[Closed] Runners: Training

What's your mileage at the moment? More miles will always help, unless they make you injured.

Having said that, your long run will be of more benefit if it's 'steady' rather than 'slow' though.

What's your current mileage and training breakdown in terms of runs per week?

hill reps
tabata
peds.

Those splits show no strength/weakness, as the rule of thumb is/was double your 5km time and add 2 minutes.

Simple week schedule:
One long one, XC is perfect for this
One tempo run
One interval session

As other have said, what are you doing at the moment?

The plans that are available on Garmin Connect are quite good.

At the moment I am doing the following:

Sunday:8-10km fast
Wednesday:7/8km xc, including sprinting up hills
Friday: 5km steady (not slow)

Plus one 30 mile Road ride, plus mountain biking at weekends, plus one weights session in the gym. Usually one day off per week.

I've improved my times with hill reps one day, sprint reps the next and a 5 or 10k run the next. Then repeat and have a day off. I often get more time off due to being away but that's what i try to do when at home. I've got below 21 mins for the 5K now which includes the hill I train on and did 13.3 miles 10 days ago in 1:45 dead without ever really pushing myself. It hurt a bit in terms of aches afterwards but pace whys it was fairly comfortable. Of all the bits I do it's the sprint on a false flat that really hurts the most, it's around 250-300 meters and at the end of each leg I feel I'm past my limit. I do that 5 times jogging back slowly each time.
If you want to run a long way faster first start by repeatedly running a short way very fast.

If you want to run a long way faster first start by repeatedly running a short way very fast.

I'd completely disargee with that 🙂

Speed isn't your limiting factor.... endurance is.

Although with only 6 weeks to go you've not got much time.... So I'd say Tempo runs.. 10min x 4 with 1 min rest or 20min x 2 with 5min rest ... or a soemthing between the two... at about 7.10 min/mile pace.

If you had more time(12weeks plus) .... long/lots slow before speeding up.

I would say hill intervals. Find the longest hill around you, run up at about 90% of your maximum for 5 minutes then jog for a minute, repeat 6 times. If the hill isn't long enough double back on yourself on the jog minutes.
Short easy runs in the week before the race for recovery to be at your best on the day.

The biggest overall impact on your performance will be your total milage run at an average 30% slower than your 10K pace. This will give you the endurance you need. Obviously speed sessions do help if you are not racing every weekend, and I'd mix them up 400 reps or 800 reps personally.

I generally rely on 60-70 miles a week and then add the quality in the last month to 6 weeks.

You have 6 weeks so that is enough time to make a good difference IMHO and if it were me I'd build milage to 40+ miles a week over the next 2-3 including a 13 mile run at the weekend and then add 1 or 2 speed sessions a week from 4 weeks out.

Its not perfect, just what works for me and got me a 1:16 HM this year

The most time and energy efficient way to build fitness is to run nothing but intervals. It will probably drive you crackers hence why many schedules break this down and add longer runs/hills/tempo runs etc.
Other than a few core components the rest is padding. Run intensive intervals appropriate to your fitness, rest a day or so then repeat.

I'd completely disargee with that

Speed isn't your limiting factor.... endurance is.

You build speed endurance by taxing yourself and allowing your body to adapt to the stress. You dont have to run long slow runs to build endurance. Short intensive repetition sessions will do this.

Hill reps & fartlek.

The biggest overall impact on your performance will be your total milage run at an average 30% slower than your 10K pace.

On the other hand, by FAR the most effective thing I ever did was 200m intervals. Vastly more effective than years of knocking out the miles.

I'm not seeing how 200m reps relate to 10k running, can you enlighten me?

I'm not seeing how 200m reps relate to 10k running, can you enlighten me

Because it stresses the body to adapt? Pushed the aerobic line? increases endurance?

There's a lot of studies out there that sprint training improves endurance

Hugely increased my aerobic capacity. When I was doing them and for a year or so afterwards I coudn't get out of breath on the bike no matter how hard I pushed. The effect started to wane lately so I'm back doing them now 🙂

Also, I think there's a good deal of biomechanical improvement to be had. Muscle memory, activation, neurological adaption, whatever it is, but that's just a hunch. Running distance is just so much easier if I've been doing the intervals.

I do 200m flat out with only 30s rest. So it's basically 8 mins or so of being totally flooded with lactate and CO2, so I suspect it trains your body to shift the CO2 and lactate really well.

Everyone is different.
Short, fast reps worked for me (8x2min, 1 min rest), but may not for you.

+1

We all run different distances for different reasons, and we all have different physical attributes.

Mol - Thanks for the above. I need to massively improve my bleep test score and I suspect 200m intervals might be the way forward.
Edit - the above, above obviously.

