Thought I'd publish a training program I devised for someone. I'd prefer they remain anonymous here in the blog, please. Of interest because the person receiving the program has mostly done long slow training and run some marathons, and this is by way of an experiment to see if a very different focus in training, for a while anyway, can produce a different result, either in the short term or in the longer term when reverting more to what they have done in the past.
Definition of insanity: doing what you have always done while expecting different results.
My new definition though: (once you have modified your training schedule,) train insane or remain the same.
I love the way those two sayings seem to contradict each other.
Here are some facts though: someone who for a long time has run short and fast should start running long and slow; and someone who has for a long time run long and slow should run short and fast.
What you should do for the next four weeks regardless of your longer term plans:
Mondays: our session on hills
Tuesdays: warm-up 1k: limber up & stretch: 6-10 x 100m: cooldown 1k
Wednesdays: 1k warm-up: 6k fast: 1k cool-down
Thursdays: 30 minutes of hill work (fartlek: vary pace; include rests)
Friday: repeat Tuesday session
Saturdays: race 5k (Parkrun)
Sundays: tempo 60 minutes or less.
Each day focus on speed.
There is no focus on distance.
You will miss a day if fatigued.
PLUS: Two, preferably three, sessions in the gym where you do intense interval training. probably not a spin class or a pilates class and the like. But "Active", "HIIT", "Power", "Circuit", or whatever equivalents there are at your gym, all good. If you can organise it, probably run after the class rather than before.
What else? Trust the program. Each week's parkrun will be faster than the previous week. If you stick to the schedule from Monday 29th right up to Sunday 26th (which could be a Vets Handicap day) we can progress from there.
Questions?
Putting together a training program is rather like putting together a puzzle. It shouldn't be as difficult as some puzzles are, like the one illustrated.
Definition of insanity: doing what you have always done while expecting different results.
My new definition though: (once you have modified your training schedule,) train insane or remain the same.
I love the way those two sayings seem to contradict each other.
Here are some facts though: someone who for a long time has run short and fast should start running long and slow; and someone who has for a long time run long and slow should run short and fast.
What you should do for the next four weeks regardless of your longer term plans:
Mondays: our session on hills
Tuesdays: warm-up 1k: limber up & stretch: 6-10 x 100m: cooldown 1k
Wednesdays: 1k warm-up: 6k fast: 1k cool-down
Thursdays: 30 minutes of hill work (fartlek: vary pace; include rests)
Friday: repeat Tuesday session
Saturdays: race 5k (Parkrun)
Sundays: tempo 60 minutes or less.
Each day focus on speed.
There is no focus on distance.
You will miss a day if fatigued.
PLUS: Two, preferably three, sessions in the gym where you do intense interval training. probably not a spin class or a pilates class and the like. But "Active", "HIIT", "Power", "Circuit", or whatever equivalents there are at your gym, all good. If you can organise it, probably run after the class rather than before.
What else? Trust the program. Each week's parkrun will be faster than the previous week. If you stick to the schedule from Monday 29th right up to Sunday 26th (which could be a Vets Handicap day) we can progress from there.
Questions?
Putting together a training program is rather like putting together a puzzle. It shouldn't be as difficult as some puzzles are, like the one illustrated.
