...Continue grinding double thresholds:
After several weeks of training on this system, a lot of things became clearer:
1) you need a significant aerobic volume
2) after a fairly large number of tests, I see with my own eyes that there is so much conflicting and incomplete/distorted information about the morning and evening sessions, at what pace to perform them. In the topic of the same name, I already spoke out that there is no specific tempo and it’s close, only as lactate dictates, and some answered me that I’m a blockhead and a bore, that they say a session of 23x400 at a tempo of 5K with a rest of 1/2 is brutal, like it should be in the area the pace of 10K, to which I was convinced by myself that this is not entirely true.
3) I clearly try to do all sessions by lactate and I have seen for myself how it works, and it works as the original source stated. For an example and a complete picture, here is a description of what happened to me during the past 5 weeks:
1st week: AM workout type 5x6min, pace 03:45÷03:48 with lactate 2.0÷2.4 mmol; PM workout type 10x3min, pace 03:40÷03:36 with lactate 3.0÷3.2 mmol; PM workout type 25x400, pace 03:29÷03:24 with lactate 3.0÷3.4 mmol 5th week (current): And then miracles began, firstly I greatly increased the weekly volume, on the 4th week for the sake of the experiment I just did what I call an aerobic overdose: I raised the unbearable volume for me to 120 miles per week and performed in good faith 6 workouts: 2 double thresholds, x-element and long rung.
Miracles have been happening this week. AM session 5x6min, pace 03:34, with lactate 2.0-2.2 mmol; PM session type 10x3min, pace 03:26, with lactate 2.6 mmol; PM session like 23x400, pace 03:12 (and current result of 10K race 34:00 [03:24min/km temp]), with lactate 3.0 mmol. Of course, this week I will pump down the volume to 100-110 miles, I don’t want to catch overtraining or get injured.
The next 7 weeks I will continue to train according to this system, and on February 19th there will be the Barcelona Half Marathon 2023 race, the 1st realistic goal is to run at least 01:15:××, the second goal, if the training process goes well and further as it is going now, then of course, the goal can shift to 01:12:00, it is unlikely that it will be faster, 01:12:00 is the fastest that can really be achieved in 2 months for me in an ideal scenario .... Marius claimed that as the system was used, the pace of the threshold would drop until it hit the ceiling.
My task is to maximize work at the threshold level for the remaining 7 weeks, and during peak weeks (I haven’t decided yet, because special jobs require the pace of the race, and if the pace of the race is threshold, then it turns out to be funny what to do in peak weeks, if you already run in base weeks thresholds?) I’ll try to run special workouts for a half marathon: i.e. some longer stuff.
I also want to note that with this system, I do a simple x-element like 6-10@30s uphill with a 5-6% gradient with 1/3 rest aiming to around 5.0 mmol lactate, but, I do a lot of strides 3 times a week, 6 reps per once alternating 15s/25s every week. Strides pace I do around 800-1600 pace, very fast for me and it helps me a lot to be fresh between main workouts, no matter what trash legs I'm on, it's interesting and for me why is that?
It’s too early to say anything about how the system works, the race will show in the end, but I already want to say that the pace of the threshold went down just at some gigantic pace... As experienced runners say, usually normal progress is when the pace of the trash hold decreases by 1 -2 seconds in 1 month, but it seems to me that this statement is relevant for an already developed top runner almost at the peak of his abilities, and beginners like me can have such jumps at the beginning of their journey...