Where from here please? (Read 1045 times)

What you want to do is pick a race (or a few races close together) that is/are your "A" race(s). Then you want to plan backwards. About 8-12 weeks out, you should start incorporating speed work. Start with one session, then increase to two, if your body can handle it. I think you've been jumping into speed training too quickly, and that's where the injuries come from. Ease into it. This is basic periodization. You can't run easy all the time, and you can't run hard all the time, so you break things up into cycles. I also think you would benefit from doing hill work, and drills. Start those now, because they will help you build strength to help avoid injury when you start increasing intensity.

What you want to do is pick a race (or a few races close together) that is/are your "A" race(s). Then you want to plan backwards. About 8-12 weeks out, you should start incorporating speed work. Start with one session, then increase to two, if your body can handle it. I think you've been jumping into speed training too quickly, and that's where the injuries come from. Ease into it. This is basic periodization. You can't run easy all the time, and you can't run hard all the time, so you break things up into cycles. I also think you would benefit from doing hill work, and drills. Start those now, because they will help you build strength to help avoid injury when you start increasing intensity.

Thanks for the repsonse. I know for a fact I need to do some hill work, as I struggle like hell up them. I could do with some help as to how to approach hill workouts. And regarding drills, how do you mean?

Doing 4 X 20 sec surges building to 6 X 40 sec at hard effort (but not all out) is a nice work out after your tempo or critical velocity intervals. This would be a speed work out.

I think you've already answered your own question. Your ability to improve rapidly is so amazing, and happening so fast, that your injuries are the only thing getting in your way. I think you should make avoiding injury your highest priority. Maybe your only priority. You haven't run anywhere near long enough to reach your aerobic potential - and you admit that you do too much anaerobic work already. If I were you, I'd abandon all speed work for a while. A long while - like a year or more. And do absolutely nothing but slow, easy miles, and lots and lots of them, most of it on varying terrain (read: hills), with the only real goals being to build that aerobic base - and to avoid injury at all costs. At most, maybe do a few striders/pick-me-ups or a little race pace work close to your races. I think if you did that (and yeah, I know it sounds boring), and really avoided all injury for a whole year, you'd be blisteringly fast at the end of it, and far more ready to do all that hard speed work. I repeat: the only thing keeping you from being even more ridiculously fast is the injuries. Getting out of that cycle has to be the focus. (And keep the weight down - that goes along with the injuries. But you know that already.)

I just need to ensure that my easy days are in fact easy... ...I mean to say, should I be churning high mileage weeks out in order to build stamina, or should I cut my mileage down, and incorporate 2 speed sessions a week? My mileage has been about 45 mpw whilst not racing, incorporating 2 speed sessions, though when I have raced over the last few weeks I have cut it down a lot before hand so that I am fresh for it. This has worked for me, though I am worried that if I want to carry on entering races, then this means that I will need to keep my mileage to a low all the time in order to get out the best results.

Plenty of good advice already--you seem to understand what is possilby the most important thing to remember, which is to ensure that your easy days are easy. As far as the mileage vs speed, I think you can do both. The key is what you define speed as. I like Tchuck's advice: "Keep your miles - this is your foundation. And, if you race often, this becomes a big part of your true speedwork. Keep the tempos weekly and limit real fast work to 4-5 X 200-300 after your tempo or critical velocity rep work. This will keep you close to your peak for along time. And on race week, reduce volume of speed work." I will admit that I tend to race a little too much, but I do manage to hold together and keep my mileage up at the same time (see log). Again I think Tchuck says it well: "Yeh, you can't be in peak racing shape for several months but you can race well for several months but hammering speed work is not the best way for the latter". I rarely hammer a workout and run very easily on most days, usually on soft grass. My timing isn't very good for this last piece, since I just ran 12 x 400 at what for me is a hard pace (still not a "hammer" though). However this is only the 2nd time in 2 years I've done one of these while continuing to improve by sticking to more threshold range workouts. I'm coming up to a couple shorter races before moving into a distance phase and wanted to inject a little speed before those, which was the reason for the 12 x 400. Far and away it has been mostly tempo and other threshold workouts, sometimes tacking on 2-4 200's at the end of them. It is surprising how much faster you can get without hammering your training, and how much longer you can continue improving as opposed to a "quick fix" approach.