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1500m training
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Pammie,
I full endorse the frequent racing - I think a race provides the best training stimulus for the short distances. As a high mileage runner I can get away with running a 5000m (or less) race 3 out of 4 weeks through the summer, but that's partly down to building a massive base through the winter and only targetting 2 or 3 summer races whilst the others are more about getting Southern League points for my club and gaining race experience should they become tactical. As an aside, I found a midweek 3000m 9 or 10 days before a key race an ideal tune-up.
An American chap was relaying a story of two US 1500m runners who both opened their seasons with very quick times this year (3:4low from memory). One had good natural pace so focussed on sessions like 3 x 3km @ 10km - threshold pace. The other felt that he had good natural endurance but poor speed so his emphasis was on fast 400m reps to improve speed. There's definately a 'horses for courses' element so you need to determine your strengths and weaknesses and maintain / address them in training.
5 may - 5k - 14:48.6
12 may - 1500 - 4:08.6
16 may - 3k - 8:36.33
27 may - 10k - 30:41.28
2 jun - 5k - 14:38.94
13 jun - 1500 - 4:01.75
16 jun - 5k - 14:45.37
27 jun -1500 - 4:03.5
7 jul - 5k -14:45.89
4 aug - 5k - 14:46.96
11 aug - 3k - 8:25.96
25 aug - 5k - 14:34.12
Pammie, above is a summary of distances and times for all my track races last summer. Shortly, when I've decided on a plan for the track races this summer, I'll give you a list, but a typical plan for me would involve a similar distribution of races/distances to last summer. Bear in mind that 3000 - 10000 is the main goal for me and the 1500s are just for speedwork really. i may include one early 800 for speedwork this summer.
Sorry, late posting the week's training this week.
Mon: 1h40-45 min steady
Tue: am - 40easy ; pm - 1600 (1'), 1200 (1'30), 800(2'), 400 - then repeat set after 3min recovery sets were in 4'51/ 3'36/ 2'19/ 66" then 4'51/ 3'35/ 2'20/ 62"
Wed: am - weights; pm - 45-50 easy
Thu: nothing - feeling ill/feverish
Fri: nothing - feeling ill
Sat: nothing - feeling better but cautious about rushing back - was in Edinburgh for World XC weekend and ran around a bit watching Home Nations XC
Sun: 90 min steady in the morning plus lots of running around watching the World XC in the afternoon
Very pleased with Tue session then almost immediately laid low, but the enjoyment of the weekend rather made up for it as being at a World XC is fantastic fun.
Monday - nothing - too tired from mix of previous week's illness & busy weekend in Edinburgh
Tue - 2x1500 (100m walk in 1') 4'30, 4'38 - dropped out of longer session at this point as clearly struggling and not recovered
Wed: 40 easy
Thu: 1600 (3'), 1200 (2'), 800 (1') 400 in 4'38, 3'28, 2'24, 67"
Fri: 40 easy
Sat: rest
Sun: long leg (5+ miles) in Southern 12 stage in 27'29, solid but nothing special. we won a team bronze which was very pleasing though and obviously the main point in a relay event.
Mon - 40 easy
Tue - 25 x 400 (20" rec) all in 70"-73" - last one in 69", though needed the toilet just before last one and got about 3' recovery
Wed: 55 min steadily accelerating run
Thu: supposed to be 6 x [800 (100 jog) 300] (100 jog), struggled after racing Sunday and hard Tuesday session and dropped out after 5th 800 - times were 2'21/2'19/2'18/2'22/2'26 for 800s and 51/50/49/53 for 300s
Fri: 40 min easy
Sat: 20 x hill reps (Jog back) - hill must have been 200m at most with alternate flat out and steady ascents - 10 of each type. Then strength exercises using a bench (examples inc feet-raised press-ups, feet-raised sit-ups, tricep dips), followed by 2 x '3k' road loop (9'20, 9'14), then 5min paarlauf on short loop inc one short, steep hill (3 efforts in the 5 mins). Finished with netball-style ball game with lots of short sprinting off the ball in a small area.
