GrooveTime!group - CLOSED!!! (Page 106)

TRACEY,
Re: the types of speed training I do (Kind of long post, sorry) 

There are lots of books by many different authors and trainers out there, but one of my favorites is Endurance Athlete’s Edge by Marc Evans. I have several others, including the Training Bible, and both seemed overwhelming initially but after a few reads and a few years of training, it started to make sense.

Different authors will often use slightly different terminology to describe the same thing, which also helps to confuse us. But generally, training for s/b/r all comes down to a few simple concepts. It doesn’t need to be complicated.

The info below if from the Evan’s book. It worked for me, so I plan to stick with it.

You need to remember that if you have done no speed training to date, that you should start with only small amounts, and build up - maybe as SteveB has recently suggested - stick with a certain volume for 2-3 weeks and then increase it. However, for pacing, I would stick to the pace tables, referred to below.

The pace examples I have used are based on your goal time of 10 min per mile. (I hope I got that right).

If you are running say, 25 km (15mi) per week; you should be doing 19km at a moderate aerobic pace; about 4km race pace; 1.5 km V02 (slightly faster than race pace); and .75 LAC (all out speed)

Anaerobic conditioning sets and interval training are workouts done at or near 10K race pace. Send off interval times are the same as for swimming and cycling, 5 to 60 seconds. That’s how much rest should be taken between intervals. LVT (race pace) training raises race pace stamina using the perceived exertion of somewhat hard to energetically hard.

I. Warm up 1 to 1.5 miles at O2 pace (light jogging, break a sweat)

II. Do some training drills like high knees, skipping, kick butt (10-15 minutes)

III. MAIN SET

(A) 3 x 400 meters in 2:29 plus 1 minute walking/jogging

(B) 1 x 3000 meters in 18:36 plus 1 minute walking/jogging, THEN 3 x 1000 meters in 6:12 plus 30 seconds between sets

FYI, your 1600 meter set would be done in 9:55.

Note: I would start with (A) rather than (B) at this point. As your body adapts to the speed, then increase to 1000 meter intervals, etc. etc.

IV. Warm-down 9 minutes - light jogging plus some more drills

Once you can do ALL three distances at these paces, then you can move up to the next pace level:

2:26 (400 meters) 6:06 (1000 meters) and 9:46 (1600 meters). Easy progression in pace to prevent injury.

VO2 (aerobic capacity) sets are workout intervals above LVT (race pace) by approximately 5 percent. This training increases the aerobic capacity or maximum oxygen capacity (aerobic power). Efforts are slightly faster than race pace but NOT all out, and intervals are 2 to 8 minutes in duration. The total training of any one set is 21 minutes. VO2 workouts have a perceived exertion of energetically hard to very hard.

I. Warm up: 2 miles at O2 (light jogging) pace, followed by running drills and then stretch lightly and then jog 3 minutes.

II. MAIN

(A) 5 x 600 meters in 3:32 plus 3:32 Resting/walking/jogging

OR

(B) 3 x 1000 in 5:53 plus 5:53 Resting/walking/jogging

III. Warm down of 1 to 1.5 miles of light jogging, followed by a couple of running drills.

Once you can do all three distances at those paces, THEN and only then should you attempt the next level of pacing which would be: 3:29; 4:38 and 5:48 for each of the 600, 800, and 1000 meter intervals. This type of training and easy progression on pacing will help to keep you injury free - preventing you from going too hard/fast, too soon.

LAC (anaerobic capacity) training is the highest intensity training you will do. The perceived exertion is very hard to very, very hard. LAC intervals are from 10 to 120 seconds and are continued for a combined time of 4 to 10 minutes. The rest periods are TWICE the interval time for intervals of less than 1 minute of exercise time and three times the interval time for intervals of more than 1 minute.

For example, 100 meters in 20 seconds will have an additional rest time of 40 seconds; however, 800 meters in 2 minutes will have an additional rest time of 4 minutes. An important point to remember is that the final repetition of any LAC set should be equal to or faster than earlier repetitions. Always use your correct training pace for these intervals.

I. Warm up - 24 minutes of the following:

A. 8 minutes of light jogging

B. 6 minutes of Fartlek Accelerations (15 seconds on, then 45 seconds light jogging)

C. 4 minutes of stretching, more if needed

D. 4 minutes of High Knees; Kick Butt

E. 2 minutes of stretching

II. MAIN SET

A. 6 x 100 meters in 00:33 plus 2 x interval time

B. 12 x 100 in 00:33 plus 2 x interval time.

As you get stronger, you can add 200 meter sets which would be done at a pace of 1:07 per 200 meters.

III. Warm down - 1 to 1.5 miles soft-surface jogging, working relaxed, tall posture and light feet.

--------------------------

For those people running longer distances, they can do some mixed sets of the 3 types of speed training, but for myself and probably you, I sometimes separate them; including it in the middle of one of my other weekly runs, especially, say the long run of the week.

Generally, I go to the track to do speed work because it is easy to figure out the distances. 

Hope you are able to get something out of this and not sorry you asked.