12 days out. Need a good, hard interval workout. What should I run?
12 days out. Need a good, hard interval workout. What should I run?
sharpening is a myth.
if you are in good shape keep doing what you are doing.
If you are not in good shape there is nothing you can do to improve fitness in 12 days.
you can improve your mental outlook tho - I'd choose a workout you know you can do well.
And keep up your mileage.
You can certainly increase your fitness in 12 days. I wonder why people think you can't.
4x3-2-1
2 mile wu slow
do your light stretching routine
400 at 5k pace
400 jog
then
300 (mile pace)
200 (800 pace)
100 (start slow, build to near 100% then stride to finish)
x3
1 mile slow cool down jog
maybe this: wrote:
You can certainly increase your fitness in 12 days. I wonder why people think you can't.
Yeah, "there is nothing you can do to help your fitness in 12 days"???...BUT, "keep up your mileage". Non-Sequitur. 12 days out from a 5K, I'm hammering it. Slightly less volume but fast. So instead of my 5 X 1200 @ 5K pace, I'm doing 4 X 1000 @ 3K for example.
Three point one wrote:
12 days out. Need a good, hard interval workout. What should I run?
Reduce overall mileage a bit, reduce quality mileage a bit too, AND keep intensity high and increase density of whatever you choose to do (i.e break into sets, add recovery etc).
10 x 400 at mile pace with 60 seconds rest. Lactic buffering workout
or
4x400 all-out with 8 minutes rest. Lactic capacity workout
If all the aerobic work has been done you want to prepare yourself for the acidosis at the end of the race by either increasing your ability to buffer lactic (H+ ions) or increasing how much you can produce..
+1 to hammering it the second week out. Something like 5x1k at goal pace, with 2mins of jog? 8x800 would be another staple workout.
Last week, cut back the volume but keep intensity for the main workout. 4x800 at goal pace a few days before showdown maybe?
I believe that having a really intense low volume workout about two weeks out is great for a peak race (half or under). It gives you plenty of time to recover and connects all the pieces of training together.
In my opinion one of the hardest (not longest) workouts of the season should be about 10-14 days out from the peak race.
Then you have two less-intense race specific workouts with maybe a little speed at the end and cut mileage to enhance a peak.
It's always worked for me and my athletes.
My all-time favorite workout to do 10 days out from my goal 5k race is an 800 breakdown session. 4x200-2x400-800-2x400-4x200. I usually shoot for 5k pace (or a touch faster) on the 800, mile pace on the 400s and 800 pace on the 200s with equal distance rest. Usually the last set of 200s I spike up and run closer to a 400 effort while trying to stay as relaxed as possible. Not a terribly hard workout because of the fair amount of rest but it always gives me a bunch of confidence that I can change gears and still feel relaxed
I disagree on these short, high intensity workouts...I think 10-12 days out is no time to be experimenting and doing workouts that you've never done. You're just asking for trouble hammering away in unfamiliar ways. The chances that they go right are small, but the chance of failure, either mental or physical, are quite high.
Trust your training. Don't start with new things at the end of the season.
alabamar has it right, nothing new.
Since you are picking your own workout, my guess is you are not running XC.
To run a good peak race, you need to have some rust busting races beforehand. You should have run a race about 5 or 6 weeks out.
If you haven't run a 5k race 3 weeks out, you should run one at 2 weeks out. If you haven't run a race at 14 days, try to run something like a 5k time trial at 12 days. Aim for about 45 seconds slower (15 sec per mile) than you hope to run in the big race.
A run 45 seconds slower, shouldn't qualify as new. Either you ran an earlier race or two or you have done some longer repeats OR shorter tempos that should match a run 45 seconds slower.
10 x 400 a few days out is always a solid bet. Be careful to not go overboard and blast them though. I like going in between 2-4 seconds faster than pace. 75 seconds rest.
Also a big fan of doing 2 x 1 mile 3-4 days out. 1st one go 10 seconds faster than pace. Then go 12-15 seconds faster than pace. long recovery in between: 4 to 5 min.
Cheers and good luck!
4 x 800
4 x 400
Considering that the effects of a hard workout can be imposed upon a bell curve, with the most benefit coming between 10 and 20 days following the workout, it is completely appropriate to do a hard workout 12 days out from a championship race, as long as total volume is reduced and there is ample rest time in the 2-3 days leading up to the race.
Our conference race is 10 days before the State meet, so we don't do anything "hard" 12 days out besides a set of 150m strides, but 19 days out we do a staple 4x1600m workout at 2-mile race pace, followed by a 10x400m set of repeats at faster than mile pace 14 days out and then 8x400m all-out with long rest 8 days out. 4 days before the State meet, we do a set of 2x600m all-out with full recovery (15min. +). This is pretty standard stuff, and not much different than what you'd see from Newton, Christensen, Daniels, etc.
3 x 1 mile 90 second rest at track 8k race pace
3 minute rest
6 x 400 with 45 rest at 3k race pace
Thanks for the feedback. Ended up running 8 miles with intervals of: 6x800, 90 second jogging rest. Run on a gently rolling trail as I don't have access to a track. Crushed the workout.
In response to the above, I did run a race about a month ago. Feeling pretty good about upcoming race. Just a middle aged hobby jogger shooting for sub 18.
agip wrote:
sharpening is a myth.
.
BS...I have coached HS kids for 24 years and can illicit a peak at any time I want. One workout.....one benefit.....go with the old Joe Newton 200 workout.
20x200 (sets of 5)
set 1- 60 second break
set 2- 45 sec.
set 3- 30 sec.
set 4- 15 sec.
Run at about mile race pace....
5x1000m at 5k pace. Jog half the time it took you to run your interval. Also: Try to negative split the workout.
6 x 800m at race pace with 5 mins recovery.