Where is everyone???
Work experience at the BBC and having to stay in a stranger's house has put my training at an all time low. Managed 3 and a half miles at the weekend when I went to visit my dad's with this session -
2 x 800 w/90 secs recovery - 2:31, 2:37.
3 mins rest
2 x 400 w/60 secs recovery - 72, 77.
3 mins rest.
2 x 200 - 30, 33.
felt impossibly hard and I feel very unfit at the moment. Can't wait till this week is over and I can train properly again.
Last week
Mon: am - 35 easy; pm - 80 steady getting quicker through the run
Tue: 2 x [5x600 (100 walk in 1' approx)] [5 mins] first set in 1'43"/41"/41"/42"/41", 2nd set in 1'41"/41"/42"/45"/46"
Wed: am - 35 easy; pm - 35 easy
Thu: 2 x [8x100 (15")] [5mins] - Coach would sound a horn on each effort at 15 secs. Usually I had completed the effort before the horn, or would reach it on the horn.
Fri: 35-40 easy inc strides
Sat: 800m race 5th in 2:11.51 - First lap in 61", less said about the 2nd lap the better. 1500m race won in 4:16.22 (splits 65"/2'14"/3'24") - poor opposition - ran from the front all the way.
Feel fit at the moment but don't have the volume of training at largely or predominantly anaerobic paces to deal with the hard third quarter in short middle distance races yet. Relay leg of about 8.5k (long leg) in National 12 stage this week. Much more my cup of tea!
Looking for a bit of advice...
I'm back on the track now for summer training with my club, and like the year before it, have found that the transition to a different structure of training (shorter reps, more intensity) hasn't instantly suited me well when compared to the winter training that I had been doing a month or so ago (longer reps). It may be that being a long distance runner I'm naturally going to feel more at home in endurance training, but I do actually like track work and want to improve my shorter speed while I'm still young (20).
In honesty I'm not bad on the track and keep up with the leading group mostly, but I have always felt that my potential hasn't been met yet as my track pb's are not a true reflection of what I could be doing. So I have decided there is possibly a need to implement a third speedwork session into the week (probably saturday). The main reasons are to slightly give me a bit more of a boost when going into races sometime soon - I want to take larger times off of my 1500m pb's but also do some justice to 3k/5k aswell. My summer training/racing is going to be disrupted a little with moving back home, but both racing and training can always be organised virtually the same.
The aim is just to get a little more speed into my legs, probably not taken as hard as the usual monday and wednesday workouts, but a speed session all the same - to those that regularly do shorter sessions like this to make up your training, what would you recommend being an ideal workout for that day? (bearing in mind a club session will be on every following monday).
To give you some idea of the stuff that we/I do at this stage just now - mostly 400s, 600s, 800s (sometimes up to 1k) and sometimes shorter reps (200s/300s). Tonight wasn't particularly good in my opinion for 5x600s as I was hitting around 1:40-1:43. 400s are regularly ran in around 63-66 secs (200m jog recoveries) and 800s about 2:20-2:25. 1k reps (with jog or time recoveries) are around 3:00-3:07. 200's usually under 30 secs.
Thanks.
Stuart, looking at the sessions, the one thing I feel you are missing are long (mile+) reps at 5 or 10km pace. I think that 800m (or even km) reps at 5km pace are quite misleading as the first 2 - 300m of each rep is 'free' so you're only working hard for about 90s. 4 x 1600 (400 jog - not too slow) at target 5km helped me a lot last year - the 4th one would normally be a real struggle and I'd drop a few seconds on target pace. For me the pace I could average for the first 3 reps corresponded to race pace.
I also think there's a place for tempo in 3 - 5km training - the guys I trained with in East Africa favoured progressive tempo work over structured interval sessions. Certainly somthing from the marathon training which I'll keep going into the track season, albeit the tempo will be 10km max at a slightly faster pace (eg 33 - 33:30 pace instead of 34 - 34:30 pace for marathon).
Would be interesting to hear what HC thinks...
