Training Week Commencing 17th November

Monday: Rest day - Clapham Chasers AGM
Tuesday: Run to track, 6 x 800 over small hurdles (~2:50-55), run home (80)
Wednesday: 50 steady into work, 40 at lunch, 80 including Novice run (170)
Thursday: 36 at lunch including 10 x minute hard off 30 secs jog recovery - felt good albeit wasn't moving that fast, 52 home after promotion drinks - easy (88)
Friday: 44:41 steady into work (7:10mm), 45 easy home (90)
Saturday: Run home from CiRF (long way  - calf muscle on right leg struggling a bit) (90)
Sunday: Run back from course (quick way - calf seems better) (66)

Total: 584 minutes / ~ 74 miles

Nice to get a bigger volume week in and still injury-free. Struggled with getting sessions in this week but managed to include a bit of faster running into sections. Friday was a new "PB" on my commute of over a minute for what felt like the same effort so good progress.

Training Week Commencing 10th November 2014

Monday: Rest day (day after Clapham Chasers anniversary do - 34 miles over weekend)
Tuesday: Steady run home from work (46:40)
Wednesday: Steady run into work (46:01), Steady run to Novice session then Novice session (103)
Thursday: Steady long wu, 2 laps (1.5) tempo (18:50 / 6:17mm), 60 seconds, 1 lap tempo (9:15 / 6:10mm), wd  (90)
Friday: Rest (Hayley's speech to Kettering Old Grammer School) - no time for a run with travel / work
Saturday: Steady run with Hayley and her parents around Kettering off-road including 6 x 10s hill sprints (90)
Sunday: wu, Ware XC for Saffron Striders (8th place), short wd (54)

Total: 429 minutes / ~53 miles
Sessions: Short tempo, XC race, medium-long steady run
Weight: 12 stone, 1 pound

Good week despite being very busy at work which scuppered the changes to get any lunch runs in and various things coming up meant that I couldn't get morning runs in either. Ideally I would have gotten another run in on Saturday / Sunday as well.

Race report - Ware Inter-club XC (Saffron Striders), 8th place

The race on Sunday went well - my last two races have demonstrated that I'm definitely fitter but just haven't raced quite as well as I did at Newlands Corner. It was great to see all the Striders again and I had a great race with Chris Dodge.

The race funnels into a bottle neck very quickly and I was caught very much off guard and going through the first muddy section I was probably back in the 80/90s). One runner similarly wanted to move through the field and was trying to shove his way through so we had a brief philosophical discussion on that.

Out onto the field I then hurtled down along the outside moving myself into the top 20 over the next couple of minutes. At this stage I could see 3 had broken away in a lead and then a big pack of about ten runners. We then hit an exceptionally muddy patch - my Merrell All-Out Rush are doing me a treat this season allowing me to do XC even with my achilles injury but unfortunately I probably hadn't tied them quite tight enough and I could feel my heel slipping leaving me wondering whether I would lose them!

Once we finally got off the mud about a mile later I had caught one or two and was sitting probably about 14th. Unfortunately having not recced the course I had it in the back of my mind that we would go back the same way and I would have to go through that mud again and we would have a mile and a half or so to go at that point.

On the slightly harder stuff I was moving well and even up the hill was gaining on people. I could see Chris in the big pack ahead of me together with runners from a couple of clubs. The leader had now gone well clear but second place was still only about a minute ahead. I was picking off the odd runner and feeling pretty good but definitely saving my energy as I *knew* I had to go through the mud again...

Coming off the hard stuff I was catching Chris and a Ware Jogger but couldn't quite close the final 10m gap. On a slight-downhill on the ploughed field I opened up my stride and reeled in Chris and the Jogger (that feels really harsh to say but it's the club name!) and managed to stretch it out through a short forested section. At this stage I was starting to wonder whether we actually did go back over the mud. I went around a turn, expecting to hit the mud and realised we were about 500m from the finish.

There were 3 fairly close ahead who I was catching anyway so I kicked on past one of them - of the other two one ended up almost dropping out 100m from the finish with some calf issue and the final one had just enough to stay clear.

Overall I'm pretty pleased with the result. I ran the equivalent of probably just under 36 minutes for 10km which off roughly 8 weeks of what I'd call training I'm pleased with. More promisingly my fitness was definitely better than I raced today (mostly due to me not recceing the route). Even thinking I was still a mile and a half of tough running or so from the finish (and hence holding back) I was still catching people.

Then I got the chance to head back and cheer the other Striders in!

Hopefully I'll be back for the next one in December - this league is where I first started running XC, where I won my first real races and fingers crossed come February I'll be in a position to be competitive again.

There and Back Again – a Tale of Hobbit Feet

I’m staring at my suitcase. I’m packing for a week abroad in Spain with my family. It’s going to be a week with loads of time to run, twice most days, in the quiet hills of the Asturias. I’m wearing a pair of, to use the most accurate term, clodhoppers (big cushioned trainers) and trying to decide whether to take a pair of barely used racing flats with me or another pair of the heavy beasts which will leave me less room to pack clothes than the average driver leaves a London cyclist. On an impulse I threw the flats in. 

