Effective Workouts for Distance Runners
We all know how to do the easy runs. It's the long runs and speed workouts that are the hardest to do and toughest to plan.
Long Run. Ideally, this should be 50% to 100% longer than any other run that week. We know the benefits—improved endurance, ability to utilize stored fat as an energy source, etc. The important thing is the pace—about 45 seconds to a minute per mile slower than marathon race pace, or 1:15 to 1:30 per mile slower than 10K race pace. This is fast enough to reap the physiological benefits, but slow enough that you'll be able to recover quickly enough to do a good track session two or three days later. For those focusing on 10 milers and up, it's a good idea to try to get in another weekly run that's at least a few miles longer than your standard run.
Tempo Run/AT/LT Workouts. Call them what you want. The goal is to boost your lactate (or anaerobic) threshold, the speed at which your body can no longer clear the lactate that forms in your blood as quickly as the lactate accumulates. Lactate is a byproduct of aerobic metabolism; contrary to popular thinking, you're always producing it, even at rest. What matters is when your body can't clear it as quickly as it's being produced. For experienced runners, this usually coincides with 15K-half marathon race pace. By training at, or slightly faster than, your lactate threshold, you lower the speed at which this occurs, and thereby improve performance at races of 5K and longer. A well-developed lactate threshold is key to reaching your potential at 15K, half marathon and on up to the marathon. The best way to improve your lactate threshold is by running tempo runs. These are runs, usually of 20 to 30 minutes, at about 10-mile race pace. For most of us, this means a 3- to 5-miler. You'll get the greatest benefit by running them at a steady pace; if you want to do a 4-mile tempo run in 24:00, you're best averaging 6:00/mile, rather than starting in 5:45 and slowing throughout the run and finishing in 24:00. The pace should feel "comfortably hard"—you'll know you're working, but you can keep going. If you picked it up by 10 seconds a mile, you'd probably have to slow within the next few minutes. If you're sore the day after a tempo run, you ran too hard.
Another type of LT workout is cruise intervals. These are good as build-ups to sustained tempo runs or when other factors, such as heat, would make it too tough to run a tempo run as you'd like. A typical workout would be 3 X 1.5 miles at LT pace with a quarter-mile jog between.
VO2 Max Workouts (Intervals). Your VO2 max is a measure of how much of the oxygen that you breathe you are capable of using for aerobic exercise. It is the most important physiologicalattribute in racing 10K and shorter, and important up through the marathon. You reach your VO2 max at about 3K/5K race pace.
The best way to improve your VO2 max is by training within that narrow range of 3K to 5K race pace, usually for repeats that last between 2 and 6 minutes. Many serious runners do workouts faster than this; for example they'll run half-mile repeats close to their mile race pace. This is a harder workout, but not a more effective one if your goal race is 5K or longer. When you do workouts faster than VO2 max pace, you're training your anaerobic systems. This often leads to having to slow significantly in the middle miles of a race, even though the opening miles felt comfortable.
Suggestion: Don't do 400s! Almost everyone likes to run quarters, because they feel fast and they're over quickly. But when you do quarters, you spend little time on each repeat training your aerobic energy systems. What's better for good races of 5K and up are longer intervals run between 3K and 5K race pace, such as 5 X 1200 meter repeats at 5K race pace.
As with running the repeats faster, shorter rests between repeats isn't always the most effective way to train. During VO2 max workouts, your recovery should last for 50% to 90% of the duration of the repeat. When you cut the rest too short, you wind up running the intervals more anaerobically, so you don't get the desired training effect.
Turnover Work. Striders of 100 meters or so, or quick 200s, improve form and leg turnover. These are a better way to boost basic speed and your kick than doing quarters; you runfaster on striders, but they're over so quickly that they don't fatigue you. Once a week, at the end of an easy run, do 12 100-meter striders, or eight 200-meter striders. Good days to dothese include the day before a track session or a long run; don't do them the day after a hard day (long run or track session).
I have to admit it—most of this article is an edited version of a training group handout written by MCRRC's Scott Douglas. Perhaps he won't press charges if I tell everyone that his latest book, Advanced Marathoning, (written with Olympian Pete Pfitzinger), is now available.
When he coached, several of Jim's runners became NCAA Division III All-Americans.
