Used to love the pyramid. 400,800,1200,1600, 1200, 800,400. All at best sustainable pace but cant remember the rest intervals. think maybe it was half rep time but that sounds a bit generous. I say i loved it… well, you know, not really but…
The one i never managed to complete was the 10k killer tempo run… 25 laps alternating 10k pace with marathon pace
I need to get back to the track as i’m actually running more regularly again. Half mara in october. I wont pb but am half hopeful of 1h25. Parkrun on saturday to get a marker…
That’s very similar to what i had in my head! Thanks.
Did the 8s last week and was trying to decide between 4s or 12s for lunchtime! Though i was running much quicker than 10k pace, as i’m working on 5k times as well.
I still can’t decide if i’m tempted to run it ‘properly’ or not.
To be honest I am hopeless at speed work. Although given I ran a sub 1:14 half recently😎I must be doing something right…
So I will say what I do and then what I would recommend
I have only just started consistently running ‘proper’ intervals as it is now fits in with life. Before I used to add a but of effort along regents canal on the 20k run to work but now pace work is.
I have never had an interest in exact numbers hardly ever get to a track so I run to geography. BUT I have found I need to do this religiously every week, I now have my routine and I stick to it. Consistency therefore must trump everything.
The other thing to note is that super shoes have made a massive difference, but I am way to tight to train in them. I will suggest my paces below in non super shoe. My target is 3:47 for a marathon
Tuesday Ingebritsen inspired double day
Morning - 4 and a bit laps of a park, ends up at just over 5k around 20 minutes. k’s generally progress from somewhere in the 3:50’s to 3:40’s. This is the 2.5 Mmol work out the ingebritsens do, though they also do it as intervals and a higher volume. I would say this is slightly under MP effort
Afternoon - 5k beer race, again I normally progress this, from high 3:30’s to low 3:20’s I reckon, normally being out sprinted by a bunch of young’uns in around 17 minutes. Idea here is that I am also learning to run hard on tired legs. I would say this is 10k>5k effort
Thursday
6x1100, why 1100? It is the flat part of a 1.5k loop, so I recover on the down and up to look after the achillies. I also like the fact I it is a bit more than a k, so I get 6.6k of work instead of just 6. HM->10k effort so v low 3:40’s to low 3:30 normally
MP Workout
2x6.5-7k somewhere in the 3:50’s. This is part of a long run, recovery between is longer than recommended, but it fits in with the rest of the run
I would not recommend the above as it is apparently a lot of work a week (As well as the other 100+k ), but I seem (touch wood) to be able to handle it. What it won’t do however is stop the kids jumping me at the 5k as there is nothign fast. What it will do however is allow me to put 15 minutes+ into them at a marathon
My club in London use to rotate the following which I did for a few weeks and made sense
1x2k @5-10kpace, 6x600@3k, 1x2k. See if you can hold the second 2k at same pace as first, I never achieved this
8x1200
12x800
6x1600
The bottom 3 all come in near 10k of work so I use to back off slightly and build into them.
One thing I have noticed on strava, the really good marathon runners do 3 or 4 or more blocks of 5k at MP.
You are naturally much quicker than me so would probably hit those quite easily. But could you hit them all for 10+ weeks without breaking down? if not back off a bit so you can…
Vo2max sessions are pretty standard.
800 repeats off 60-90s, 1k repeats, mile repeats etc. I only do them occasionally tho.
The one that’s probably more specific to my coach is the 3k/2k repeats at over (+15s/km) and under (-15s/km) MP. I’m not actually training for a marathon right now, but it still works out pretty handy as the under are at roughly HMP.
The other week I did 3 continuous blocks, so 15k. You could easily do them on the road, but I find the track is ideal to really dial into a pace as you are trying to nail each 200 split, rather than just meandering around the overall interval target to hit the right average pace for the interval (which is what I’d probably do on the road)
Yeah a mate did this yesterday. It looked flippin savage.
Cheers for the responses though. Doesn’t seem like I’m missing anything from the last time I tried to run fast.
I still feel a bit of a fraud, as the TMP is super easy at interval level. It’s just the back 10 miles that I’m currently unprepared for. So I guess some TMP work off tempo fatigued legs should be the order of the day.
Not a sub 3 question, but just a marathon question.
Given for my HM and M attempts I’m not going to be running “fast”, should I still throw in some intensity over the next 4 weeks or just stick at volume?
I wouldn’t, as I always break something running “fast”
All my marathons have been done with close to zero running much faster than marathon pace, but lots of long runs with sections around marathon pace (e.g. 4x5k, 2x10k). Horses for courses I suppose.
As @Tupperware says, it depends if you break easily. I have now removed almost all speed work from my training as I was finding anything over 3:20min/k would cause hamstring issues. Obviously this may mean I limit where I can raise my aerobic ceiling. But as I tend to only really care about long it is all about how long I can hold or be near to threshold.
Just came across an advert for GTN where Mark Threlfall and James Cunnama are heading to Brighton mara to aim for a sub 2.30.
They’re published their mara training plan, and i quite like the look of it actually. It’s not high volume, so i assume they’ll be topping up with a fair bit of S and B.
87km peak (and only for one week) isn’t anywhere near high volume for a marathon programme I’d say. I’ll look later, but I’d say this program only averages 60km at most. Especially for a sub 2.30 aim.
I would’ve expected multiple >100km weeks and a peak nearing 150/60kms if they weren’t multi sport athletes and purely focussed on this.
Hmm, maybe my mind has been warped over the years of doing endurance stuff then. But I’m sure my running club colleagues were doing a lot more than that for slower than sub 3 attempts even.
If you’re a single sport athlete, an 84km week is ‘only’ an hour a day at 5/km. One long run is double that distance (24km) for example, and you have a rest day.
in around 17 minutes. Idea here is that I am also learning to run hard on tired legs. I would say this is 10k>5k effort
as I always break something running “fast”
What