I’ve always enjoyed running barefoot but with a gravel road in front of my parents house and living in cities since then (Oxford and London) I’ve never really done a lot of it. 5 minutes around the track infield was pretty much the limit. At the age of about 16/17 after reading a lot on the net I switched to minimalist shoes and a forefoot strike. It took a long time to transition but was worth it as I clocked faster times with very few injuries as I padded around the countryside in my NB150 RCs with my high arches and naturally supinating (under pronating) feet.

At some point – I stopped and started running on my heels again. Thinking back I really can’t pin-point exactly when it happened. I think it was after buying a pair of Nike Frees which are a wonderfully built pair of shoes but which, due to the heavy heel cushioning (don’t let anyone tell you that Frees are minimalist!), had encouraged me, just gradually to start running more frequently on my heels. Possibly it was after the Green Belt in 2010 where after running the leg from Hertford along the canal path I badly injured my Achilles and was unable to take the strain of running up on my toes for a while and just forgotten to transition back.

Regardless – my stride at this point had detoriated to the stage where I was described by an old friend as running with an old man’s shuffle. Heel striking most of my runs were hard work and I really wasn’t enjoying my running. For the first time in my life running was feeling like a real chore. So I needed to make a change! I’d been aware of this for a while but hadn’t really thought about what was making me feel so uncomfortable in my running stride. My Achilles were sore enough after just a few strides on the track on my forefeet that I’d almost forgotten I used to do 20 mile long runs on my toes.

With my whole body struggling and reading various messageboards (mostly Letsrun) and with Born to Run on my “to read” list for years I decided to start running barefoot. It began around a cricket pitch, just a couple of minutes, but it was enough to realise where I’d been going wrong. Free of shoes I was enjoying the run with light, barefoot strides and for the first time (in what felt like years) I wanted to carry on running rather than feeling like I was hauling my sad carcass around.

And so, having done a couple of barefoot runs I chucked my flats into that suitcase and headed to Spain.

Week Commencing 10/02/14

Not the most interesting of blogs on the training front this week but two interesting bits to talk about.

The first is the session - this wasn't a particularly fast or a particularly interesting session but the most important thing was I actually did something. A tough day meant I wasn't able to get started until about 9:20 and was on a pretty deserted track.

Initially I'd been tempted to go for something a bit longer both in total distance and rep length but as I've been struggling so badly with soreness post-track session recently I decided to keep it short and sweet with relatively limited recovery.

These sort of "roll-on" sessions where you jog the recovery and limit it to 100-200m are really good for developing a strong rhythm and the short distance and volume help encourage you to really focus on your mechanics.

The second was that on Sunday I got a chance to run with the Emperor Haile Gebresellaise courtesy of Adidas who are launching their new "Boost" shoe which looks pretty sweet. I started using the Adidas Energy Boost a while back for my longer runs where I wasn't concerned about pace and my recovery runs and find it a great shoe to help my feet recover. Here's the photo I took of Hayley in the new shoes. Hayley was there as part of her work for the RunningBug:-

I've developed a new found appreciation for Adidas shoes following the event and have actually got myself a pair of Adidas Adios 2 racing flats which got me through my best tempo session in a while recently.

Tom Cragg led us through a set of really useful drills including a few I hadn't seen before in all of my years of running and actually found incredibly helpful in terms of glute activation and correct running form (plus a really good tip about how to get going when you're really not feeling like a run - just lean forward!) and then we went for a run with Haile.

During the run the lovely Sophie Radcliffe took a great shot of us all running in Green Park featuring me with Haile. Really like this picture despite the fact I'm horrendously overstriding. Sophie's website which catalogues all her challenges to date can be found here.

It was interesting to talk to Haile afterwards and hear his views on life and running. Sweat is good was the main theme and given how much better I feel any day I've been for a run I'm inclined to agree. 

On the running front the most interesting thigns he had to say were that he stretches (static) both before and after every run in addition to the dynamic warm-up work he does. He also explained that due to his busy work he often has to do his second run on a treadmill (often using the mirrors to work on his running form) and often uses the exercise bike as an alternative. Given how many reasonable runners I know who would never dream of using an exercise bike to supplement their mileage this was interesting to find out. It backs up some of my own experiences including running a marginal 10km PB off only a couple of months training following some intense exercise bike sessions to recover from an injury. 

Week Commencing 03/02/14

Not a great weeks training on the whole - my foot has been really struggling after track sessions. Ever since I sprained my ankle quite badly last year I've been finding that in that area after hard running it seems to be relatively sore but worse it really affects my left heel quite badly. Still looking for a good solution. Recently I've started trying to do shorter track sessions to see if that helps reduce the pain.

Marathon Pace Training for Slower Runners

So often when I have slower runners attend my Thursday sessions they're  surprised when I explain at the start that their session will be tougher than for the guys at the front of the group.

They've seen the pre-session blurb (72 minutes alternating 6 minutes at MP, 6 minutes at MP + 30 seconds) and wonder why they're not doing that. The reason is that they would find this pace too easy and finish the session feeling like they hadn't really done a proper session.

This is a great example of the slower runners paradox - that slower runners generally run faster than fast runners.

