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Question about '5k Base Training' in Pete Pfitzinger's 'Road Racing for Serious Runners'
Hi all,
I have never been a runner and only took it up in April of this year as I was beginning to feel that 48 is one of those forks in the road where you can either choose to get quite fit and healthy or see walk around fitness degrade to very low levels if you're not careful. I did the Garmin 0-5k training plan with Jeff Galloway and after a few 5ks after that ran a PB of 29:03 yesterday. I'm really happy with this as it felt like an achievement to run even half of one kilometre back in April!
During my PB yesterday, according to Garmin/Strava 47.8% of my run was Anaerobic and 34.4% was in Threshold. Only 1.4% was aerobic!
I think it's time to start forgetting PBs and build an aerobic base by upping my miles and running slowly.
A friend bought me 'Road Racing for Serious Runners' and I just cannot understand the plans as the mileage does not add up in the table. The first week of the base training shows two long runs of 4 miles. The weekly total is 15 miles. What am I missing? I've read the chapters in full and to the best of my knowledge there is no other instruction about warm up/ cool down miles, which is the only logical thing that might be missing? I write in the hope someone might be really familiar with his plans.
Thanks for reading and for any explanations in advance!
Adam
I have never been a runner and only took it up in April of this year as I was beginning to feel that 48 is one of those forks in the road where you can either choose to get quite fit and healthy or see walk around fitness degrade to very low levels if you're not careful. I did the Garmin 0-5k training plan with Jeff Galloway and after a few 5ks after that ran a PB of 29:03 yesterday. I'm really happy with this as it felt like an achievement to run even half of one kilometre back in April!
During my PB yesterday, according to Garmin/Strava 47.8% of my run was Anaerobic and 34.4% was in Threshold. Only 1.4% was aerobic!
I think it's time to start forgetting PBs and build an aerobic base by upping my miles and running slowly.
A friend bought me 'Road Racing for Serious Runners' and I just cannot understand the plans as the mileage does not add up in the table. The first week of the base training shows two long runs of 4 miles. The weekly total is 15 miles. What am I missing? I've read the chapters in full and to the best of my knowledge there is no other instruction about warm up/ cool down miles, which is the only logical thing that might be missing? I write in the hope someone might be really familiar with his plans.
Thanks for reading and for any explanations in advance!
Adam
48 year old beginner running since April 2020
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Comments
I don't have a copy of that book , so I cant be sure, but looking at your image it makes me wonder if there are meant to be a few other easy runs in the week to make up the total mileage. Sometimes these plans show only the key workouts for the week - there would usually be something in the text of the chapter to explain that though.
My best guess is that the two 4 mile runs are the key workouts, and you make up the other 7 miles in a few easy runs. Looks like a fairly standard base training phase to increase aerobic capacit , with a few faster sessions near the end to prep you for the main training phase. I might be competely wrong though. I've got his advanced marathoning book and can't remember seeing anything like that in it
Well done on the pb btw
Thanks so much for the reply. You are indeed correct. When I was reading yesterday I missed the key sentence from the ‘putting it all together’ paragraph, which is ‘add easy runs or cross training to reach the weekly mileage’. <div>
</div><div>There’s a marathon section in this book too, where the weekly mileage also doesn’t seem to add up, but I think he also doesn’t include warm up and cool down miles for Lactate Threshold workouts as well as any easy runs. It’s a bit confusing to look at initially. </div><div>
</div><div>Thanks again!</div>