Training Manifesto

by Sage Canaday

Principles of Training:

So in my mind, the athlete should be training 50 weeks for the year (baring injury risk). Most of those weeks are going to contain track workouts and nearly all of them contain a long-run and a near all-out sprint/speed/stride session(s).

Since most of the working world and the calendar year works of cycles of 7days, I like to keep mileage totals in that kind of time span. However, I personally believe in the 10-12 day workout cycle because it seems to be the most appropriate way to rotate enough variety in workouts while allowing adaptation and recovery to occur.

A sample �pre-season� training cycle for an athlete targeting a 5-10k track, road, or XC race:

1. Easy Aerobic Pace: AM: 5 miles, PM: 10 miles steady

2. Speed day (Easy): PM: 3 mile warm-up, drills, 10 by 100m fast (400m date pace) with 300m full recovery jog between OR 16 by 8 sec steep hill sprints with full recovery, 5 mile warm-down at Easy Aerobic Pace.

3.Long Run: 16 miles OR about 95-100min�.throw in fartlek surges of 30sec- 5min at a time or run Steady pace down to Lactate Threshold intensity.

4. Recovery: Easy 8 mile jog

5. Lactate Threshold: 6-8 mile Tempo run at about 25-20sec/mile slower than current 10k fitness. OR 2 by 5k at about 5-10sec/mile slower than current 10k fitness. 6 by 100m strides before and after.

6. Easy Aerobic Pace: 10-12 miles

7. Economy: 20 by 400m at current 3k race pace w/1:30 recovery.

8. Recovery: double if you have to, Easy Aerobic Pace if feel good.

9. Easy Aerobic Pace: (steady) 12 miles + 6 by 100m strides

10. V02max: 5-6 by 1600m at current 8-10k pace w/3min rest OR 8-10 by 1000m at current 8k pace or 2-3 sec/ 1km faster w/2min rest.

Total: about 100 miles/ any given 7 days.

Repeat cycle 3-4 times, after reaching a period of peak mileage.

LSD, or long slow distance is what partly lead to the demise of American distance running- but so did the low mileage, overly intense anaerobic �speed work� on the track that was done at balls-to-the-wall effort 3 times a week. There was not much science, but just a bunch of hard-headed coaches and athletes with egos to fill and time barriers to destroy. Successful training became an art- and it still is today. However, it has also become a science, something with biological adaptations and data that can�t be ignored.

References:

Bloom, Mark. Run with the Champions. Rodale: 2001.

Coe, Peter N. & Martin. Better Training forDistance Runners. Human Kinetics, 1997. Champaign, IL.

Daniels, Jack. Daniels� Running Formula. Human Kinetics, 1998.

Pfitzinger P. & Douglas. Road Racing for Serious Runners. Human Kinetics 1999.

Sandrock, Michael. Running Tough. Human Kinetics, 2001.

Websites:

�summer of malmo�: http://pih.bc.ca/summerofmalmo.html

Source of that link from Kevin Beck�s website: http://www.kemibe.com/highschool.htm

�Interview with Renato Canova� http://www.mensracing.com/athletes/interviews/2005/renatocanova.html