The Slower Runners Paradox

Where you plot up the average training and long run pace against race pace (I found a great graph of this once but am really struggling to find it - please shout if you see it in the comments!) as a precentage of race pace slower runners run considerably faster than elite runners.

When I take my guys who are planning to run in the 2:45 region and put them through the "simulator" workout (16 miles at race pace (no faster) in full kit and shoes they will wear on race day and using their nutrition strategy ) they find it a difficult session despite them being able in 2 weeks time post taper to do the race at that pace. By contrast if you take a 10 minute mile marathoner and put them through the same session it'll probably be slower than their weekly long run!

There's a couple of reasons for this but the main ones are:-

+Faster runners generally tend to be doing a higher weekly mileage and are often training in a semi-fatigued state.

+Whilst faster and slower runners are covering the same distance on the day in terms of how your body deals with the intensity is very different if you're competing in a 5 hour race to a 2 hour race.

For this reason slower (but not novice) runners would probably get more out of following a elite ultra runners schedule where they are training for a 5 hour race than an elite marathoners schedule which is more like a half marathon training plan for them.

Adapting Time Based Sessions

So where slower runners train at MP + 30s for them that is probably closer to their 6 or 7 hour race pace and will feel like a dawdle. By contrast the 2:45 guys at MP +30 are running at probably closer to a 4 hour notional race pace

Slower runners thereby need to adapt training sessions and schedules to ensure they're training at the appropriate intensity. Far too many slower or novice schedules back off and reduce the intensity compared to the faster schedules when in reality slower runners can cope significantly better and for longer durations at 5k/10k/HM and Marathon pace (which is probably more like the steady pace for faster runners).

As an example if I prescribed 4 x 10 minutes at 10k pace off a minute recovery they would probably revolt en masse half way through the third rep. Runners with a 60 minute 10k PB by contrast would find this a relatively easier/standard session.

Distance Based Sessions

This applies for distance based sessions as well but with a slight tweak - here it may be necessary to reduce the distance you are running. If you have a group doing 800s which varies from people finishing them in 2:30 to 5 minutes then you have people training at very different intensities.

Those running them in 2:30 (with say a notional 5k PB of 16 minutes) will be training at fairly close to their VO2 max pace (say 95%), By contrast those finishing them in 5 minutes will be training significantly slower than their VO2 max pace and will not experience the same benefits.

These runners will need to instead run a shorter duration rep (say 400) and considerably faster - at more like their notional 3km or even 2km race pace and take the same recovery length.

By the end of the session they will have clocked the same duration of running at the same intensity as the faster runner and see the same benefits rather than have run considerably further (increasing injury risk) at an intensity which doesn't really match the purpose of the session.

Bryn

Week Commencing 27/01/14

Let's give this a try again... To help motivate me I'm going to start posting up my training more regularly again. It's pretty low-key at the moment as I'm working at an exciting but demanding new job and have been struggling for time. Especially whilst commuting to and from Essex.

Having now moved back to London and with a tiny bit more time on my hands hopefully I can get this going again and start seeing some improved performances.

The above was a pretty decent week. The 800 session was my best in a long while and the tempo session I was pretty pleased with as well.

Training Week Commencing 18th February

Monday: 11 at 7:30 pace (11)

Tuesday: wu, 8 x 800 (80), wd - averaged about 2:50 for the first 7 then for the last one ran a 2:21 split 73 / 68. (8)

Wednesday: wu, 12.25 at 6:20mm, wd - bitterly cold (16)

Thursday: wu, 4 x mile (90), wd (6:20, 5:35, 5:45, 5:28) (7)

Friday: 4.5 easy (4.5)

Saturday: wu, 2 laps BP (11:58, 10:39), wd (6)

Sunday: 13 miles at 6:52mm at GNW half pacing for RW (13)

Total: 65.5 miles

Annoyingly my foot felt very sore in the last couple of miles of the GNW which in general is a very fast course on the right day. It seems to be plantar fascitis which is something I've never had before although it seems odd that it's come on so quickly. Hopefully it'll ease off relatively quickly.

On the plus side the shin and the groin are feeling better!

Training Week Commencing 11th February 2013

Monday: 4 easy miles AM; PM 6 easy/steady miles ~7:15mm with Chasers  (10)

Tuesday: wu, 2 x 3600m (60) (12:56 [5:44] / 12:23 [5:30]), wd (9)

Wednesday: Rest - shin sore so moved rest day up one.

Thursday: long wu, mile hard (0.75 recovery), wd (6)

Friday: Rest - shin sore so took additional rest day.

Saturday: warm-up, steady lap BP, tempo-lite lap BP (6:09mm), warm-down (6)

Sunday: wu, 18.6 steady (7:09mm), wd (20.5)

Total: 51.5 Miles

Another not great week but definitely an improvement on the previous one. The one issue with getting in quite long Sunday runs is that they can flatter your training week's mileage to a certain extent. 40 miles a week is probably enough for some people but if 23 miles of that is single long run then your training won't be great and I think this can be a trap a lot of amateur marathoners can fall into. I think the Hansons or one of their athletes has written a training guide based on this.

