The Running Week That Is 4 Huge Days In A Row Followed By 3 Little Days In A Row.....

Huge is not necessarily "hard". Although in this training idea, the "little" days will not only be low volume, but also easy.

40km at 4min per km is a "huge" run for someone like, but it isn't "hard". Rather, it is very controlled.

ALL training should feel very controlled, eh? :)

This concept could even be 3.5 days / 3.5 days:

Example: (Wed afternoon = beginning of "little" half of the week.)

Sun: 150min acceleration from jog to Half Marathon Pace.

Mon: 60min / 60min

Tue: 90min / 45min

Wed: 30min + 5x3k + 15min / 30min

Thu: 30min / 30min

Fri: 30min / 30min

Sat: 30min / 30min

No, I don't like it. The quality of your efforts is going to get worse and worse as those 4 days progress. By day 4 you'll either feel like toast and have to back off, ruining the schedule, or you'll try to fight through it and overextend yourself.

northeastern fellow wrote:

No, I don't like it. The quality of your efforts is going to get worse and worse as those 4 days progress. By day 4 you'll either feel like toast and have to back off, ruining the schedule, or you'll try to fight through it and overextend yourself.

"Huge" and "little" are relative terms here. Do you regularly run 100MPW?

The effort is whatever you make it. If you have to back off from going to hard then you were running too hard on your previous days. If after day one of the schedule you have to run your aerobic efforts easier in order to make your next hard effort on day four (or whatever) a good one then so be it.

If you already include easy weeks in your schedule anyways then this is no different. It's the same idea placed within a weekly framework. On my aerobic days where I'm running 135 minutes and covering 33km+ I'm still recovering enough to do my hard workouts. These days are "big" days but they are not "hard" days (although in the past it felt damn hard). The recovery days at the end of the week (or month if that is what you prefer) are neither big nor hard.

Like I said in a previous post, in the past when I performed this schedule I did overdo it and my quality did suffer as the week progressed, but this was because I forced the pace of my aerobic days. Now, I let the pace be whatever feels good. If that is 4:30/km then fine, but sometimes I might feel great and run 3:30/km by the end of the run. Faster pace, same effort.

JZ

Skuj wrote:

"Huge" and "little" are relative terms here. Do you regularly run 100MPW?

Nope.

JZ wrote:

If after day one of the schedule you have to run your aerobic efforts easier in order to make your next hard effort on day four (or whatever) a good one then so be it.

That sounds like a standard hard/easy approach. Or something that peters out into hard/medium/medium/medium for the 4 days.

I get what you're saying about long not necessarily equalling hard. But I still think you're not getting the sharp, hard stimulus you need every few days using your approach.

Well, I'm training for the marathon and I'm getting 3 quality and/or hard days/week. Day one I run my VO2 max/threshol/goal marathon pace run, day four I run 15 hill sprints (not a hard day but a "sharp" day), and day five I'm getting in a good solid long run. On this last day of the big part of my week I will either run long and easy (started with 2:20 at 4:00/km pace this phase and will end with 3:20) or a little shorter but harder (either 2:15 with the last 2 hours at 3:45 down to 3:20/km or 2:15 with the first 75 at 4:00/km and the last hour at marathon effort). I consider this day as both a hard and a long day. Definitely the most demanding of the week. A good time to take a couple of easy days before running fast again don't you think.

Up until now I have continued to run 135 minutes a day on the two days following this long run and have still managed to recover (taking every 4th week easy). I just think I'll be able to recover and run even faster (with the same effort) doing it the wayI am now. We'll see come my next marathon.

JZ

thanks for sharing, interesting stuff. good to see that there's still valuable info out here on the HS kid forum.

where do you run your next marathon and what are you aiming for? mid 2:20s?

Why not make the three "30-30" days into "50-60" days? Then you'd be into some serious training.

Canadian Olympic B standard: 2:14:00 (ran 2:17:23.9 on in my first marathon on September 30th; learned a lot ...).

Where?

Houston on January 13th

good stuff.

john brown is now canadian so he will run the A standard. how many A may be there that B is not enough.

good luck!

I believe 2 and I think we will only send one athlete with a B standard and, even then, that athlete cannot have qualified to a World Champs or Olympics previously (note what happened to Reid Coolsaet this year in the 5000m). Gotta go. And thanks!

JZ

Why not just run 80 miles in four days then take three days off to recover? That's the ticket!

fall down drunk wrote:

Why not just run 80 miles in four days then take three days off to recover? That's the ticket!

Not quite the concept here, but close! :)

Skuj wrote:

This concept could even be 3.5 days / 3.5 days:

Example: (Wed afternoon = beginning of "little" half of the week.)

Sun: 150min acceleration from jog to Half Marathon Pace.

Mon: 60min / 60min

Tue: 90min / 45min

Wed: 30min + 5x3k + 15min / 30min

Thu: 30min / 30min

Fri: 30min / 30min

Sat: 30min / 30min

I don't see much benefit to this training plan. In my opinion there are much better ways to go. The 30 minute doubles over the last half of the week are essentially useless, in my opinion. And it is difficult to make a knowledgeable judgement without knowing the paces of the Monday through Saturday runs. In short, there's a lot missing here.

Coach K wrote:

Skuj wrote:

This concept could even be 3.5 days / 3.5 days:

Example: (Wed afternoon = beginning of "little" half of the week.)

Sun: 150min acceleration from jog to Half Marathon Pace.

Mon: 60min / 60min

Tue: 90min / 45min

Wed: 30min + 5x3k + 15min / 30min

Thu: 30min / 30min

Fri: 30min / 30min

Sat: 30min / 30min

I don't see much benefit to this training plan. In my opinion there are much better ways to go. The 30 minute doubles over the last half of the week are essentially useless, in my opinion. And it is difficult to make a knowledgeable judgement without knowing the paces of the Monday through Saturday runs. In short, there's a lot missing here.

Agreed! One can never get the whole puzzle with just a single-jigsaw-piece that is a sample week for a hypothetical runner.

In this idea, the 4 "huge" days will see multipacing, and even the "little" days can have strides, short tempo etc.

Skuj wrote:

In this idea, the 4 "huge" days will see multipacing, and even the "little" days can have strides, short tempo etc.

That is still not enough information to make an educated judgement. Having said that, I would almost certainly suggest you run (don't walk) away from any coach who suggested that week to you. They are going to get you hurt.