Trying to plan 2 M workouts a week.
One is 5E + 8M + 5E and the other 5 X (1M + 1T)
Are these enough? Repeated for 15 weeks
Trying to plan 2 M workouts a week.
One is 5E + 8M + 5E and the other 5 X (1M + 1T)
Are these enough? Repeated for 15 weeks
Is the 5x1m/1t continuous? If so that’s brutal.
Yes it's continues.
I was thinking 1 Day T workout and 1 Day M workout.
However checking JD plans. He mixes M and T paces in one workout.
That looks pretty rough, unless you’re already putting down some really big miles.
5x1m @ threshold is pretty rough as it is.
Maybe Marathon pace sliding into something slightly faster....but threshold pace, as in, this is the pace that’s I’d do for a 20 min run....that’s rough to do 15 times in a row!
Make it a half marathon pace instead of T, and it might just work!
marathon workout wrote:
Trying to plan 2 M workouts a week.
One is 5E + 8M + 5E and the other 5 X (1M + 1T)
Are these enough? Repeated for 15 weeks
This is a very similar schedule to what I did for years. I called the workouts “the sandwich run” and “alternators”. For the sandwich run, I worked up to 6 E, 8 M, 6 E just to make it a round 20. For the alternators, I worked up to 6x (1M + 1 HM) with 2 miles wu and cd for 16 total. On the remaining 5 days, I ran an easy hour giving me roughly 75 mpw.
This basic schedule took me from 3:21 in October 2010 to 2:39 in October 2013 (3 marathons in between slowly chipping down). I then quit for a few years, came back with the same basic plan and went 2:30 in May 2017. After that race, the alternator workout became too hard as my paces had become too quick to sustain for that type of weekly effort. I switched to more CV type stuff, bumped mileage more (100+) and went 2:25 in 2018. Still looking to improve, but I have already digressed quite enough.
GBohannon wrote:
This basic schedule took me from 3:21 in October 2010 to 2:39 in October 2013 (3 marathons in between slowly chipping down). I then quit for a few years, came back with the same basic plan and went 2:30 in May 2017. After that race, the alternator workout became too hard as my paces had become too quick to sustain for that type of weekly effort. I switched to more CV type stuff, bumped mileage more (100+) and went 2:25 in 2018. Still looking to improve, but I have already digressed quite enough.
Exactly. As you get faster, that HMP stuff is going to get very close to your actual threshold pace, and the session will become overly hard.
Let’s say you’re a guy with a 40 min 10k, 1:30 HM, 3:20 M, and you’ve already been up to 60-70 mpw. The described plan could work, but the other days of the week would have to be really easy.
Maybe alternate weeks with one week being the long run with M pace in the middle and the other week do the cut down 2 mile reps.
That's a massive improvement over a short period of time. Well done. Did you repeat the same two workouts every week? Was there a rest or recovery between 1M and 1HM? What was your E pace compared to M pace?
GBohannon wrote:
marathon workout wrote:
Trying to plan 2 M workouts a week.
One is 5E + 8M + 5E and the other 5 X (1M + 1T)
Are these enough? Repeated for 15 weeks
This is a very similar schedule to what I did for years. I called the workouts “the sandwich run” and “alternators”. For the sandwich run, I worked up to 6 E, 8 M, 6 E just to make it a round 20. For the alternators, I worked up to 6x (1M + 1 HM) with 2 miles wu and cd for 16 total. On the remaining 5 days, I ran an easy hour giving me roughly 75 mpw.
This basic schedule took me from 3:21 in October 2010 to 2:39 in October 2013 (3 marathons in between slowly chipping down). I then quit for a few years, came back with the same basic plan and went 2:30 in May 2017. After that race, the alternator workout became too hard as my paces had become too quick to sustain for that type of weekly effort. I switched to more CV type stuff, bumped mileage more (100+) and went 2:25 in 2018. Still looking to improve, but I have already digressed quite enough.
marathon workout wrote:
That's a massive improvement over a short period of time. Well done.
Did you repeat the same two workouts every week?
Was there a rest or recovery between 1M and 1HM?
What was your E pace compared to M pace?
Thank you. I didn’t do the sandwich run every week. I did always try to do something as a secondary workout on my long day though. This might have been something like 18-20 with the last 3-4 at M or a progressive 17-18 starting at M +2:00 and working down to M +0:30. I defaulted to the sandwich run a lot though. The alternator was every single week for a long time. The number of sets would vary based on where I was in a cycle and I never went beyond 6 x(1,1) .
No rest or recovery on the 1M and 1HM. I found when I was very fit, my breathing was under control and I felt good again about 1:00 into the M pace (up until the workout became too hard as described in my first post). I “maxed” out at ~5:30/5:50 for these in the buildup for my 2:30:39. This means I ran 12 consecutive miles in ~5:40 pace for the workout. That was my first big indicator that I was ready to go well under my PR (2:39:49 PR going into that cycle).
I have always been the slowest E pace guy I know. I often run 8:30+ pace on early AM runs when I’m running high mileage. I would say that a typical morning for me starts out at 8:50 and works down to 7:40 over the course of an hour or so.
marathon workout wrote:
Trying to plan 2 M workouts a week.
One is 5E + 8M + 5E and the other 5 X (1M + 1T)
Are these enough? Repeated for 15 weeks
Without knowing anything else, I would not stack two huge marathon workouts a week like that. I would do something at threshold mid-week and something with marathon pace in your weekend long run. Every 3-5 weeks or so maybe a speed workout (5k/10k) instead of the threshold.
I think the 5 x (1M + 1T) is a good workout but a tough one that you would need to recover from. It's approaching a race effort.