With a low-level virus/cold all week (tickling the back of my throat and just not going away or developing into something more tangible), my hip flexor/groin issue on the left leg still causing a few niggles and my shin marginally sore at the start of the week I'd got the excuses in early.

I was pretty much okay until after the session on Tuesday. As Chasers were doing 4x mile off a 90 second recovery I was planning to run steady in the group for each rep and just carry on through for the rest lap at 85-90 second pace before joining on again. This would give me a really good work-out and let me run with the group. Unfortunately as I came through after the first mile as I entered the backstraight I saw the group setting off as they'd taken a slightly shorter recovery from the lead runner.  I pushed a little bit more in the next mile to catch the group and then took the middle recovery and it ended up as 2 longish reps rather than a 5 mile straight tempo. Unfortunately jogging home my shin was tight as anything.

Took Wednesday as recovery. Thursday I ran over to set the group off and it really wasn't in a good state so I called it after 1 lap of the park. The pain was feeling worryingly deep. Friday was again to recover - Hayley did me a very deep massage on my muscles and as the pain disappeared it was fairly clear that it was muscular rather than anything in the bone (big relief - although past experiences have led me to believe this is regularly the case). Saturday was a bit better as I took Hayley for her first semi-serious effort after surgery although still a bit sore but another massage and Sunday went really well as I knocked out 20 miles. First 9 or so miles were pretty relaxed but the last 9 were all very low or sub 7mm bringing the pace down.

Hopefully with some more massage and foam rolling I can get myself into decent nick and get another block of good training in now.

Making the Transition Part 6 - Mile Pace Training

So you've run your 5k and 10k pace intervals, are storming through your tempo runs and are still managing to keep the volume up high. Firstly - congratulations! You're likely in better shape than you're ever been and after a week of easier running could probably run a personal best at any distance from 3k to 10 miles. If you just keep up what you're doing you'll be streets ahead of the rivals you used to race head to head with.

You've just got one problem. You've got new rivals and these guys can run hard for 10k and still lay a monster kick down. You're running hard and by the time the final 400m comes they still look easy.

How do they look that good whilst you're still running hard? Simple - they're running at a much lower percentage of their VO2 max than you are because they have a substantial speed reserve. If you take two endurance athletes - one of whom can run a mile in 5 minutes and the other in 6 minutes then provided they're both endurance athletes then no matter how hard our 6 minute miler trains aerobically he'll always find it difficult to make up that gap.

What we need to do is to start the work to close that gap.

Mile Pace Intervals

Mile pace intervals are hard efforts done at pretty close to your maximum. You're not sprinting in these efforts but you'll often feel pretty close to it. If you'd been thrown into these in the first week of training then you'd have likely sprained your hamstring trying to run flat-out (and even now you'll need to take it carefully and do a thorough warm-up before starting).

The Theory

The theory is that by training at significantly faster speeds than you'll ever need in races when it comes to running at "race pace" you'll feel ridiculously easy. If all you've ever run is 7 minute miles and that's your 5k pace then that'll feel pretty hard come race day. If on the other hand you've done a couple of weeks where you've run at 6 minute mile pace (if only for a while) then 7 minute mile pace will feel much easier and you'll be able to relax into it. In the long-term as 7 minute miles start to feel relatively easy then you'll be able to maintain that pace for a 10k.

This will happen because by improving your speed reserve you'll also have improved your running economy.

The Practice

The basic structure of the work-out is that you should be running between 3000m and 5000m of repetitions. Much less than that and there's limited benefit. Much more and you're starting to tax your body too much and will be dropping towards running slower than 3k pace. It's fine to run at a pace somewhere between your mile and 3k pace for these sessions depending on how you're feeling on the day.

You'll want to split this distance into repetitions of between 200 and 600m. In contrast to the 5k/10k pace work if you're doing the longer reps then you'll want to run a lower total distance as you will experience significant lactic accumulation over even a 600m repetition.

Between each repetition you'll want to take a jog recovery. The recovery is very much up to you. I usually like to have a recovery roughly similar to the time of the previous repetition. If you're looking to run a fast mile or 3k then you'll want short recoveries but for our purposes a longer recovery is fine, although I wouldn't take much longer than the time it takes you to mostly recover your breath.

My favourite work-out of this kind is on a track and comprises 3 sets of 5 repetitions of 300m. Between each 300m I jog 100m and then start the next one. Between each set I'll jog 500m.

These sessions can be very tough and often middle distance training is thought to be the most difficult form of training for any athlete. That said for a distance runner you don't need to be running these sessions incredibly hard as you aren't looking for substantial improvements in lactic acid tolerance (although that will help when you launch your killer kick!). Instead you're looking to develop the ability to run fast and relaxed at pace. If in doubt take more recovery.

The Schedule

If you're looking to run 5k to 10 miles then you don't need to be doing these work-outs every week. That said if you run them at a relatively relaxed effort then you should be able to incorporate them on a Saturday morning or afternoon (provided you're not also doing a long run on the Sunday). If you do your Vo2 max work on 

Tuesday, your tempo on Thursday and mile pace work on Saturday then you'll have an easy day or a rest day between each workout.