Well only been down on the track for a few weeks, and missed last week's speed training, but so far it has gone something like this (only including the actual speed work sessions in day):
31/03/08 - 2.5 mile w/u + 10x400m (avg 65 secs, few at 63 - recovery 90 secs) + 1.5 mile warm down
02/04/08 - 1.5 mile w/u +4.7 miles sustained run (on road)+ 1.5 mile warm down (avg pace was 5:18/mile - 24:53)
07/04/08 - 2 miles warm up + 8x600m reps (1:45-1:46 avg - 200m jog rec in between) + 2 miles warm down
09/04/08 - 1 mile warm up + 4x1200m reps (3:42 - 3:45 with a 3:40 fastest - 400m jog rec after each) + 1 mile warm down
21/04/08 - 1.7 miles warm up + 10x400m reps (avg around 65 secs - 200m jog rec between) + 1.6 miles warm down
23/04/08 - 1.6 miles warm up + 5x600m reps - 200m jog rec + around 30 secs (1:40, 1:43, 1:41, 1:40, 1:43) + 1.5 mile warm down
So it's been a mixed bag lately. There's also a backlog of winter speedwork training which ended late march if that's of any use for observation.
5 x 1KM w/ 2 minute recovery
Times - 3:19, 3:29, 3:28, 3:28, 3:26.
increased the recovery for the last two - I used to be able to average 3:23's no problem but today just felt knackered. Hopefully see some improvements in the coming weeks.
5000 Metre Uni Race at Bedford next Saturday - I'm not getting my hopes up and will be happy with anything under 17:30.
HC and others - Point taken. In honesty, while I would value an extra session (and will probably put one in every second week, or as you say, when not racing) it was probably a bit irrational considering the speed specific training that I'm doing is probably adequate. I'll see how a few more weeks go. If after continued training and racing (for which I haven't raced in a while) doesn't satisfy so much then I'll step things up to that gear in that area. I'm probably just a bit panicky at the moment as I want to start getting some of my outdated pb's in order.
Your comments have been helpful though, and at least give some idea as to what could be done in my own time. I'll definitely be doing it. Thanks.
Last week for me:
Mon: 75 mins inc fast tempo efforts of 15 & 12 mins in latter part of run.
Tue: 2k, 1600, 1200, 800, 400 (all 100m jog rec in 45-60") in 6'14, 4'49, 3'32, 2'19, 65" followed by 5min paarlauf with 400m legs. I was going 2nd in my team so got 2 efforts of 400m during this exercise.
Wed: 35-40 easy
Thu: 18x200 (100 jog in 40" approx) mostly 32-33" - a couple of the early ones in 34" and one of the late ones in 31" with last one in 30"
Fri: 40 easy inc strides on grass
Sat: National 12 stage road relay - leg3 5.38miles in 27:33 - weaker than my run on the long leg last year but an excellent team performance for 6th place.
I've not posted much training of late as I haven't been running much at all for the last few weeks. Up to 2 weeks of almost complete rest in an attempt to shake off a calf strain picked up / aggrivated in the London marathon. Looks like my return may be in the form of a 5000 + 1500 + 3000SC combination on Saturday... seems I'm about the least injured of the club's distance track guys!
Can anybody recommend a single session to miraculously return me to fitness in time for the weekend? I'm getting out of breath walking upstairs at the moment!
Last week's training
Mon:am -35-40 easy; pm - 80 mins inc 2 x 15 mins fast tempo intervals in 2nd half of run
Tue: 1 min press-ups, 1 min abdominals, 1min press-ups, 1min abs, 1min standing squats with arms straight in front, folllowed by plank exercises. Main part of session - 3x [2x800 (100m slow jog in 90")] [5'] in 2'13/15; 2'15/19; 2'23/20 - followed by 5 x60m sprints with walk back recovery
Wed: 50-55 mins, first 45-50 mins acceleration run, last 5 mins warming down.
