three different ways.
First Very light. Need to get in some strides and loosen up after a hard effort or in the days prior to a major race. Just let it rip a few times on a light run on soft surfaces. Open up and fly along but when it starts to get hard simply let up and recover fully before moving fast again. Your jogs between the efforts on these days should be light and slow.
Second moderate. Perhaps you want to mix in one more workout in a week but know if it is a real killer you won't be able to do your more important focus sessions for the week. Perhaps you are early in a cycle of training or you are returning from a layoff. Fartlek is perfect. You can vary the speeds and distances as well as the total time running. Easily stopping long before you are fully exhausted. Best of all you have no watch to tell you you aren't running fast enough or long enough. Your breaks between the fast efforts on these days should be at the pace of a fast training run. Not super fast but not shuffling along either.
Finally Hard. Go get it run short savage bursts. Long killing drives. Attack every uphill you see. Imagine yourself a cross country god or an ancient man hunting deer on foot. Whatever inspires you and push each effort until your lungs sear and your legs quiver. Then settle back into a jog until you are back in control enough to attack again. Go on like this until you can't go no more. Much like the moderate your pace between fast efforts on these days should be rather quick about as fast as you go on your fastest regular training runs.
How long? Until you FEEL you are finished. In future blogs we'll get into all sorts of structured fartleks but for this the pure fartlek you should not be wearing a watch or checking your distance. You are trying to communicate with your body. To tests its limits and to let it tell you how much is just right. How fast is fast, how long is long enough.
How fast? I do have a bit more direction for you here. DO NOT do just one speed! Mix it up. Your efforts should be all sorts of different distances and speeds. Vary from full out mad blitzes to just quick floating efforts, from short sprints to the next tree to long killing drives over significant distance. Really mix it up. Variety is the name of the game. Okay fartlek is really the name of the game but you know what I mean!
The fartlek in its pure wild form is not for everyone but it can be an amazing workout. You can never get the pace or effort wrong and you can develop a powerful connection with your body which is one thing you need to push it to great performances.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Why do Short Hills
Why do I do short hill repeats if I'm training for a marathon and not a mile?
I do short hill repeats for 2 reasons the first goal, and most obvious, is to gain physical strength. Since strength is in our sport is often interchangeable with speed I see why it seems strange for a marathoner to be doing this type of a workout especially with such frequency. I mean why try to get a faster top end speed when even to run a world record I only need to run 4:45 or 4:46 a mile. The first reason is that every race is a race of speed, meaning that no matter how long the race is the fastest person over the distance wins. But that alone doesn't justify hill repeats one to three times a week. The real reason is strength and speed over the short distance equal efficiency. By doing these hills and getting stronger and faster in the maxim. I teach my body to consume less glycogen, and less oxygen when moving at sub maximal speeds. The less of these "fuels" the body consumes at a given pace the longer I can hold that pace.
the 2nd reason I do short hills is that they drive my heart rate way up in an extremely short period of time, to within 10 beats of max or higher in 10 seconds or less and then because my heart rate hasn't been up that long and no acid needs to be flushed out of my system (it takes 15 seconds of an exercise to begin to produce any lactic acid) my heart rate basically plummets back down to a relatively rested level, 120 to 130 beats per minute, in a short time 20seconds to a minute. This exercise on the heart teaches the heart efficiency as well meaning it takes less energy to pump more blood.
Now if I was training for the mile I would still do short hill repeats for the same reasons I have listed above but I would probably try to go a little longer (say 13 to 15 seconds rather then my usual 8 to 12) and I would try to do it on a slightly less steep hill and with better footing. Why? Because a miler would want to improve there efficiency, muscular as well as heart but he/she would also want to work more specifically on there top end speed and running uphill but with your form closer to that which you use to run over flat ground is a spectacular way of doing that.
Finally the greatest advantage of short hills is that you can reap huge long term benefits without having to sacrifice much of anything. They are very easy on the body and mind. Sure you run all out but only for a few seconds so they really are not hard and because little or no acid is accumulated in the system they take little recovery at all. This is why if I had one thing I would recommend to all runners to add to there program right now short hills would be it. They improve your basic speed, improve your efficiency and strengthen your heart and if you do them once or twice a week your body won't be any more tired or worse for the wear. It’s a win win situation. I am convinced that these, progression runs and the use of circuit training are the biggest reasons the Kenyans are so far beyond us here in theUS US
I do short hill repeats for 2 reasons the first goal, and most obvious, is to gain physical strength. Since strength is in our sport is often interchangeable with speed I see why it seems strange for a marathoner to be doing this type of a workout especially with such frequency. I mean why try to get a faster top end speed when even to run a world record I only need to run 4:45 or 4:46 a mile. The first reason is that every race is a race of speed, meaning that no matter how long the race is the fastest person over the distance wins. But that alone doesn't justify hill repeats one to three times a week. The real reason is strength and speed over the short distance equal efficiency. By doing these hills and getting stronger and faster in the maxim. I teach my body to consume less glycogen, and less oxygen when moving at sub maximal speeds. The less of these "fuels" the body consumes at a given pace the longer I can hold that pace.
the 2nd reason I do short hills is that they drive my heart rate way up in an extremely short period of time, to within 10 beats of max or higher in 10 seconds or less and then because my heart rate hasn't been up that long and no acid needs to be flushed out of my system (it takes 15 seconds of an exercise to begin to produce any lactic acid) my heart rate basically plummets back down to a relatively rested level, 120 to 130 beats per minute, in a short time 20seconds to a minute. This exercise on the heart teaches the heart efficiency as well meaning it takes less energy to pump more blood.
Now if I was training for the mile I would still do short hill repeats for the same reasons I have listed above but I would probably try to go a little longer (say 13 to 15 seconds rather then my usual 8 to 12) and I would try to do it on a slightly less steep hill and with better footing. Why? Because a miler would want to improve there efficiency, muscular as well as heart but he/she would also want to work more specifically on there top end speed and running uphill but with your form closer to that which you use to run over flat ground is a spectacular way of doing that.
Finally the greatest advantage of short hills is that you can reap huge long term benefits without having to sacrifice much of anything. They are very easy on the body and mind. Sure you run all out but only for a few seconds so they really are not hard and because little or no acid is accumulated in the system they take little recovery at all. This is why if I had one thing I would recommend to all runners to add to there program right now short hills would be it. They improve your basic speed, improve your efficiency and strengthen your heart and if you do them once or twice a week your body won't be any more tired or worse for the wear. It’s a win win situation. I am convinced that these, progression runs and the use of circuit training are the biggest reasons the Kenyans are so far beyond us here in the
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