So for 3 weeks your schedule will look like:-

2 x 40-60 minute easy runs
1 x 20 easy, strides, 20 easy
warm-up, 20 minute threshold session, warm-down
warm-up, 5k-10k pace intervals, warm-down
warm-up, mile pace intervals, warm-down

With the three mile pace sessions being:-

Week 14: 3 sets of 5 x 300 (100 jog between reps, 500 between sets - as per above) at just slower than mile pace
Week 15: 6 x 500m off a lap jog at mile pace
Week 16: 10 x 400m (equal recovery to repetition time)

This leaves us with an overall schedule as per the below:-

Weeks 1-4 - Get used to running 5/6 times a week
Weeks 5-8 - Incorporate threshold running and strides into your schedule.
Week 9 - Easy Week
Week 10-12 Hard Training (5k/10k Pace Work)
Week 13 - Easy Week
Week 14-16 Hard Training (Mile Pace Work)
Week 17- Recovery Week

Which comprises the 16 week programme to making the transition. The programme isn't intended to make you a superstar in the 16 weeks but to give you the tools to run a serious training schedule. Once you've completed this program you can then look at altering your training by adding in morning runs, a long run on the Sunday, long continuous efforts etc. But that starts to make the whole thing a bit more complicated. The above is a relatively simple way to get you making the most of 90% of your talent.

If you schedule yourself in for a race at the end of your recovery week then you'll have a great chance at running a PB.

I hope the above has been useful - if you've followed it then please comment below and let me know how you did!  If you have found it useful then you may find my other training articles useful as well.

Best,
Bryn

Part 1 - Easy Running

Part 2 - Threshold Training

Part 3 - Strides

Part 4 - Easy and Recovery Weeks

Part 5 - 5k/10k Training
Part 6 - Mile Pace Training

Index of Training Articles

Making The Transition Part 5 - 5k / 10k Pace Intervals

So you've run hard for 8 weeks and then taken a week sitting on your backside. Or to phrase it another way letting the training seep into your body. I'll normally find that at this stage my body has recovered well over the last couple of weeks and with the strides done my legs are feeling pretty good with a bit of "zip" in them.

What's missing though is that although by this stage you've run quite a bit more than you have ever done before, and also quicker than you've ever done before you haven't ever really pushed yourself or your lungs to that breaking point that you frequently hit in races. You've done some sustained longer running but that's all been sub-maximal and you've finished feeling like you could go another round (or at least I hope you have...).

The next step is to start connecting the quick strides with some fast sustained running.

5k/10k Pace Intervals

What are they?

5k and 10k pace intervals are repetitions run at either your 5k or 10k pace or somewhere inbetween from between 400m to 2000m (faster than 5k for 400m reps and 10k pace for 2000m reps) for a total of 4000-12,000m. If you're not sure exactly what those paces are then you can interpolate between other race performances. 

You take recoveries of roughly half the time of the rep distance. These recoveries can vary from stationary recoveries to a relatively fast "float".

The Theory

5k and 10k pace intervals are the corner-stone of any succesful distance runners arsenal. Whether that's Seb Coe stating "the 5k pace sessions are golden" or Runners World advocating Yassoo 800s all plans include some work at 5k to 10k pace.

The physiological aspect of the training is that when you're running at your 5k pace you're running at very close to your VO2 max. There are complicated definitions for this but in payments terms your VO2 max is basically when you're breathing as hard as you possibly can. This occurs at roughly the speed you can maintain for 6-10 minutes but 5k pace is still relatively close and you can get a much greater volume of work in at 5k pace than you can at 3k pace. When you're running much faster than this then you can still only take in the same amount of oxygen but you need to generate more energy (which results in you generating higher lactate levels and causes the "burn" you'll experience in a middle distance race).

Running at your VO2 max (in the short term) will improve your bodies ability to take up oxygen. This means that for the same breath ox oxygen you're taking your body will use a greater proportion of the oxygen effectively.

The Practice

In theory you should run intervals at 3k pace for it to be your VO2 max. I don't like to run these at 3k pace for three reasons...

1. In the middle of a heavy training week I'd expect your notional 3k pace to feel more like your 1500 pace and similarly your 5k pace will feel more like your 3k pace. You therefore want to be training at closer to your 5k pace. The best way to describe this is to imagine you were running up a steep hill - would you still expect to run at 3k pace? No - you'd be running considerably slower for the same effort. The training you're doing is effectively making your body feel like it's going up that hill.

2. You can include a lot more volume in the sessions this way which is better for your running economy. Running economy is a slightly technical term but if you think of it in terms of piano practice it helps. It may be useful to do scales but at the end of the day the best thing to do is to practice the piece you're playing. By getting used to the pace you're planning to run you improve your ability to run at that pace through a whole number of minute tweaks.

3. VO2 max training has been shown to significantly decrease it's effectiveness after the initial 6 week "boost". Whilst some advocate it year around I prefer to back off and only hit the really intense stuff at 3k pace immediately before a big race.

