Critical Velocity Or Vo2 max during XC?

Looks pretty good, I agree that with weekly races VO2max is redundant. You might consider dropping one of the CV reps and supplanting 100s and 200s at 800-mile tempo to keep better turnover. Also a few strides/short hill reps throughout the week.

Do you not have a team coach?

OG Faids wrote:

Wednesday: CV day i.e 5 x 1200 @ 10s slower/mi than 5k pr. ( 9 miles total)

CV is a big slower than that. CV is more like 8-10k pace for a HSer.

Not only is CV slower than your plan but if you actually read up about CV you would see that during XC you are supposed to drop the tempo leaving long run, CV workout and race with appropriate additional turnover work.

In response to Coach, I do have a team coach. However the plans he makes for the team are 4 days of practice running no more than 20 mpw. He allows me to make my own plan and run it by him. I take pointers from my old Head coach but the majority of my plans are basic high mileage w/ threshold and Vo2 max.

In response to cvlover & *&Hdfvoij0983, if i have a strong aerobic base, is cv still that slow? Last CV w/o i did was @ 5:40/mi pace and it really felt easy. I took about 75 seconds easy jog rest and i wasnt beat up at all. In fact i felt better the following days than usual.

I'm impressed with your knowledge and the plan you devised. As others pointed out, be a bit more conservative on your cv runs. Do you include any strides and or build ups in your plan?

Thank you. Usually 2-3 times a week on recovery days i do 6-8 barefoot strides starting at 10k pace and finishing at mile pace. i.e

strides 1 & 2: 10k

Strides 3 & 4: 5k

Strides 5 & 6: 2 mile

strides 7 & 8: Mile

Usually the day before a race ill do some light race prep. Say 4 x 200 @ 5k then 2-3 x 150s starting easy building up to mile pace by the 100

There are no magical training paces. AT,LT,CV, vV02,all pretty much artifacts at this point, of no real value.

I look at your schedule and see you can drop ~1' off your XC times

by training faster overall and capping your long run at 10mi.

You also need to decide which XC races actually matter to you and turn the

inconsequential races into workouts.

"There are no magical training paces. AT,LT,CV, vV02,all pretty much artifacts at this point, of no real value."

Huh? Not sure what this means. Could you expound?

Okay. Im confused about the first sentence. It seems like youre making an equivalence in the returns of AT, LT, CV, vVO2. Is this correct?

As for your second and third statement, cap my long runs @ 10 miles. Would that mean increase pace to a steady state type run? For me long runs are usually 6:55-7:05. Would you recommend a progression averaging 6:30-6:45? Also taking my easy days easier. Ive been working towards cutting paces down on recoveries, but i dont want to overdue it too soon and get injured. As for racing, the 'inconsequential' races should be tempos correct?

OG Faids wrote:

Okay. Im confused about the first sentence. It seems like youre making an equivalence in the returns of AT, LT, CV, vVO2. Is this correct?

As for your second and third statement, cap my long runs @ 10 miles. Would that mean increase pace to a steady state type run? For me long runs are usually 6:55-7:05. Would you recommend a progression averaging 6:30-6:45? Also taking my easy days easier. Ive been working towards cutting paces down on recoveries, but i dont want to overdue it too soon and get injured. As for racing, the 'inconsequential' races should be tempos correct?

Sorry i meant to say easy days harder.

OG Faids wrote:

OG Faids wrote:

Okay. Im confused about the first sentence. It seems like youre making an equivalence in the returns of AT, LT, CV, vVO2. Is this correct?

As for your second and third statement, cap my long runs @ 10 miles. Would that mean increase pace to a steady state type run? For me long runs are usually 6:55-7:05. Would you recommend a progression averaging 6:30-6:45? Also taking my easy days easier. Ive been working towards cutting paces down on recoveries, but i dont want to overdue it too soon and get injured. As for racing, the 'inconsequential' races should be tempos correct?

Sorry i meant to say easy days harder.

No need to push your easy days, especially if you're doing 3 hard days a week + a long run. Easy days should just feel good; no specific pace needed. They're mostly about getting miles in your legs and recovering for the next day.

kmaclam wrote:

"There are no magical training paces. AT,LT,CV, vV02,all pretty much artifacts at this point, of no real value."

Huh? Not sure what this means. Could you expound?

