Forums >General Running>furman first - paces
Hey all,
Hoping that there is someone out there who knows a bit about Furman FIRST or has the book "run less, run faster' (I haven't read it...) I have a question regarding speed work paces. In the HM plan (http://www2.furman.edu/sites/first/Documents/Half%20Marathon%20Training%20Program%20-%20metric.pdf), I just did 3x1600 with 1 min recovery in week 13 and in week 4 I will have to run 3x1600 with 400m recovery. I can only find one speed work pace table for 1600m, but I can't imagine that you could give one table of paces for these two sessions. One session has a 400m recovery (around 4-5 min walk) and due to this I could go a lot faster than with just 1 minute recovery from the session in week 13.
Normally by week 6 my speed would have increased and I would expect that I would just pick my pace from a faster 5k time, however this doesn't take into account the difference in recovery time.
Not a big deal, but it's just been bugging me ... can anyone help me?
I believe you use the same pace for both workouts. There will be a different stress, but that's reasonable as you want different stresses during training.
BTW, my VDOT calculator displays the other FIRST paces, including the 3200M. Here's an example:
http://fellrnr.com/wiki/VDOT_Calculator
(I had to contact the FIRST people to get some of the details of the 3200M pace)
They are the same pace.
thanks fellrnr,
not sure if I quite understand the reason for the 'different stress' (stress = intensity right?)... But I'll see what happens when I get to the work outs later in the program. I found in any case 3x1600m with 1 min RI very difficult in comparison to for example 5 x 1000m with 400m RI from last week.
Funny that you reply, because it was actually your site which got me onto furman. I checked out your calculator and it's very handy!
I had a question regarding your 'long' paces. I see the paces from table 4.3 from furman FIRST (https://www.box.com/s/5ruhbuyhs7wa7welbwpl) are different to yours. I believe your hmp and mp are the same as the the mt en lt paces. Is there a reason for the discrepancy?
This is quite interesting to me... Let me, once again, do some promotion for our on-line training program, Running Wizard. We tried to create this based on Lydiard training and we actually tried to do it VERY close to real. Most people won't even get to see how "real" it is at glance but it's all built-in.
While creating this, we have checked McMillan's chart as well as Daniels. We've noticed theirs are a bit faster; both regular runs as well as intervals. The issue we had with most of "ordinary" plans is that it gives you "a pace". Many would say; "add such-and-such seconds to your 5k time..." RW takes into consideration of PROGRESSION. If you study Lydiard training closely, for example, in regards to interval training, he would suggest you start out at 1/4 effort. Then 1/2 effort...then 3/4 effort. In other words, as you get used to that kind of workout and you get stronger and faster (and you WILL get faster as you work on it), the pace should also get faster (while you're handling them easier). In other words, your 5K pace would feel too fast when you first step on the track (or wherever you'll be doing intervals). It may feel too easy once you PROGRESS. Also, wouldn't it make sense to do them faster if you're training for, say, 1500m or 5k instead of half marathon or full marathon??? Make sense? But most training, if at all, don't take that into consideration.
Compared to your VDOT pace, RW's first interval workout would look more like this:
200m--> 43 seconds (41-47)
400m--> 90 seconds (86-99)
800m--> 3:09 (3:00-3:26)
1600m--> 6:26 (6:07-7:01)
I know the range (in ()) is quite big but that's because there IS individual differences; some people can go fast naturally and we also wanted to get forgiving to slower people or those who are not used to faster running at all. Now these are 1/4 effort. 3/4 effort, after 4 weeks of intervals, would look more like this:
200m--> 38 seconds (36-42)
400m--> 82 seconds (78-90)
800m--> 3:02 (2:53-3:08)
1600m--> no mile repeat for this (this is from 1500m plan. By this time, your objective is to go fast and there's no need to try volume of fast runs)
Tempo run is the same way; our plan would look really easy and slow compared with all these other plans but, seriously, how can you expect to run so aggressive while you're still training very hard? That's sure way to get hurt...or discouraged. It's all progression and that should be taken into consideration. The plan MUST have this flow; flow of progression. And, if done correctly, that progression comes naturally. But most people push right from the get-go and they won't even get that far.
I believe you use the same pace for both workouts. There will be a different stress, but that's reasonable as you want different stresses during training. BTW, my VDOT calculator displays the other FIRST paces, including the 3200M. Here's an example: VDOT5KShort TempoMid TempoLong TempoEasy400M600M800M1000M1200M1600M2000M3200M 53.5 18:54 6:22/Mile 6:37/Mile 6:52/Mile 7:57/Mile 1:21(5:26/Mile) 2:04(5:33/Mile) 2:46(5:35/Mile) 3:30(5:38/Mile) 4:15(5:43/Mile) 5:49(5:51/Mile) 7:21(5:55/Mile) 12:08(6:06/Mile) http://fellrnr.com/wiki/VDOT_Calculator (I had to contact the FIRST people to get some of the details of the 3200M pace)