I am looking for advice on how to proceed. I am following HADD phase I right now with the aim of transitioning into a HADD phase IIa program sometime early next year. I would like to run a solid 5k, 10k, and half marathon sometime over the summer (say from May – Sept).
Background:
37 years old, I run between 90 and 120 km per week depending on the time of year (currently 100). 5’11†– 150 lbs.
10 km PB 37:30 (2015)
10 mile PB 1:02 (2014)
Half PB 1:30 (two years old)
Full PB 3:15 (two years old)
I have been running about 10 years and have gradually increased mileage, never ran track or cross country or done any formal training. My running experience has been easy runs, with occasional thresholds and long runs. I do not know if I am fast or slow twitch. Max HR 186, resting HR 40.
Here are my last two HADD tests (pace in min/mile for the ease of most LR posters):
HR 15-Oct 26-Nov
140 7:09 7:12
150 6:40 6:41
160 6:16 6:08
170 5:47 5:53
180 DNF DNF
As you can see, I am not progressing that much. At first I was concerned but to be honest I have dropped my mileage from around 120 km/week over the summer to 100 km/week since September, so maybe that is why I have not improved much during the second test. I am now going to ramp my mileage back up to 120 km/week over the next 6 weeks, and hopefully see some improvements.
Here is a typical training week for me:
Mon 60 min @HR
Tue 60 min @ HR155-160
Wed 60 min @ HR140
Thu 75 min @ HR150-155
Fri 60 min @ HR140
Sat 90 min @HR140
Sun 45 min @HR140
My questions:
If I want to race a strong 10 km in May, at what point should I start Phase IIa?
I can run pretty comfortably at HR 160, no increase in HR over a 10 mile run, so I would like to bump up my two work days to 155-160 and 160-165. Does this data indicate I am ready to do that?
I just can’t run 2400 m at HR 180… I can only manage about 1000 m until I have to slow down. I am thinking of doing another Max HR test, could my max HR have changed since last year when I did a mini test?
What does phase IIa look like, I can’t find very much information on this. Descriptions I have seen have just been sample weeks and it looks complicated. Can someone provide a guide or something for me to follow?
In one of HADD’s posts he talked about how Phase II is different for a fast-twitch vs slow-twitch runner, can you tell what I am from the data here?