My Training Week

By Tim Warn

When I first started running back in the running boom in the early 1980’s I used to run all my training runs at the same pace. Initially I made quite good improvements but soon came to a plateau. I wasn’t in a club and in those days there wasn’t much in the way of training manuals, magazines etc that were readily available to new runners nor of course had the internet been invented! However after a while I found some articles and realised that to get the best out of your running you had to embark on a programme which included sessions run at different paces including something called speedwork. So I set to it and the results were quite dramatic. My times for my first 2 marathons under the old regime were 4h 19m and 3h 35m, but my next 2 marathons under my new regime were 3h 24m and 3h 6m. I was convinced, and since then I have been an avid reader of running magazines and training manuals, seeking out new programmes.

Over the years I have developed a standard weekly training programme which I try and follow. The mileage and the intensity of the sessions may vary according to the state of my fitness and whether I am preparing for a marathon or a 5M race, but the basic elements stay the same.

Monday:

Monday is always a short recovery run of about 4M at a very easy “conversational” pace to allow the body to recover after either a race or a long run on Sunday. This is particularly important as you get older as the body takes more time to recover.

Tuesday:

Tuesday is the day for a hard speed session. I am lucky to work in Warrington close to Victoria Park where there is an athletics track, so a few of us from work have a regular Tuesday lunchtime intervals session there. We tend to do a 4 weekly cycle of sessions. Week 1 is 12 x 400m, week 2 is 6 x 800m, week 3 is 3 x 1M and week 4 is a pyramid session. The recovery between efforts is roughly the same duration as the effort itself, and we have a warm-up and warm-down jog to and from the track. The Tuesday night “Efforts” sessions at the club follow the same sort of pattern.

Wednesday:

This is a medium distance slow run of about 5 – 8M.

Thursday:

On Thursdays I do a speed endurance session. I tend to alternate between a 7 – 8M hilly fartlek session (the club winter Thursday hill course round Woolton or similar) – surging up the hills and jogging down to recover, or a 6 – 7M “threshold” run which includes upto 4M (or 2 x 2M) at threshold pace. These are sometimes called tempo runs.

Friday:

The best day of the week – rest!

Saturday:

If I am racing on the Sunday then I would rest again. Otherwise it’s a lower intensity speed session of about 4M. A 1M warm-up and warm-down with the middle bit being either 8 – 10 short hill repititions (45 secs uphill and jog down), or 4 – 5 long hills (90secs) or easy fartlek (6 x 1min fairly fast/2min slow).

Sunday:

Race, or a long slow run. I try and do at least one and a half hours, upto 2 hours if I am feeling fit.  What I also find useful is to target a race about 3 months ahead and then draw up a 12 week programme for that race progressively cranking up the mileage and the speedwork pace, and also taking in some other shorter distance races every couple of weeks to sharpen up race fitness for the big day.

As I say, I have developed this programme over the years and it is something which suits me. It does work. When Martin Swensson started work in our office he was a keen runner but had not done any structured training. I convinced him to adopt my programme (but with faster pace as he is younger, fitter and more talented than me) and in 12 months he has improved his half marathon time from a very respectable 1h 27m to an impressive 1h 17m and is still improving!

The three elements which form the backbone of my programme are interval running, threshold pace and long slow runs. Look out for subsequent editions of the Striding Report when I will go into more detail about the science behind these elements, and give some practical tips on the correct pace to run for these types of sessions.

Finally a word of warning, if you are a newcomer to running or have not done speedwork sessions before don’t try and go straight into a full programme like mine above. You need to move progressively towards that sort of programme over a number of weeks/months otherwise you risk injury/illness. The best thing is to join the club Tuesday and Thursday night sessions and ease yourself into those types of sessions.

February 2010.