After Ottawa I had to go back to work on Wednesday, so I figured enjoy a few days off and then get back at it. Possibly wishful thinking, but when I went back I realized how much work had piled up while I was away. Originally I thought that our pregnancy would be a weekend and then I'd have tons of time to get some things done, go into school and such, but alas spending a week in a hospital didn't help the situation. In the end I simply needed some time off (bad timing may I add). I ran 32 mins this morning, but pretty mellow. The Achilles felt good, so hopefully can get back into the full swing of things later in the week (I am going to try and get in one short run and some X training when I get over the pile of papers and tests to mark).
After our race in Ottawa a handful of us went out for some refreshments. It was this hodge podge of young guys and old guys, but everyone was a running a geek. Part of the conversation got into a the concept of change of pace training and race preparations workouts. During my SFU days we did a weekend workout during the track season where you did 5 x 1000m off 3mins rest but you alternated hard 200s under or around 800m pace with 200m float. Back then it was a tough strength workout. The biggest thing I found was that you got very good speed development and great kicking abilties, without being totally beaten up the next day.
I think that since these sessions cannot be measured very well by science they often get overlooked in many modern day training ideas, but in the real world they can be the have a major impact. I am not saying ignore the shorter harder intervals, but rather that either doing more of these will help one's tactical abilties and also lead to less injuries and breakdown.
As I moved up to the 5-10km I kept on doing the session, but now it was more speed. We also shortened the interval break to 2mins, slowed down the hard 200s to mile or just under mile pace and sped up the floats to the 35-40 sec range.
I have also tended to ignore pure short intervals of higher intensity in favour of these types of sessions, or kept it simple and done a monofartlek (sometimes added with a few more 30 sec intervals), but slowed down the med paced jogs to simulate more 1500-3km pace work. Egs I used to do a monfartlek in about 6km, jog 2mins and then run hard, very easy 30 sec for 3mins take 3mins and then do 3mins of 15sec hard -30 sec.
When I first read my Harry Wilson (ovett's coach) training book aka the 'training bible' he had whole sections on an athlete's strengths and workouts that one could do. I don't have the time today, but next time out I'll post all of Wilson's change of pace workouts (from 800-10000m).
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3 comments:
Mental & physical breaks in workouts teach the same habits in racing.....fine if you are racing at the front & for the win but bad habits to develop otherwise. The mid-pack racer gets no such releif. Fine workouts if you've got the steady state running down pat which should be the first priority.
dick....who said these were mental breaks.....these are to teach racing and changing gears....a totally different concept than steady stae running...if u have ever done the change of pace 1000s or monfartlek as they are supposed to be done you'll know what I mean...hanging on for dear life at the end of a 'mono'....these are not easy...they may feel easy at first but not by the end.....besides they are alos for more lactic oriented work with no real recovery
Love the Mono, too, by the way.
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