I run with a club and when training for a reason like a quick 10k we do a run of about 12k with a steady few mile warm up then 1k at nearly flat out, 1k steady repeats twice a week with a long xc run of about 14 mile with some hills at a weekend.. or I Parkrun Saturday and bike Sunday. There's a lot of training plans out there but this one worked for me without being too structured to feel like a chore.

For the little amount of miles you do a week that's not bad times you're doing.
I got down to 20:30 5k and 43min 10k with about that sort of mileage and doing intervals once a week.
I reached these without really being fit enough, as the drop off to my 10 mile (1:20) and half marathon (1:44) times was far too much.
This was as far as i could get being 'unfit'.
If you really want to improve your times, then some long base miles and a serious upping of your weekly mileage is probably needed.

I spent 4-5 months doing mostly low heart rate (135bpm ish) runs 40-50 miles a week to make myself more efficient and fitter...and 1 1/2 stone lighter.
My mile pace for this heart rate went from 9 min to sub 8 min/mile and subsequently made all higher effort paces significantly faster as well.

My 5k time has tumbled to 18:26, 10k to 39:02, 10 mile to 64 mins and half marathon to 1:26.

Current weekly schedule is:

Long run Sunday...12-22 miles depending on if marathon training or not.
Monday recovery...6 miles at low heart rate 8:30min/mile approx.
Tuesday...10 mile tempo run at marathon pace 7:30 min/mile approx. (or club track intervals)
Wednesday...rest day
Thursday...club run 10 miles at 7:30 ish
Friday...6-8 miles easy 8 min/mile ish
Saturday...3 miles easy to parkrun then 5k parkrun (fast or easy depending on whether i can be bothered to try hard or not 8))
If in full marathon training then some double run days will be added to get the mileage high enough.

Still a 45 yr old mid packer in bigger local races but quick enough to make me happy and motivated 🙂

For fast stuff, track work we do is varied, but for instance:

400 - 800 - 400 - 800 - 1200 - 800 - 400 all at faster than 5k pace (e.g 5:20 min/mile pace instead of 6:00 min/mile pace) 1 minute-90 secs rest between each set.

Adds speed and also benefits mentally in races as you know you are racing at a slower pace than you have run in training.

FWIW, the quick local runners (sub 3hr marathons, sub 60min 10 mile, 17min 5k) are mostly doing 60+ miles a week (and more this time of year as marathon training peaks).
The REALLY quick local guys (sub 2:30 marathon) are doing 100 miles a week and marathon length runs every Sunday 😯

I never did more than 40 miles in a week and got down to 15:15 5k so distance isn't the key.

You need to do some sustained fast training. Say 6x800m reps x2min JOG recovery (not standing recovery). Run the second to last rep as if it's your last, you will survive the last one.

In that timeframe? Intervals

you can clearly already run the distance, get faster by running faster.

Another vote for running faster here, although I appreciate that its a personal thing, but for me my biking fitness takes care of the distance element and all I have to run is one speed session a week to maintain a pretty good standard.

Personally I'd be delighted to get anywhere near those times.

A good old ... which type of training is best debate... gotta love them.

The truth is somewhere in the middle and a little bit of everything.

When I said I'd completely disagree with that... the poster I was disagreeing with was exclusively advocating running 300m repeats.... they have there place in fact I'm planning on doing a speed seasion at lunchtime.

So maybe I don't complete disagree ... but the fact remains that speed is not your limiting factor.

I'm with rusty towel over the long term ... (build a big efficient engine... but then longer distances are my preference, however short distance times still fall this way for me)

Short term ... we are all agreed, are we not?.... Intervals

So OP ... just take something from everyone and mix them up... short 200/400m ... mids 1K to 6mins... long 10mins to 20mins.

And at this point it probably ought to be said... be careful.

Just running fast all the time on little previous running may lead to injury... make sure you warm up nicely first

If you go for big miles, be prepared not to ride your bike much (unless you're a budding triathlete and/or have a VERY understanding wife).
There's a reason most of my bikes are for sale on here at the moment 🙁

Just to be clear, I wasn't advocating ONLY running sprint intervals!

Just running fast all the time on little previous running may lead to injury

Likewise, doing 60 miles a week may also lead to injury 🙂

The truth is somewhere in the middle and a little bit of everything

That's pretty much what I had concluded myself, lol.

Thanks folks.

interesting about the 200m reps....certainly not something I thought would have been of particular benefit training for 10k, but now thinking about it more, if you are stressing the body that much, it can only react accordingly.

At 53 with a worn knee I now only run occasionally for the pure enjoyment of running, so last night on that beautiful evening I came home and jogged a 5.2 miler around the countryside in a stately 45mins. When I was younger, never a club runner or racer, my methods to get faster were based on running each distance at different speeds so a 3 miler would be eyeballs out. I only ran one half Marathon, but did 1.25.10, so for a 6' 4" 14.5 st (at the time) I was quite pleased with that.

Find a running club and get some input on your running style. More efficient style will make you faster more easily than fitness gains.