Running Around 9-6-10

Back to our regular scheduled time. We will meet at 5:30 pm this week. We'll stick with that no matter what the weather until next Summer.

I hope everyone that ran the mile this morning had a great time. I did. Not quite as fast as I had hoped, but I think I learned a few things during both the training and the race. On to the next one!

One new thing I tried this morning is a harder warmup, and I think it worked well. Usually I do 2-3 miles easy and then some striders at the line. Today I did 2 miles easy and then ran about 3 1/2 minutes at T-pace. I timed the tempo run so that I would finish about 10 minutes before the start. Rather than try to explain the philosophy myself, I'll point you to Dr. Jack's wisdom on the subject: http://www.flotrack.org/videos/speaker/38/6894-the-proper-warm-up

If you ran the mile and are running Wears Valley in less than a week, then you can do either an easy road run or the tempo workout detailed below.

For everyone else, more I-pace, but we're moving up to 1200m/1000m repeats. 1200m is the default distance, but if you can't do 1200m in 5 minutes or less, drop down to 1000m instead. If you're just a few seconds over but really close to 5 minutes, it's OK to do the 1200s if you want to.

Like last week, recovery time is very important. It has to be less than your work time. You can definitely do a 200m jog. You may be able to squeeze in a 300m or 400m jog if you want to add a little extra mileage or don't like standing around waiting for the clock.

If you're doing 2 workouts per week, then do one on Tuesday and one later in the week.

Week 9 of Fall 2010 training. Now for the workout summary:

Option 1. 3-8 x 1200m (or 1000m) @I pace w/200m-400m jog recovery. Rest should be 3-5 minutes not to exceed your interval time. Volume should be 7-8% of weekly mileage for the hard running. Run 1000m repeats if you cannot complete 1200m in less than 5 minutes.

If you are running 1200s a good rule of thumb is one repeat for every 10 miles of weekly mileage.

If you are running 1000s:

50 mpw: 6-7 x 1000m @I pace w/200m-400m jog
45 mpw: 5-6 x 1000m @I pace w/200m-400m jog
40 mpw: 5 x 1000m @I pace w/200m-400m jog
35 mpw: 4-5 x 1000m @I pace w/200m-400m jog
30 mpw: 4 x 1000m @I pace w/200m-400m jog
25 mpw or less: 3 x 1000m @I pace w/200m-400m jog

Option 2. 3-6 x 1600m @T pace with 60s rest. 10% of your weekly mileage. Recommendations based on mileage:
50 mpw: 5 x 1600m
45 mpw: 4-5 x 1600m
40 mpw: 4 x 1600m
35 mpw: 3-4x 1600m
<=30 mpw: 3x 1600m

Use a recent race to get your training paces here:
http://www.panix.com/%7Eelflord/vdot.html
-or-
http://www.runningforfitness.org/calc/rp.php