One of many absolutely brilliant, can't-fail, one-of-a-kind training schemes (Part II)
Yesterday, in Part I, I wrote a bunch of mostly superfluous stuff about my journey into online coaching and what I think I solid training plan for distance runners should include. Today I will break down the basic plan and explain some of the reasoning behind its main features.
Below is the general scheme, including only the essentials -- while I give people totals to shoot for on the four weekly recovery days if they want for, I usually suggest that people decide for themselves what to run on those days to reach the prescribed weekly mileage total. I work primarily with marathon runners, but this 21-day cycle, which runners wind up doing about four to six times in a marathon build-up, is applicable to 5K and 10K runners with some judicious adjustments.
M = medium-long run; L = long run; T = tempo; MP = marathon pace; FF = fast finish; SI, MI, LI = short, medium, and long intervals respectively.
WkMonTueWedThuFriSatSunTot.1
M
SI
M/L w/ FFLower2
ML w/ T
MI
LMedium3
ML w/ FF
LI
L w/ MPHigher
This schedule invites runners to log six distinct "quality" days in every cycle, not counting medium-long and long runs done at modest paces as "quality." Since MP runs and tempo runs have a similar flavor, these are spaced apart by 10-11 days, as are the long and medium-long runs with short but intense pick-ups at the end. There is a manageable interval session every week (no more than three miles of total work for most people) and these rotate between short (400m and below), medium (600m to 1,000m) and long (1,200m too 2,400m) repetitions, although mixing and matching within a session is not unheard of.
A typical three-week block for someone shooting for a sub-3:00:00 marathon, assuming this person has demonstrated a current fitness level commensurate with this goal, would look something like the table below. I won't explain here how I arrived at the various paces (that's coming soon, maybe), but I have picked 5:45-5:50 as 5K pace and therefore the upper bound for interval sessions as well as the "fast-finish" pace for the requisite medium-long runs; 6:05-6:10 for 10K pace, which is the "fast finish" pace for the requisite long runs; 6:20 for threshold (tempo) pace; and, though it doesn't factor directly into the scheme, 6:30 for half-marathon pace.
WkMonTueWedThuFriSatSunTot.1Off/
XT612 steady59 incl. 10 x 400 in 82-83, 1:15 jogs716 w/ last 2.5 @ 6:10552Off/
XT813 w/ last 4 @ 6:2089 incl. 6 x 800 in 2:50-2:52, 2:00 jogs918 steady65
3Off/
XT914 w/ last 1.5 @ 5:55910 incl. 3 x 1600 in 5:45-5:48, 2:30 jogs820 w/ last 12 @ 6:5070
The last three-week block before the goal race looks markedly different, which is blather for another day.
This is nothing magical about this, obviously. It's merely one fantastic, near-perfect, irrefutably amazing, indispensable idea of many that has served a lot of people very well, with some of this sentence being completely true.
I will most likely use this post as substrate for various other ideas as time and inspiration level permit.