| PUTTING THE PUZZLE TOGETHER |
| Now that you have been introduced to the main points of my training schedule, it is time to put all the pieces of the puzzle together to build ...program... When putting together you plan you must keep in mind these main principles: consistency, patience, progression, adaptation, balance., Think Long Term When putting together a training plan I suggest two things: think long term and work backwards from the end of each season to the beginning. Thinking long term will force you to include all the important steps in the process. All aspects of the complete training program are equally important. There is no one day, one run, one workout, nor one race that is any more important than any other. All things together make sense. You can not expect to become a great runner by running a great workout and then following with an off day. ... Remember...it takes a week to 10 days in order for a workout to make a physiological change in your body. Too many times coaches (or athletes themselves) will have their athletes perform demanding workouts within days of an important race to make sure they are fit. All this is really doing is tearing the athlete down and ensuring the athlete will enter the race overly fatigued. Work Back The first thing I do when planning for the upcoming season (cross country, indoor track, or outdoor track) is to print out a blank calendar and pencil in all of the races for that particular season. 12 Month Plan Authur Lydiard advocated the use of training phases to break up the calendar year. He believed that the runner should devote a specified time to conditioning the different ... Though I do not advocate breaking your year up into definite phases (much like Auther Lydiard did), I do believe that the runner should emphasize certain aspects of training at certain points of the year. I am going to assume that you will be competing in both cross country and track throughout the year. With that assumption in mind, much of the details of your program will be taken care of just because cross country and track have slightly different conditioning requirements. Stages not phases Building the foundation (Summer Months) Your focus during the summer months should be to prepare yourself for the upcoming 9 months of running. You should be looking to build an enormous aerobic foundation on which you add the quality to... Your summer training should be made up of almost entirely of controlled aerobic efforts. This is no doubt the simplest and most bare bones segment of training of the entire year. Your weekly schedule will be made up of one long run and multiple medium distance controlled runs. You will spend the first two-thirds of your summer slowly and steadily building up your weekly mileage. I do not suggest anybody do any quality sessions during this buildup portion of your schedule. You will reach your maximum weekly mileage totals durin the last 4 to 6 weeks of the summer. Over the course of the last one-third of the summer the experienced runner (somebody that has done summer training for two or more years) can add in one quality session to the weekly plan. These quality sessions are meant to simply provide a transition to the quality sessions to be performed at the beginning of the next training stage. All of these sessions will be run solely on effort, with the emphasis on controll and perfect form. You should leave these sessions feeling only mildly fatigued and physically ready to put in your miles the next day. Examples of these types of sessions are hill surges, controlled tempo runs, and long and short pickup runs (also known as fartlek runs). Adding in controlled and free flowing striders of 60 to 100 meters a few times a week at the end of your controlled runs will allow you to keep a certain amount of snap in your legs and keep you limber and loose. The more experienced runner (somebody that has done summer training for two or more years) can add in a speed development session once a week over the last half of your summer schedule. Strength and Aerobic power Stage Now that you have built a solid foundation you are ready to enter into the stage of training that will emphasize strength and aerobic power. This stage will usually last from 4 to 6 weeks. You will now be adding in the multi-pace system that I spoke of in the Selective Quality Training section. If you are training for an 8000 meters race, then your training paces will cover two paces below, one pace at, and two paces above approximate 8 km race pace. Same idea takes place for anybody training for 3 miles, 5000 meters, 6000 meters, or 10,000 meters. Each of your weeks will be made up of two quality sessions (a race will count as a quality session), one speed development session, one long run, and multiple controlled runs. Your mileage during this stage will slowly decrease either week by week or every two weeks. There will be an initial cut back in mileage by 10 - 15% from your maximum amount in August at the very start of this training stage. That will then be followed up by weekly or biweekly decreases. Each decrease will be by 5 - 10%. It is so very important that the runner pay close attention to fatigue levels during this stage of training. Though the mileage is cut back by 10 - 15%, the addition of longer (and much tougher) quality sessions will add a dimension of risk for the runner. Controlled runs must be taken especially easy to allow for proper recovery from these energy sapping workouts. Be careful not to misunderstand what I am saying about days following workouts (or races for that matter), you must still put in adequate aerobic conditioning. The key is to cover the miles but do so with the utmost controll. A key to truly taking your running to the next level is to continue to train while you recover. Sometimes that means running considerably slower than usual on controlled runs in order to make sure you are indeed recovering properly. Race Specificity Stage Your mileage will continue to fall as you enter seemlessly into the next stage of training. The major emphasis here will be racing at your highest level while also doing the training to allow for continued growth, speed, and strength. Rest and recovery will take special importance ... You will continue to maintain aerobic conditioning ...do not allow your mileage to fall too low... workouts will begin to emphasize speed over strength... |