So with my first race under my belt..Continue on my base or? (Read 975 times)

Denise, The attached article by Tinman is a good one. In base training you can mix in some faster running i.e. fast tempo miles, slower tempo miles, critical velocity intervals and quick striders. Your volume of these is lower while base training but doing this kind of work is great year round and makes adaptation to higher volume faster stuff so much easier. I think for you, one day do 3-5 miles at slow tempo or around 50-60 sec. slower than 5K race pace within a midweek longer run and another day mix in some CV reps or tempo miles or some quicker Fartleks just keep volume a bit lower. You can do the above while staying aerobic almost all of the time. http://www.therunzone.com/Base.html

Tinman continues to coach (and successfully). I am a coach and he has coached me. I am now a big believer in his techniques many of which I freely give on this site. His advice is flat out, common sense as is mine I believe. I think many on this site would agree with most of my advice. Nothing fancy, just smart, common sense training. He also absolutely believes in periodization as do I with ideally 2 peaks per year, and I have been part of it. He lead me to PRs in two consecutive years with identical training mileage. The years before I worked with him, I trained traditionally. Just modification of training techniques including keeping some faster work in year round made a huge difference. It makes total sense. Who is more likely to get injured? Runner 1 Runs slow controlled paces always and then kicks in some faster work for 8 weeks? Runner 2 Runs comfortable, easy pace often but throws in some low volume tempo work, fast striders, and low volume critical velocity intervals or Fartleks year round? I would bet most would say Runner 1. Also, most would say Runner 2 would probably perform better. I am not a Tinman groupee but simply believe in many of his ideas which are primarily Lydiard based and many have followed his common sense techniques including many excellent runners including top master runner on this site, JIM24315.

Denise - see how your body feels. if your body feels beat up take the week easy if not you can continue as normal if you would like. I might be doing the phila distance also!!! Regardless of what i'm doing... I'd shop around. Read some Daniels, Lydiard, whomever else you might like to read. With building to 40mpw you should get faster. It seems like a reasonable plan, but I don't have enough experience to say for sure. I've only been running a year and so I haven't started with any speed work. Just building mileage has made me faster. Could it be beneficial to do one speed one hill during the week? One thing I did notice in your logs is that you haven't included cut-back weeks (not planned ones anyway). You might want to think about that as you figure out your schedule. Good luck to you!

Btw, Tchuck, did you happen to notice that Tinman's guy, Andrew Duncan, placed 2nd today in the 40-44 division at the prestigious Carlsbad 5000?

Hey Jim, Yes, I did read this on Runzone site. BTW, Jim is in his 60s and running sub 40 min 10Ks. Just awesome!!!

Denise, By all means I would encourage you to build up to 40 mpw, and judging by the looks of your log you are not all talk either--nice progress there! Try not to rush things too much, though. I see that your March total more than doubled what you had been doing in prior months. As far as the speed goes, I’m in favor of the approach already mentioned by Tchuck and Mikey. I think it can be a mistake to try and stay in peak racing shape year around (one that I have a tendency to make), but I see no reason not to incorporate some faster running for most of the year. You can do strides, tempo runs, and slower intervals virtually year around without frying yourself. A major key to making it all work is to run the correct paces for your key workouts and easy days. Running by “feel” has become a popular buzz word, and up to a point it’s o.k. However, I believe that it is easy for a runner to justify almost any pace as the one that “just felt right”. A better approach, imo, is using a combination of hard numbers and how you are feeling on a given day. You can do this by running a benchmark race, preferably a 5k, and base your training paces on it by using one of the calculators, such as these two http://runworks.com/calculator.html http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/Running%20University/Article%201/mcmillanrunningcalculator.htm The way I approach my workouts is to use the number that I am “supposed” to run, and use it as at starting point. Then as the workout progresses I will adjust it, plus or minus a couple seconds, according to how I feel. Usually the number I’m shooting for and what I end up running are very close. I think it's because I base my paces on current race condition rather than I what I hope to run or times I ran 10 years ago (reality). I believe that this approach will work well for most runners, but relatively few do it. One more thing—getting back to the mileage—I think it’s a good idea to work up to a goal level, such as the 40 mpw you mentioned, and hold it there for a while, rather than try to make the graph go straight up. You might even try it for close to a year before moving on. Good luck with your running. Sorry about the hijack.

Sorry to add to the high-jack, but I found this thread really useful and interesting - but I had a question. Assuming you include some speed work all year round ... does that really mean all year round? Or should there be some periods of X amount of weeks or months where you actually do eliminate speed work and do nothing but easy runs?

Personally, the only time I do nothing but easy runs is in marathon/season recovery. Usually only a few weeks a year. 3 weeks in the fall/early winter and 3 weeks in the spring/early summer, something like that.

I can't thank you all enough for all of your advice- like I stated before, I attribute where I am today to what I have learned here by some very valuable and useful information/people. Jim- your correct in the fact that I really upped my mileage in March and I might of paid for that in my race (dare I say the verge of possible overtraining). What I think I also did was run by feel like you stated and justified whatever my pace was for that day as adequate when perhaps I could have benefited from going a hair slower or vice versa. I also failed to give myself any cutback weeks as ShanHas has said, I need to consider this as well. I was pretty well all drive and for whatever reason failed to give myself any down time aside from my knee flair ups. Mikey your right, I guess I have been working some speed in there, but I guess I never really thought seriously about it other than throwing it in there with no real hard focus on it (that doesn't make sense does it? lol) In the end, your right though- I have done speedwork. Yes, I have indeed noticed my speed getting better with just the mere base work aspect..a few weeks ago I whined about it but then going back and looking at my logs I can clearly see some improvement there. Jim- regarding my goal mileage- I was trying to do the very thing you mentioned about picking a mileage and sticking with it, my obsessive compulsive brain has been trying to figure out a goal that is realistic and doable for myself AND my family-kwim? Without taking away from future potential- does that make sense? I mean I have ran on and off for years, but since my kids are at an age where I can start focusing on me and my goals and have a supportive husband I really wanted to get back into it with more focus and goals attached at the end. What do I want ultimately? I am still trying to figure that out- the elusive what do you want to be when you grow up sort of thing. For now I enjoy running..a lot. When I raced on Saturday I had to dig deep and I also found a very competitive side to me that I knew existed but to what extent I was never sure, but as I headed into the finish with someone on my tail, something clicked in me and I was gonna be damned if that person got in before me lol For now I want to train smart but I also have to be mindful of my limitations with my knees. Anything is possible right now. However, you all have been so supportive and helpful- tchuck- you have answered all my posts even if they have been redunant questions thanks..