Generally I find that using a progression from fast and brisk 400s at 3k pace up to intense 2ks at 10k pace is a great natural progression. There's also nothing to stop you mixing the session about and doing 400s to start with and finishing with 2ks and vice versa!

The pace you use will also be a function of your ability. If your 5k is pretty close to 10 minutes then your name is probably Bekele and Farah and this article will be of limited use to you. If on the other hand your 5k is over 20 minutes then you'll be wanting to train at closer to 3k pace. Similarly if your 5k is significantly under 20 minutes then 5k pace is your friend.

The recoveries should be half the length of the running time of the rep roughly. 

Opinions vary hugely regarding how you should spend your recovery. My personal favourite is to keep it relatively brisk and jog at my usual easy run pace. A favourite session when in sub 16 shape is 8 x 1000m off a 200m jog recovery in 75 seconds.

Generally I find it best to do these sessions on a track but equally find a measured stretch of road or even do the sessions by time.

The Schedule

So for 3 weeks we have the following schedule...

3 x 40-60 minute easy runs
20 easy, strides, 20 easy
15 warm-up, 5k/10k pace session, 15 warm-down
15 warm-up, 20 @ threshold, 15 warm-down

With the sessions being...

10 x 800 at 5k pace off 200 fast jog
8 x 1000 at 5 mile pace off 200 fast jog
8 x 1200 at 10k pace off 200 fast jog

After this block of 3 weeks you'll want to take an easy week again. This leaves our schedule looking like...

Weeks 1-4 - Get used to running 5/6 times a week
Weeks 5-8 - Incorporate threshold running and strides into your schedule.
Week 9 - Easy Week
Week 10-12 Hard Training (5k/10k Pace Work)
Week 13 - Easy Week

By this point you should be able to see some substantial improvements in your fitness at the end of the second easy week.

After this we move into 3 more weeks of intense training in Part 6 where we discuss Mile pace training (or running even harder intervals!).

If you've missed the previous entries you can catch up on them all at the below links or use the bottom link to go to a list of all my training articles.

Catch you on the trails,
Bryn

Part 1 - Easy Running

Part 2 - Threshold Training

Part 3 - Strides

Part 4 - Easy and Recovery Weeks

Part 5 - 5k/10k Training
Part 6 - Mile Pace Training

Index of Training Articles

Training Week Commencing 4th February 2013

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: Rest + 60 cycling.
Wednesday: 6 miles v. slow (6)
Thursday: wu, 3 progressive laps BP from easy to steady, wd (8)
Friday: Rest
Saturday: wu, 2.5 miles XC (4)
Sunday: wu, 16.7 miles at 6:54mm (18)

Total: 36 miles

A pretty poor week by all standards but one I'm not totally unhappy with.

Before last Sunday's long run I'd felt a bit of tightness in my left groin. I'd ignored it as it'd gone away as soon as I started running but on Monday morning it definitely felt worse and I decided that running on it would be a bad idea. I hit the massage pretty hard but unfortunately

Annoyingly it then felt even worse on the Tuesday morning and I decided that rather than risk trying to do a track session it'd be better to do an easy exercise bike.

Wednesday I was feeling just about ready for a very slow run. It really was slow as I barely crawled around Wandsworth Common but at that slow pace the groin felt just about okay.

Thursday was a bigger test and for the first 300m of the run I was pretty terrified as my groin was feeling very tight. I pretty much decided I was just going to jog up to the track and set people off before I took the bus back. Thankfully after that 300m my groin eased off and I was able to get a couple of laps in. I took Friday off just to be careful before the XC.

Unfortunately I ended up pulling out of the XC mid-race. I felt dizzy on the morning of the race but decided I'd give it a go anyway. It hit again mid-race and I managed to keep going until our 10th scorer passed me at which point I was happy to drop out. Never like doing it but I'm glad I started rather than DNSed. Later in the evening my throat went pretty sore and I was a bit relieved that I had a virus rather than just some random dizzy thing.

Sunday's run was solid with the first half averaging about 7:14 and a much faster second half bringing the pace down to 6:54 as I kept switching the lead with Nick Burkitt and Tom Mitchell.

So - pretty poor week on the whole from the training front but at least I seem to have recovered from a potentially troublesome niggle and can start moving forward. Realistically this should probably have been an easier week anyway and so I'm probably only down 20-30  miles.

Onward and upward as they say.

Bryn

Training Week Commencing 28th January 2013

Coming off a good 2 weeks with fairly tired legs this was a crucial week to keep the mileage high.

Monday: 9.5 steady (7:33) + Core/Lifting (9.5)

Tuesday: long wu, 4,8,12,2k,12 (60) [75,2:31,3:59,7:00,4:14], wd (9.5)

Wednesday: Rest

Thursday: Easy run into work AM; PM long w/u, 2 laps at MP, 4 x 900 hard [60], 2 laps at MP (no recovery before first or last 900), short wd (19.5)

Times: (20:20, 2:59, 2:51, 2:56, 2:59, 20:22)
Paces: (05:48, 5:25, 5:16, 5:22, 5:29, 05:48).

