Trail Monster
Lily, sorry for the freak out. It's just that this workout was my first attempt at a real interval session in well over a year and I've never done speed work regularly in my whole running career. Also, my 200 mile months were the pinnacle of hundred mile training. I was forced to take time off work to hit some of those volumes. My 80 mile week was 16 hours of running. I just can't continue that way. I meant more I would maintain my average of 35-40 MPW but add quality. My months may only be 140-160 then but I won't be losing my mind anymore either!
LTH, I have read the book (can not think of title off top of my head) and understand the benefits of these workouts. I also know my body and any sudden change in my training is likely to land me on the disabled list. I want to introduce intervals in a way that is challenging and will lead to improvement but will allow my body to adjust before I throw in all out sprints. This 10k plan is only 6 weeks. I can still be doing shorter, faster intervals by the time there's snow on the ground. It doesn't make sense to me to rush into quality. I didn't rush into running 80 MPW. I didn't jump from marathon to 100 miles. So why would I jump from my fastest paces on any runs recently being in the 8's to much faster?
2013 races:
3/17 Shamrock Marathon
4/20 North Coast 24 Hour
7/27 Burning RIver 100M
8/24 Baker 50M
10/5 Oil Creek (distance to be determined)
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Brands I Heart:
FitFluential
INKnBURN
Altra Zero Drop
Are we there, yet?
You may have overlooked this since it was terse:
I want to introduce speed work that compliments the endurance I've built in the past year. I want to keep my miles up without killing myself with quality. I figure its a balance of introducing speed work and quality while maintaining my mileage or almost maintaining It.
+1
With the training and racing you've been doing, this is a good way to transition to speed work.
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ETA: Sudden transitions from long distance to speed work, especially the Daniels "R" pace, is a high risk proposition even if you've done that kind of training in the past. My only bout with pf came after making such a transition from marathon training to 800m training. I wasn't ready for the type of strain fast paced speed work placed on my feet. People also blur the distinction between working on speed, e.g. sprint and middle distance speed, with working on getting faster race times in distance races, e.g. 5K and above. My club coach (ETA certified) has introduced an interesting blend of LT and VO2Max workouts this year with combination workouts such as 4 sets of (1 x 1200m @ 10K pace, 200m recovery, 1 x 600m @ 5K pace, 200m recovery). That was a recent workout, so he had built up to that since workouts began in mid-April. Keep in mind we have a wide range of fitness with our members so the build up allowed for runners who had never done any speed work before and may have been training for their first race over 5K.
2024 Races:
03/09 - Livingston Oval Ultra 6-Hour, 22.88 miles
05/11 - D3 50K 05/25 - What the Duck 12-Hour
06/17 - 6 Days in the Dome 12-Hour.
I'll buy that. There's no set way you have to do things especially if you have a history of getting hurt from doing faster stuff.
Short term goal: 17:59 5K
Mid term goal: 2:54:59 marathon
Long term goal: To say I've been a runner half my life. (I started running at age 45).
I have no history with speed but I know that when I first wanted to go long and jumped from 5k to HM I got ITBS. When I jumped from 13.1 to 35+ miles I couldn't walk right for weeks. I've learned my lesson with pushing the envelope. Slow and steady progression is fine with me. After all slow progress is still progress!