Thu: 3 x [4x200 (90" in 1st set, 60"in 2nd, 30" in 3rd)] [5'] - all in 29/30" except one in 2nd set in 28" followed by several 100m sprints with walk back recovery
Fri: 35-40 easy
Sat: 5 x 3'18 efforts covering from 1110 - 1130m w 3' rec, followed by paarlauf, each partner running 4 x 400m during the relay, followed by hopping, and carrying partner of similar weight exercises on infield. Finished with several flat-out sprints from prone position across width of infield.
10,000m race coming up on Saturday.
Saturday (3rd May): Cardff Blackweir 5k TT in 20:10, to benchmark training pace
Sunday: 90mns steady on hilly route.
Monday: Non running day
Tuesday: 7 miles brisk at 6:54 pace
Wednesday: 7 miles at steady 7:20
Thursday: 8x400 off 1:45 jog. Untimed at this stage c. 3k pace
Friday: 45 mns recovery run at 7:35 pace
Saturday: 9 mls at 6:56 pace
Sunday (11th May) 6x600 off 1:45 jog. at about 3k pace
Gradually getting a bit of structure back into the training
Tom - good to see you back. Based on Saturday's run it looks like there's some base there, so I'm sure the speed will come back into your legs quickly.
Quick update from me. Amongst 2 of my first post-marathon runs were a 5km and 5000m with one recovery day between them. 15:43 and 15:58 wasn't quite what I was looking for, but the first was actually a road PB (and only 9s off last year's track best) which I think shows promise - I thought I could run about 15:20 for the track one but it was one of those races where everything went wrong and I ended up cruising home, running the last mile at about HM pace - a combination of it being a hotter day and having no real race strategy. Probably a bit tired too. It provide enough evidence that my calf had repaired so training has resumed:
Thu: 4M easy (test run), pm: 5km in 15:42, felt good and ran ~6M home.
F: 41mins easy
S: 5000 in 15:58. Also jogged around 1500 as club were short of distance guys.
S: 2hr22 slow
M: 9.3M slow with 2 x 60s fast on grass - feeling tired, pm 34mins easy - feeling better
T: 41mins steady, pm: 1600, 1200, 800, 400, 800, 400. Was meant to be 4 x 1600 in sub 5 but felt dead after the first 4:59 so changed the session. Averaged 74-74s for the longer reps, 72s for the short stuff.
W: 63mins steady
T: 34mins steady, 12 x 400 (200). Policed the recoveries as they were too leisurely on Tues. Very windy day and probably averaged 70-high but felt like I'd worked hard and was pleased with the session.|
F: lunchtime - Had very interesting chat with Adrian M (2:18 marathon last year) to discuss training ideas with a view to allowing me to have a good summer on the track whilst maintaining marathon endurance leading up to London 2009. pm: 6M easy
S: 14M inc 2M in 10:30, 1.5M in 8:00, 1M in 5:14, 1M in 5:17 (leisurely recoveries), pm 3M with 10 x fast strides
S: 70mins at a good pace, trying and failing to find my way through a Green Belt relay stage. Ended up getting muddy, lost, tired and dehydrated. Much needed massage in afternoon - very very painful back after (and before) massage so missing evening run and lying down.
86 miles for first full week back and legs feeling ok (shame about my poor back!). Next 5000 on 17/05 and I've decided to make my next target race the SEAA 5000 on June 14, then working towards the Middlesex County Champs 10km (and maybe 10,000m) in September.
Taper week for a 10,000m which went far less well than intended
Mon: 60min inc 2 x 10min fast efforts
Tue: 6x800m (100m jog) in 2'23"/22"/22"/23"/21"/20", followed by 5min 5man continuous relay with 100m legs each
Wed: 45easy inc 6x approx 100m strides on grass
Thu: nothing
Fri: 40-45 easy inc 5 x100m approx strides on grass with walk back
Sat: 10,000m - Went through halfway in 15:20, before struggling in hot conditions in the second half and slowing very badly to finish in 31:25. Disappointing effort even given the warm conditions.
HC - I was originally intending to run that but deemed it unwise based on results the previous week -I figure there's nowhere to hide on a 10,000 so didn't fancy one when I wasn't feeling good. Having seen the results it seems I made the right choice - sounds like difficult conditions with many up to a minute down on expectations...