Friday: Easy run into work AM; PM 4 easy (9.5)

Saturday: 10 easy at 8:13mm (10)

Sunday: wu, 18.75 at 7:42mm (20)

Total: 78 miles

Summary:

Another good week - Wednesday is working well as my rest day. I was really pleased with the Thursday session where I'm now averaging 10:10 laps. It's clearly a bit different from the other sessions with it being split into two sections but I think I'm making solid progress towards in the relatively near future being able to average 10 minutes per lap and feel strong.

The flip-side of having the strong Thursday sessions is that I've definitely noted the effect on the Sunday (and other) runs with the pace substantially increasing. I'm going to hit the massage implements a lot harder in the next couple of weeks and see what the effect is and hopefully the pace will start dropping - although I was pleased to cover 20 miles this week.

The next week brings a different challenge as I'm now working from Canary Wharf for 3 of the next 4 weeks with an office without showers (although there is another office with them about 15 minutes walk-away). The hours should however be shorter as I'll be studying. The focus is more likely to shift to big singles which given that I'm training for a marathon may be no bad thing. This will likely cause my average pace to drop even further and so I'm going to need to make sure that I'm incorporating form drills on a regular basis (which I have struggled with recently in the snow and cold) so that when my legs start to freshen up I'm able to race at my best.

I've also got the last Surrey League XC of the season. After a disastrous last fixture it'll be interesting to see if I run a bit better this time on tired but significantly fitter legs.

Right - that's it for this week. Catch you on the trails.

Training Week Commencing 21st January 2013

After last weeks solid effort this week was a real chance to consolidate. Unfortunately the snow wanted to make things difficult!

Training Week Commencing 14th January

Monday: 4 easy AM; PM 11 steady mostly at mid 6s with a few 5:4x miles thrown in. (15)

Tuesday:  4 easy AM; PM long wu, 10 x 800 (75 / 200m jog), wd - first 6 were at about 2:38/39 pace with next 4 about 2:52 as I eased off and ran comfortably - very icy track. (15.5)

Wednesday: wu, 2 laps BP steady, wd (6)

Thursday: 4 easy AM; long wu, 6 x (mile hard, 0.75 recovery) paces for miles were:- 5:44; 49; 38; 27; 33 and 35 (5:38mm AVG) recovery paces were:- 6:49, 50, 40, 36, 33 and 52 (6:43mm AVG) , Total = 6 laps at 64:06 ( AVG: 10:40 per lap /  6:06mm), wd (20)

Friday: Rest!

Saturday: 10 easy/steady (8mm) - 2 very slow miles on the snow then the rest of the run probably averaged 7:30 pace.

Sunday: wu then just short of 16 miles at 7:30mm around a very snowy and slippy Richmond park (running on snow / ice the entire team which made the run a lot harder!). (17)

Total mileage: 84

First "proper" mileage week in a while. Really enjoying the training at the moment. Reps are slowing down a little bit but I'm speeding up my steady runs over previous years (where 8mm could even be a "fast" run). That said the last two weeks had about 10-12 days of "hard" work but unfortunately a bad day either side made them look a bit poor.

Really pleased with the Thursday session as I haven't done a lot of that type of session in the past and it went pretty well. Especially pleased to average for the whole run as I was really worrying about my fitness to get extended tempos of that description done without redlining. Actual reps were 0.96 miles and 0.78 for the recoveries so I've just given paces above.

The Sunday run was okay - it was quite an experience running 16 miles around a totally snowed Richmond Park and I was shocked at how many people there were going around! Pace wasn't quick and the distance wasn't far but to be honest just to get a half decent effort in in poor conditions without slipping or picking up a niggle is pretty good.

Next week is gonna be a tough one.

Me and My Shoes...

As most people know I'm somewhat of a shoe geek. You know it's a bad thing when you have more significantly pairs of shoes than your significant other...

Despite this I've never really written much about shoes despite the fact that more than one training method, weekly mileage or surface I'm fairly sure they're the primary determinant of whether I get injured or not. The better you get the more you realise running is far more about staying injury free than actually training hard.

Firstly a little bit about me and shoes... Due to a structural abnormality in a bone around my achilles I can't run in shoes which have anything other than a very soft back. It's taken years of pain and achilles problems to get to this point. Usually I'd gradually build up my running until I decided I was fit enough to try running "properly" usually involving spikes or flats or just plain different shoes. I'd tweak something soon afterwards and my achilles would get progressively painful until I had to stop running. At one point at university I was fairly sure that I'd never be able to run without some fairly intense pain around my achilles.

It always bugged me that the pain was never in the actual achilles or in the flex of my foot. It always seemed to come from a "rubbing" sensation on the back of my ankle that just made my runs a nightmare. Different physios looked at it over the years and the diagnoses varied although I perhaps should have listened better to one who said "there's nothing there that could get injured, just a bit of bone".

Anyways - after many years of pain I finally found a shoe that I seemed to be able to train in as much as I wanted and have no pain at all. That shoe? The Vaporfly. A Nike shoe that came into being after the short-lived Mayfly. Noticeably more cushioned and with a fabric upper I suddenly found myself training on a regularly basis with almost no achilles pain. I still wore other shoes for the odd run but being able to put the majority of my mileage in these shoes helped my running make a quantum leap. I knocked up a solid 6 months of training and before I knew it I was running huge PBs including a sub 70 half.

