NYT Article about performance (from april)

Good article. Thanks for sharing.

I would love to go from my 7:45/mile pace to 6:10/mile in a 5k. I wonder what these coaches do differently then what one of the training programs you might find on the internet? I try to do 1 LSD, 1 tempo run and 1 speed work day a week. Any more running than that, I would surely injure myself.

So, I wonder if the above mentioned result is simply due to more running or a different methodology than what I currently do.

Obviously one has to train to improve but IMO rather than some magic training method, the first line says it all, "Mr. Gordon ran cross-country in college before stopping completely to take up baseball."

The fact that he ran XC in college shows he has the genes to improve to higher levels than most people. IMO, training back to a skill/fitness level is always easier than getting there in the first place so he also has that going for him.

If you want to get faster, here's the program I would recommend (as opposed to your current 3x model):

Take 6 months and run at your E pace (10:23/mile) as much as possible (this is based around your recent 10k); I would aim to run no less than 30 minutes for each of your runs and try to build to 5-7x/week.  Make your long run no more than 30% of your overall weekly volume.  Within some of your runs you can include some strides (4-8x30 seconds at 5k pace with long recovery).

Then, take 6 weeks and run at your E pace for all runs except for one T pace run where you do 10-15 minutes at E pace and then run up to 20 minutes at 8:22/mile followed by 10-15 minutes at E pace.  You can continue to include some strides in your E runs.  You can drop your number of weekly runs down by one if required to manage fatigue from the T pace run.  Ideally you will build back up to the same number of runs per week as you finished your 6 month block.

If your goal is running races, then I would take the next 6 weeks and change one of the E runs and make it I pace (for you I would look at 2-5x1000m at 4:48/km).  During this block, you can continue with T pace run but separate these two workouts by at least a day.  Again, you can drop one run in order to manage fatigue from the I pace work.

If you race at any point you should be faster and should notice throughout this time that your RPE for a given pace has decreased.  If you race, you can revisit your training paces at http://www.runbayou.com/jackd.htm.

Running 3x/week is not a program to get faster; rather you want to run easily enough that you can run often (5-7x/week) and then add some intensity in at the appropriate point of the training.

Shane

 A good coach will create a training plan specific for your needs (fitness, goals, limiters, nutrition, recovery rate, potential, other life priorities, psychology, etc) and adjust it as you move along to maximize training gains and create the optimal load to help you achieve peak performance. A general plan doesn't address or considers specific needs and it is not adjusted to match your improvements or overload (i.e. a general plan doesn't adjust when you get sick, stressed from life, work, family, etc.). A general plan will help you improve since the biggest limiter for most AGers is time/consistency and fitness hence as lnog as you are consustent a plan will hlep, however a good coach will get you to improve faster...