Ending base training

[ilikerunning]

Hey Joe,

I'm about to finish base training and start school in about 10 days. Last month I tried doing some speed on the track such as 6x600s at 1:50 pace with 1 min break. I dont want to get too into speed yet but I want to add some tempos before starting school. I feel like I'm not getting enough just form base and I want to add a little more to it. All I've been doing for the last 2-3 weeks is just mileage between 55-65 and this week im doing 70.

Any ideas on some tempo runs that I can do? Someone told me if I want to keep my mileage up I should do 3 mile warm up 3x2 miles at 5:20 pace. 3 mile cool down. Is adding the miles on a tempo run important? And do you have any tempo workouts I can try?

[Joe Rubio]

We generally don't do a block of training with just mileage, we are always doing tempo work, short intervals and longer intervals, pretty much all year, so I'm not the best guy to answer this. But if it were me, I'd start start with 3 x 1600 at tempo effort with a 1-2 min recovery. Pace would be 40-60 seconds per mile slower than your 5k race pace. Do this once a week for a month. After that you can jump into 2 x 2 miles the next 4 weeks and a 3-4 straight tempo in month 3.

I'd also suggest you get on 1-2 miles of stride the straight/job the turns twice a week in the middle of a normal run - so 2-3 miles to a track, then 1-2 miles of stride the straight/jog the turns, then run home.

Joe