Unfortunately... I didn't realise what the issue was or why my running had improved so much. I knew that the Vaporfly suited me but I couldn't tell you how or why. The shoes gradually fell apart (special thanks to Dave Norman who gave me a pair for free that he had lying around) and despite some amateur attempts at stitching them back together I ended up racing in some Nike Zoom Streak 2s. A very nice shoe and very fast (I actually wore them for my sub 70 half - and could barely walk after!) but not great for my achilles.

Wearing them at the Green Belt Relay along the towpath near Ware and Hertford 8 miles of constantly shifting underfoot and I was in severe pain. The next day I couldn't walk when I woke up. I ended up winning a stage after hiding behind the other bloke for 7 miles because I didn't want him to see I was limping whilst I was running... I never said I was clever... My achilles had managed to hold together for one more race but it was clear that they were going to need a lot of time to recover.

This time it was even worse and I seriously started to doubt whether I'd be able to race or even run again. Finally I just looked for a pair of shoes most like the Vaporfly. I still hadn't cottoned on totally and at one point was considering the Green Silence. A very nice shoe but one with a stiff back. Finally I settled on the Kinvara. The Kinvara had a tiny bit at the back that was fixed but was mostly very loose. As I started to clock up the miles I finally realised what was happening and that only shoes with a soft back gave me any relief.

A trip to Mark Buckingham confirmed the underlying reason. A small section of bone had developed at some point (possibly from birth) that would rub on the achilles and cause bad pain if I wore any sort of hard backed shoe. This wasn't just for my running shoes but also my formal/work shoes.

The Kinvara suited me well and I started to get into fantastic shape with some very fast tempos (7 miles at 5:20mm feeling very strong stands out) and more mileage than I'd ever run before. It had taken a long while to get over the injury from Green Belt but I was now making progress. Unfortunately my winter campaign hit a road block when I finally got to Reading. The previous year I'd been sick as a dog at the start but had gradually improved. This time I was struggling from the start and despite going through halfway in a similar time where I'd been kicking on then, now I was running awfully. Blood tests a few weeks later revealed I was anaemic. I'd never run enough mileage for that to happen before. The shoes were now working but my body wasn't! It took a lot of time for my body to recover and when it finally managed to I managed to strain a ligament in my back going down an escalator!

The final "big" shoe was the Nike Free. As I recovered from the ligament I tried a pair on randomly in Nike town and I was in love. The Free Run 2 was the perfect shoe for me with a soft back and a totally flexible sole. I'd always assumed that they were no good for anything but a quick trip to the gym or for warm up drills but I swiftly realised that this shoe totally matched my stride, had a lot of cushioning and most important would flex with my heel. It took a bit of time to get completely used to them but they swiftly became my stock trainer. There were a couple of niggles to begin with (mostly around my ankles and the side of my calves which struggled with the extra stability needed) but these have gradually disappeared.

I'm now running well, finally able to get the mileage in and, whilst I may have a few niggles from time to time, these are increasingly muscular and short-lived.

It's been a long journey, involving lots of miles and lots of shoes. I'm going to review a couple of the pairs I use in the next few months and hopefully it'll help at least a couple of other people sort out their problems.

Week Commencing 7th January 2013

First week of proper marathon training unfortunately ruined by a rather heavy night on the beer and wine and missing my Sunday long-run. Not a great start and I'm therefore on an alcohol ban for any day where I'm running the next day...

Week Commencing 31 Dec 2012

Mon: Rest - ill

Tuesday: 30 minutes slow up and down a hill (3.5)

Wednesday: 4 steady (6:58mm) AM; PM 6 steady (7:10ish) PM (10)

Thursday: wu, 3 laps BP (12:35,12:17,11:58 - AVG 12:17 / 7:00mm), short wd (7)

Friday: Rest

Saturday: 4 miles easy AM; PM wu, 2 laps BP (12:38, 12:21 - AVG 12:30 / 7:08mm), wd (11.25)

Sunday: wu, 15.75 steady (AVG 6:57mm with last 1.75 @ 6:02mm) (17)

Total: 48.75 miles

Training Week Commencing 24th December 2012

Monday: 5 steady at 6:37mm (5)

Tuesday: Christmas day - rest

Wednesday: 10 easy at 7:05mm (10)

Thursday: Rest-ill

Friday: Rest - ill.

Saturday: wu, 1 lap steady (11:37 / 6:37mm), wd, was hacking up stuff afterwards. (4)

Sunday: Rest

19 miles

Training Week Commencing 17th December

Monday: Rest - Hayley surgery.

Tuesday: Rest - recuperation.

Wednesday: wu, 2 laps steady (11:14, 11:16, AVG:- 11:15 / 6:25mm), wd (6.5)

Thursday: wu, 2 steady (11:38, 11:16 avg:- 11:27 / 6:32mm), wd (6.5)

Friday: Rest

Saturday: wu, 10 miles hilly steady (6:38mm avg), wd (13)

Sunday: wu, 20 x 22 second strides, wd (7)

Total: 33 miles