I think he means that there are no specific paces that must be run- instead of thinking in terms of "zones" or paces that achieve a specific physiological effect, think of all of the paces as having some value- so a 5k runner needs some "speed support" by also doing some running at 3k pace, 1500 pace, and even hill sprints or basic speed, and then "endurance support", which would be 10k pace and HM pace. How much you do of each pace and how often and in what phase and with how much rest, etc., makes a difference of course- but it is a different way of thinking from "you have to find your LT pace and your VO2 max pace and spend certain amounts of time at those specific paces because those are the optimal paces to achieve certain effects."

This could be said much better than I just did it...this is more like Canova, or as Magness explains in his book, and less like Daniels.

Are you saying to just aim for a general pace range? Or should it even be based off pace. Usually during workouts I have a 3-5 second spread of times i want to hit. For instance on a tempo run im not going to only run 5:58's. i aim for 3-5 second give or take in any direction depending on how i feel that day. However I feel much safer having a specific pace in mind rather than just throwing that out the window

You could fartlek every workout and be fine. The beauty of XC is that pace is what feels best at the moment, don't be afraid to hurt a little but don't be afraid to back off also. Races will provide your best workouts in terms of quality, unless you are leading wire-to-wire in all of them, in which case you tell *us* what we should be doing lol.

No, I (I did not create the theory, I am just explaining what I have read) don't mean not to have target paces for workouts. But you should run a variety of paces in training. So don't run only "vo2 max pace" and threshold pace and maybe "rep pace" (such as in Daniels sustem). If you are training for 5K, you would do some running at 5k pace (ex close to target race, 5x 1k w/1 min rest), some running at 3k pace and mile pace and 10k pace and even HM pace. Plus, you don't have to dedicate a whole workout to only one pace.

Your training is good, you are smart- I recommend the Magness book, or look at his blog if you don't want to get the book. The book is worth it.

No magic paces wrote:

No, I (I did not create the theory, I am just explaining what I have read) don't mean not to have target paces for workouts. But you should run a variety of paces in training. So don't run only "vo2 max pace" and threshold pace and maybe "rep pace" (such as in Daniels sustem). If you are training for 5K, you would do some running at 5k pace (ex close to target race, 5x 1k w/1 min rest), some running at 3k pace and mile pace and 10k pace and even HM pace. Plus, you don't have to dedicate a whole workout to only one pace.

Your training is good, you are smart- I recommend the Magness book, or look at his blog if you don't want to get the book. The book is worth it.

If I had to break it down to 2 workouts a week, a race, and a long run, should I abandon the full Vo2 max workout? Should one of my workouts be a cross hitting multiple paces. For example today i did

3 mi wu ~ 7:20 pace

1 mile tempo 5:54

2 miles @ CV

5:40

5:39

1k @ goal 5k

3:23

1 mi cd

Is this something i can build off? I didnt feel perfect today so it was a short run. I plan on building off this as the season goes on as my key workouts. Maybe in the following weeks add an extra rep of CV and an 800 @ 3k at the end. Should i do this and 1 dedicated tempo run per week? Or should i replace my tempo with a short 8 mile progression?

You're doing too many workouts for someone who is racing every week. As the season progresses you will begin to wear down. You are being told your training is good, because most coaches train to" fatigued" fit, which is what you are doing. At a certain point in season you just need to maintain aerobic fitness and start adding faster than current race pace with full recovery workouts. Example: 3 x 1mi. @ 5:20 w 5min. btw. As season progresses, shorten rest down to 3min. Maintain aerobic fitness on a 3 week cycle 4/5 mi. @ 5:55 1st wk. 5:50 2nd wk. 5:45 3rd wk.

for what it's worth wrote:

You're doing too many workouts for someone who is racing every week. As the season progresses you will begin to wear down. You are being told your training is good, because most coaches train to" fatigued" fit, which is what you are doing. At a certain point in season you just need to maintain aerobic fitness and start adding faster than current race pace with full recovery workouts. Example: 3 x 1mi. @ 5:20 w 5min. btw. As season progresses, shorten rest down to 3min. Maintain aerobic fitness on a 3 week cycle 4/5 mi. @ 5:55 1st wk. 5:50 2nd wk. 5:45 3rd wk.

If I am doing too many workouts a week, what would you recommend? Should one day be 4/5 mi @5:50, another a long run, then finally the race? When doing intervals, I like the idea of mixing in multiple paces into one workout. Im confused on how i should schedule my weeks. Where does each workout fit in?