Team,
I'm keen to get a bit more structure into my weekly running. In particular I'd like to knock a decent chunk off my 10k time of just under 47mins.
My current schedule looks like this:
I'd be grateful if anyone could either (1) point me at a good plan or (2) suggest tweaks (or total overhaul) of the above schedule. I'm happy to put in more time and effort...I'm just not sure what I should be doing.
Thanks
Comments
Thanks NLR...good tweaking!
2 questions on the tempo run
Cheers
I'd increase the length of your long run to at least 90 minutes ideally 2 hours but it mustn't be too long compared to rest of weekly
Ideally long run should be about 25% of weekly mileage no more than 30% so you mmay need to increase other runs to balance it out.
But do it gradually
Will give it a go...sounds fun!
If it was me - I'd bin the gym. Time spent running will pay off far better.
Theres plenty of ways to skin a cat, or pb a 10k, but you need more miles.
In your long run - you probably do what 7 miles or so ? So you'll never be happy racing flat out for 10k ?
As someone suggested - 90 min long run would be better, and up the distance of the others too. I'd just run them steady and look to get some interval work in.
Maybe start with Yassos and then up them to mile repeats at slightly higher than your target pace and increase each week.
Thanks
Quick question for you regarding the scheduling of the more intensive sessions. In the recommendations above we have:
Should I be looking to:
at your level i disagree entirely with the advice that you need to extend your long run. i would say keep the long run as it is. if you want to run more miles i would do it by running some shorter runs a week.
interval
one coached track session is fantastic and you should definitely keep it. it needs to be a high volume, 5k pace sessio. do not replace this with a retarded RW yasso interval session. please.
tempo/mile reps
good idea. maybe once every week or two one of these but a good suggestion.
gym
i would keep a session every week. i would suggest you do a 20 minute basic cardio session when you are there. long term a gym session every week is an asset and it helps prevent overuse injuries so it can often be a mistake to remove this completely from any training scedule. i have done this in the past and believe me i regretted it.
general
i do not think there is much wrong with your schedule to be honest. it looks like you made a good start with 10k training. of course they will say run more but this is always the advice you get in the end. there is more than one way to rome so whatever you decide i suggest it is best to make small changes based on people's advice, rather than any total overhaul. add in any extra running slowly so you can adapt. best of luck. HTH
these are 5k paced 800m sessions that i have done, which is what they do at my club.
8x800m with 60-75s recovery
8x800m with 400m jog recovery
The marathon schedule for this would be 10x800m and the difference is there is minimal recovery. you get about half your running time to recover from the session. even then these sessions take forever.
the sessions are completely different to me and if you do not understand it is vitally important you stay within your club and coaches to do intervals. Take too much recovery and the intervals can become ineffective. 'Anyone can run fast repetitions and have a cup of tea and a doughnut after each repetition' - Frank Horwill
hope this clarifies my opinion on that session you mention.
>
The bold looks like a total contradiction. How long does it take you to jog 400m in your 8 * 800m session?
If you're taking 400m to jog a recovery in a 5k paced session of 800s that is too low an intensity for what you're describing. With your 8 * 800m session at 5k pace you are guilty of the exact same "retarded" thing you're criticising. Perhaps worse as Yasso's (although shit) are at least usually done at faster than 5k pace.
The yasso interval as I understand is based not on pace but on the time you want to finish the marathon. I thought it was far slower than 5k pace. If you do the maths the session sounds ridiculous to me. 4 hour marathon runner does 10 x 800m so they would run each 800m in 4 minutes and they take 4 minute recoveries. That makes the session 1h20 mins long. Including recovery and warm down they would be 1h40. Am I missing something big here because that does not make sense to me? I do not know why it would be recommended to any 10k runner.
However, you're quite right the whole idea is completely preposterous. It's one of those workouts which doesn't really suit anything in particular.
That's why I was surprised at your 400m recoveries off 5k reps which would only make sense if you were shifting a bit for the 400m and then it turns into a huge session if they are done reasonably fast. He was probably doing it to stop you all texting between reps!
Re: Yasso's - where did the idea of recovery time being equal to the rep time come from? Apart from this (which I appreciate is a significant element of the session) Yasso's are pretty decent 5k pace session. During marathon training I would typically build up from 6 - 8 x 800m to 10 x 800m w/ 200m recovery. For a 2:3x - 2:40 interval the recovery would be about 90 secs. This to me would yield about 5k pace for a tough work-out.
I do think that something like 8 x 800m with sensible recoveries would be good for 10k training.
Lamb Chop, is it worth speaking to your coach and/or others that you train with to see what they do or recommend? It may even be that you could get together to train on additional days - a bit of 'competition' always helps to get the speed down!
Cougie - I am satisfied with the progress I've made to date but feel ready and able to step it up a bit...hence the question about the shape of my training week.
Sophie - I will definitely ask the coach for his thoughts. Sometimes the content of the track sessions feel a bit random and I'm considering dropping down to once a fortnight and swapping in some of the sessions recommended here. Good point about come competition / collaboration.
All - thanks for your suggestions...now to start putting some of this into practice!
First off, theres nothing intrinsically wrong with your training. Its roughly the same as my training week, although my PB's are 4:50 for one mile, 9:30 for 3000m and 35:22 for 10k. However, you dont tell us the speeds you are running at. It may well be that if you simply increase the pace of your steady runs by about 10-15s and modify that long run it may well be enough.
More specifically:
Enjoy smashing 45 minutes.