segue ideas for period between Winter Marathon and Spring 5k/10k racing

[dogscalder]

Joe:

A really quick question re: how you like to get past a mid-Feb marathon (Austin) and press on toward spring road racing. These questions are primarily geared for folks who aren't horribly torn up, beginners (one girl just ran 3.15 from a 3.40 PR, another guy had his first marathon at 3.00, etc. and all are pretty low-mileage 35-50 mpw types...not exactly speed merchants, but I know the 3.15 girl does want to get faster and really see what she can do in the marathon).

My question...it's been about 2 weeks. They are doing a little bit of jogging and have their good and bad days...how would you progress into spring (mid April 10k is a big one here and then tons of little races peppered in thereafter) racing season, in terms of introducing them to faster stuff.

Their marathon workouts were very strength-based, although we started out with some faster pickups for the first 5-6 weeks (2 x 10 x 1 min hard (:30 easy) with 10 min jog between sets, etc. working through 2 x 5 x 2 (:60), then 3 x 4 x 3 (:90) all the way up to 2 x 2 x 5 (2:30). Also, lots of variable-paced continuous runs (2m @ 10k/3m @ 10k+30/1m @ 5k/2m @ 10k+30) -- ultimately, that 10k + 30 or so becomes their MP when they're fit. Not much on the track, but we did some mile repeats (4-6 x mile @ 10k w/ :60-:90 rest).

I would almost like to just ease their legs into faster stuff with very controlled and boring 200-400 repeats @ like 2m-5k pace -- just to get that range of motion there and get them, while they're still in that "this is so damn short" mode, to relax running this stuff...then move into some longer things or even little controlled time trials of 2m @ a time just to avoid pounding out very fast mile repeats and struggling while they're still recovering. I think this might get them through that first 10k (Crescent City Classic) on their strength alone.

Let me know what you do, if you don't mind...

Andrew Lilly
New Orleans, LA

[Joe Rubio]

Andrew,

Somewhere I read that an average runner needs roughly a day recovery for each mile raced (Dr Daniels?). So first order of business is making sure they get roughly a month off from any sort of harder efforts. Building the miles back up is what I'd reccomend first off. After that, the short intervals you mention as well as a tempo type effort each week before Cresent City should do the trick.

A kid I work with ran Twin Cities last fall. He died like a lot of people so that took some out of him, still we had him runs easier miles for the rest of October and got him some basic base/strength type work and he ended up 15th at Fall XC Nationals which was better than I expected given his limited XC trainng after the marathon.

Your athletes are on a similar timeline, so my gut reaction is it should work for them too. No they won't be totally sharp, but they'll probably run better than they think they can just from the fact of feeling fresh. Here's what we gave him each week:

1. Weekend long run
2. Mid week longer run at a progressive efforts if feeling fresh
3. Short intervals such as 200-400's at 3k/5k effort or hill reps.
4. Longer tempos at moderate efforts (ie 6-8 miles at 80% vVO2).
5. A recovery day each week of 40-60 minutes easy.
6. Regular maintanence runs and double days round out the week.
7. Weekend races if he felt like it at solid, but not heroic efforts.

Hope that helps. Best of luck too your athletes and if you have additional questions, please let me know.

Joe

[Nucuwa]

Great information