Subject: RE: Fred D's triathlon training group CLOSEDGoFaster - 2012-05-16 9:35 AM Awesome race James. Now for my own Sprint race question. I have the first race of the season in just a couple of weeks, and it's now dawning on me that I haven't been running fast all of 2012. I've been doing all my runs in Z2 recovering from calf issues. So with only a couple of weeks to go, any suggestions to build a little leg speed, or have I just left it too late for this race? Hey Neil - I have faced that similar problem often - I think you will find that leg speed comes back pretty quickly, the problem I have the 5k of a sprint is more mental; I am get a little shelled mentally from the effort in the back half of the race. What works for me (I usually try to start 4 weeks out) is" Week 01: warm up well, 10x400 @6:00 pace; 1:30 super easy recovery. Warm down well. Week 02: 4x 400s @ @6:00 pace with 1:30 super easy recovery, then 4x 800s @ 5:50 pace with 2:00 easy recoveries Warm down well. Week 03: repeat week 02. Week 04: 4x 400s @ @ 5:50 pace with 1:30 super easy recovery. Then 6x 800s @ 5:50 pace with 2:00 easy recovery. Warm down well. With only 2 weeks to go, I would do week 1 & 2, with the second one on the Wednesday before a Saturday race. Again, this is more for mental prep for the effort more than anything. The pace is set by my fall open 5k time, which was right at 19 minutes - your intervals may be faster, but they are NOT absolutely wide-open. I run these on a very soft and slow granite fines track that is .5 miles long, so this effort is actually pretty hard. If you run them on a regular track I would at least turn every other one around (if it is allowed on your track) to reduce the asymmetrical impact of the turns. This has worked well for me when I really want to race a sprint reasonably well while actually doing long course training. |