Changing it Up

Ed -

I started to call this "Picking it Up" but that wasn't as accurate a description.

My summer track season is over, I'm not going to run in the meet in Northern Virginia the first weekend of September, so it's time for me to increase my distance runs again and start back with the strength training.  Plus, I'm going to run in a couple of 5K's and 10K's this fall and I need to build my endurance up again if I'm going to actually "race" them.

From what I've read and have been experiencing over the past year, its very beneficial to change your training around from time to time and break your year up into phases.  Each phase focuses on something a little different and is designed to keep building you up overall for one particular goal.  Like climbing stairs.  You keep moving up but each step is a different step.

I figure there are four phases: Endurance, Stamina, Speed, and Rest.

I'm going into the endurance phase right now.  That's where I'll focus primarily on longer runs every other day or so.  I'll also vary the speeds.  Some will be very slow paced, like almost 2 minutes per mile slower than my 5k pace, and some will be like races.  Each week I'll move my long run out further and then move my shortest run of the week up a little, too.  During this phase I'll also do strength training in the gym.  Starting with lighter weights and lots of reps, moving to heavy weights and low reps.  It's kind of backwards thinking, but it worked well last year.  Lot's of squats and lunges with the big weight bar.  My kettle bell classes will strengthen my core and connective muscles to allow me to move to heavier stuff without injury.

I'll do a little more stamina stuff in the winter.  Stamina is that middle ground where the idea is to go as fast as you can for as long as you can.  Think tempo runs and long intervals built into continual runs.  One workout I like is to run an easy first mile then go into three miles at just over 5K pace so I'm completely spent at the end, then keep myself moving for a slow fifth mile.  Alternating fast and slow miles for an 8 to 10 mile run is great, too.

Speed is what I've been doing most of the summer with track workouts and short hills designed to improve my top end speed.  Lot's of intervals and the occasional vomit fits.

Rest should be less of an afterthought for me and should be mixed in throughout the year.  I've read some middle distance folks will take a couple of months off of running completely in the fall if they're only focused on racing hard in the summer.  I tend to use the two weeks before a 10K or other race as my rest weeks.  I'll scale back mileage and just do two or maybe three runs each week, all of them pretty easy with maybe a little fartlek thrown in to keep the legs springy.

This past summer I used my broken ribs as rest for about 8 weeks in the peak of the track season.  Turns out that didn't hurt me too badly as I was able to turn that 5:16 in the 1500 despite very little real training the two months leading up to it.

Of course the trick here is to keep a little of all of these going at all times.  During my endurance phase I'll throw in a tempo run or long hills each week.  During the stamina phase I'll toss in some track work or short hills.  Regardless of the phase I'll always keep one long (10 miles or more) each week and I'll give myself two (sort of because I don't do it well) rest weeks before races.

So there's my dissertation on a year's training.

Rock on.

Crank It Up!