Running Around 6-30-07

Short and sweet this week ...

There will be no organized workout this week since the Fireball 5k is on Tuesday evening. Hope to see you all there. If you are not racing, continue working on base mileage with a run of 6-10 miles.

Running Around 6-25-07

We'll continue with our base training this week. So that means either a road run or a low-impact maintenance workout on the track. I strongly recommend the road run. Try to go slightly longer this week. 6-10 miles is a good number for a mid-week run. Striders when you return to the track is also recommended.

For the trackies this week, I'm going to throw something new at you. If you do run it, let me know how it goes. Let's try a 2-mile acceleration run on the track. Each lap should be faster than the previous lap by 3 seconds. Your final lap should be at I-pace minus 2 seconds. To get your starting pace, add 19 seconds to your I-pace number. So, your laps might look something like this: 100, 97, 94, 91, 88, 85, 82, 79. This is tough mentally, so focus on the proper pace. That means taking it slow enough at the beginning. This should be a new stimulus to give you a break from the T-pace stuff.

If you want specific advice for a Summer base training, talk to me, and we'll figure out a good plan for you.

Now for the workouts ...

1a. Road run 6-10 miles.

1b. 2-mile acceleration run starting at I-pace + 19 seconds.

2. Striders. 4-6x100m twice this week.

Get your paces here: http://www.panix.com/%7Eelflord/vdot.html -or- http://www.runningforfitness.org/calc/rp.php

2007 Dogwood 5k video

By Alan Horton:

Running Around 6-18-07

We'll continue with our base training this week. So that means either a road run or a low-impact maintenance workout on the track. I strongly recommend the road run. Try to go slightly longer this week. 6-10 miles is a good number for a mid-week run.

Last week I talked about one way to improve your mileage base - increase the frequency of your running. Another way to improve your base is working on the duration of your runs. Look at your shortest and longest runs. I try to keep my shortest runs to a minimum of 40 minutes. If you're running 30 minutes or less for a given run, try to increase it gradually. For your weekly long run, I like an absolute minimum of 1 hour. If you're already at that level, 1.5 hours is better. In terms of long run mileage, I like 8-10 for 5k focus, 10-12 for 10k focus, 12-15 for 15k focus, and 15-18 for half marathon focus.

If you want specific advice for a Summer base training, talk to me, and we'll figure out a good plan for you.

Now for the workouts ...

1a. Road run 6-10 miles.

1b. 2-5 x 2000m @T pace w/75 seconds rest.

2. Striders. 4-6x100m twice this week.

Get your paces here: http://www.panix.com/%7Eelflord/vdot.html -or- http://www.runningforfitness.org/calc/rp.php

Running Around 6-11-07

We'll continue with our base training this week. So that means either a road run or a low-impact maintenance workout on the track. I strongly recommend the road run.

The base phase is a great time to refocus on often-neglected aspects of our training like core strength. Core doesn't mean abs. It means abs, hips, glutes and back too. Here is an excellent site for core strength info http://www.ronjones.org/Handouts/index.htm

I mentioned last week about building your base, and that means different things based on your abilities. One thing to work on might be number of days per week that you are running. If you want to be competitive, you should probably be running at least 5 days per week. 6 or 7 days is probably even better, but you need to balance that against the risk of getting injured. So, what is a good plan for adding a day? Start with the extra day every other week. When you are comfortable with the workload, move to 2 out of 3 weeks with the extra day. When you are comfortable with that, keep the extra day every week. I'm not going to give a specific duration because it will be different for everyone.

If you want specific advice for a Summer base training, talk to me, and we'll figure out a good plan for you.

Now for the workouts ...

1a. Road run 6-10 miles.

1b. 3-5 x 1600m @T pace w/2 min rest.

2. Striders. 4-6x100m twice this week.

Get your paces here: http://www.panix.com/%7Eelflord/vdot.html -or- http://www.runningforfitness.org/calc/rp.php

Running Around 6-3-07

I had a few questions this week regarding time off. Take a full week totally off? Yes. If you want to. Cross-training is good too. At the very least, cut back your mileage and take a few extra days off. In the near term, you'll lose a little fitness, but not much. In the long run, you'll be better off (mentally & physically) having taken some down time.

If you don't need a break because you've been injured or you're already doing a lot of cross-training, that's OK. Keep training.

If you've been training since January or December for the marathon or other races, you need a break.

Why the break? Well, we can't be at our best all the time. That's why we're following a periodized training cycle. Part of that cycle is rest, recovery and base-building. Following a hard Winter & Spring with lots of training and racing, we are in the rest & recovery stage right now. That' s why I'm suggesting some time off. Throughout the summer we will work on building a solid base of mileage which will support our track work in the fall training cycle.

If you took your break last week, it's time to start on base training. That simply means building a solid foundation of mileage. The idea is to build slowly and intelligently over the Summer. By limiting the intensity of training during this period, our bodies can adapt more easily to the stress of adding mileage. Intense training and more mileage would compound each other and really increase the probability for injury.

If you want specific advice for a Summer base training, talk to me, and we'll figure out a good plan for you.

During the base training phase, I'll provide a base training workout (usually a road run) plus a maintenance track workout for those who need a track fix.

So ... since I'm not running this week, I'll be joining you all for pizza afterward, but not for the workouts.

Now for the workouts ...

1a. Road run 6-10 miles.

1b. 2-3 x 3200m @T pace w/2 min rest.

2. Striders. 4-6x100m twice this week.

Get your paces here: http://www.panix.com/%7Eelflord/vdot.html -or- http://www.runningforfitness.org/calc/rp.php