My week:
Mon - 10M steady (great run along towpath from Walton towards Kingston and back - flowing nicely at easy effort), pm: 30mins easy
Tue - 33mins steady, pm track session - 6 laps in 7:23, full recovery then 2 x 1km in 2:56 (90s) 2:50
Wed - 35mins easy
Thu - 32 steady, 1500 'time trial' - not exactly racing against the clock, but harder effort than usual. Ran 4:23.7 which compares favourably to 4:28 at about this stage last year. Last year's time turned out to be slower than 3km pace, so quite pleased with result / (lack of) effort required to do so.
Fri - 34-35mins easy
Sat - 4pm - 5000m in Norwich, ran in a City of Norwich sandwich for the first 6-7 laps, happy at the fairly even ~75s pacing. Through 4 laps in 5:00, 6 laps in 7:30 but as soon as the leader put in a 76, I made a move to the front. Only a 73, but enough to drop the rest of the pack. Through 8 laps in 10:00, 12 in 15:00 and my mind had probably moved on to the next race of the day by then. Result 15:34.4 and a fairly comfortable win - both in terms of effort and the 20 - 30m winning margin. Had to look up my PB - 15:34.2 -- but it's a lot easier now.
6pm - leg 11 of Green Belt relay. Started off well with the first mile and a bit on the roads. Through in 5:15 feeling good, but with company from a guy I'd expect to beat by some margin. It must have been raining quite heavily in this part of the world, as the footpaths through fields and meadows which made up the bulk of the race were really heavy going - could only maintain 6 - 7 mins per mile which leveled out the playing field for the other guy. In the last mile he had the lead as we were forced single file on a narrow track. He must have seen the finish early and put on a sprint that caught me by surprise. I matched the pace and was pulling back slightly but too late and took 2nd place by 1s.
Sun -Leg 15 of GBR. 9.5 miles, big chunk on narrow country roads with the rest offroad. Took the early lead and was pulling away but took the wrong exit on a footbridge and ended up 250m behind first place. Made up the ground over the next couple of undulating miles, but he broke away on an offroad section at about 6M (I really need some shoes with grip!) and I just couldn't turn my legs over quickly enough to close the gap once onto the roads. Ended up with another 2nd place, about 10s behind the leader.
Think I'm due an easy day tomorrow.
Mon: 7 miles comfortably at 7:10 pace
Tues: No running day
Wed: 10x400 off 1:45 recovery; Last one only times at 86secs suggests range 85-87
Thurs: 8 miles comfortably at 7:10 pace
Fri: 13 miles upper aerobc at 7:04 pace
Sat: 5 mles recovery running
Sun: 8x600 off 1:45 recovery, couldn't nail the pace on these (too close to Wed's 400) and progressively struggled over last 150m of the reps. Last one timed at 2:19
Mid week 5k at Lincoln on Wed. Should improve on last effort (20:10) providing I can stay out of oxygen debt for the first 2k.
Onwards and upwards.......
Bryn, Did you get the selection for the Varsity match as you had hoped?
Good to see a couple of weeks completed back-to-back Tom. Hope to see it keep going.
Will post my full week shortly.
My pb's are 400m 54.22, 800m 2:02 and 1500m 4:30
Had a 400m semi in the morning which i ran 55.5 a new pb and qualified for the final. 400m was in the afternoon and ran 54.22 a new pb. then 25min later i had a 1500m final which i ran 4:43.
I went out as i would have in my other 1500m race 51sec 300m. 2:17 800m 3:24 1200m thats where i started to slow. Felt it in my legs the whole way but i new that was because of the double 400m
Cheers in advance
http://www.serpentine.org.uk/pages/advice_frank15.html
Alan - link above to a good article on 1500m/mile training by the man who I am coached by. The article is specifically about the 4 min mile but the advice pertains to all 1500m/mile training. If you want advice more specific to yourself, I'd suggest you give us some more about your current training & background.
My last week
Mon: 75 -80 min inc 2 x 10 min efforts in second half of run
Tue: 35 easy
Wed: 45 min inc 25 min 30 sec fast, 30 sec jog
Thu: 5 x 600 (100m walk) in 1'43/42/43/41/40
Fri: rest - meant to do an easy run but had to do stuff after work and didn't want to end up eating/sleeping late before a race
Sat: 3000m - 13th in 8:41.06 at Watford - Improving slightly but fell away badly in last km after going through 2:49, then 5:44 at the 1000 & 2000, bell in 7:32. For comparison, last year I ran 8:36.33 at Watford to win a race midweek. The splits were 2:50 (1k), 5:45 (2k) & 7:30 (bell).
Although I lost a lot of fitness from nine months out, I got to 56:30 for 10 mles pretty quickly off 50mpw. I then upped my mileage to 85-90 per week (all steady - but quick runnng) and five months later ran 50:51 for 10 miles. For many years I never really understood how that happened - as a maturely trained middle distance runner I was always capable of 57-58 min from a high VO2max, but I think the high mileage signicantly improved my lactate threshold as well. Taking the two together provided the break through, although I now believe that the key factor was the strong VO2max base.
I've read most of FH's training articles. However do have a couple of reservations about his approach. Firstly I don't think he provides suffient recovery running in his schedules - a 7 day FH schedule would probably take me 11 days to complete. Secondly his long aerobic steady state run, at virtually best HM pace, is too fast. Although it's below LT pace and physically doable, mentally its way too demanding. A 12-13 mile fast run has always been the cornerstone of my hard training, but I've never been able to handle a pace faster than 20 secs per mile slower than my best HM speed.
The schedule I was working to last year before I got injured was an FH multipace approach wth the above adjustments. There's more emphasis on VO2max than LT which is appropriate for distances up to 10k. I'm currently working up to a similar approach for this summer.
FWIW I'm now using a 5-pace approach to my training, working at 8,15,3,5 and 10k paces but spread those workouts over 2 weeks generally.
I very much agree with you Tom. My major breakthrough from being a 40 minute plus 10k runner down to mid 30s came through starting to do serious speed work and developing a lot of speed. I then increased the mileage and that took my down to 33/34. What I hope is going to take me down to 31/32 is through incorporating much more work at 5k/10k pace to really ratchet the VO2 max up whilst continuing to develop the mileage long term.
Looking forward to running a road 10k now. Appreciate for most the track is quicker but for some reason I tend to run considerably faster on the road than on the track.
Tom, yes, since moving down to just outside of London last year at the end of March, most of the sessions you see in my posts on Tue, Thurs and Sat have been with Frank's group at Battersea. Originally, I was hoping to find a group closer to where I live in Egham, but did a few sessions with Frank's group when I first moved as my sister already trained with them while enquiring about groups nearer to me. After a few weeks, I was going so well that I didn't want to change anything so have kept training with Frank.
I agree about a lot of people needing more recovery, but Frank would say himself that if someone can't handle a given workload, include extra recovery days. I also think that Frank's goal paces for the steady runs are tough. Sometimes I'll try and hit the intended pace by performing the steady run as an acceleration run and running the second half at the intended pace, or as you sometimes see in my log, including tempo intervals with the rest of the run at a decent pace. I think the principle behind Frank's steady runs though has made me more strongly consider whether a steady on a non-session day is for recovery or for building aerobic endurance. I think a lot of people try to double recovery runs as base-building miles, and fall between two stools, not quite maximizing either in the primary purpose of the run. I think both Frank's coaching and the excellent Coe & Martin "Better Training for Distance Runners" (which I think is my most important training book in the same way "The Complete Middle Distance Runner" was for you, Tom) have both reinforced this for me, and I think it was an important factor in bringing me on to a point where I got into the top 50 at the national this Winter.
It's interesting to see you lay out your running background like that, Tom. I'd got the impression that you had been someone who'd moved from a middle-distance background through other posts, but hadn't seen you set out your running history as clearly as that before.