The best way to schedule 2 quality days, a race and a long run?

daniels claims to have had some success with his athletes doing two straight quality days (i.e. tuesday and wednesday), asserting that they felt more tired two days after the hard workout. I'd do the usual thursday workout but take it easier friday when you have saturday races.

Did this for four years and it worked well....

M -Hard

T -Med

W -Hard

T -Med

F -Easy

S -Race

S -Long Run

Similar to what you had....the medium day should be comfortable but not easy enough that your legs dont get some work which will help them actually be fresher for the next hard day....

Med Thursday is slightly easier than med Tuesday...just go by feel, you want to just feel smooth, none of that slow pace hurting crap...and Friday is just a frollick...

eddylee wrote:

I would do Q1 on Tuesday and Q2 on Wednesday, but my tempo run will be a lot harder than it needs to be.

Why would your tempo run ever be harder than it needs to be?

Races are usually are treated as the second quality workout of the week. And remember that long runs don't have to be on Sundays.

So if you are racing every Saturday, I would do something like this:

M - long run

T - easy

W - Q1

Th - easy

F - easy

Sa - race (Q2)

Su - easy

his tempo would be harder than it needs to be, because he'd not yet be recovered from the track workout a day earlier. the answer, slowing down the tempo, would probably not be advantageous for his development.

replacing the quality with a race is probably not going to help too much with development, because the race is not at tempo pace, obviously, and it is not an interval workout. so, you tear muscle tissue and work very hard, but you don't get the benefits of brief rests on intervals or the tempo physiological benefits. now, perhaps there are no special tempo physiological benefits, beyond what you get (even more of?) in racing. in that case, replacing quality w/o with race is not disadvantageous, but you would still be better off with two q and a race in the developmental stage, since that gives you three good efforts a week, assuming you're flourishing off that regimen. I think that 3 q/week, which is done at a lot of div i schools, is a good idea, though one of those might be done at slightly lower quality. anyone know about the comparative virtues of race vs. tempo?

I've used this with success for years.

M- E

T- Tempo

W-Q2

Th- E

Fr- E

Sa- Race

Su- Long

Depending on how hard Q2 is, you can also get more rest from the race/long combo by pushing the temp Q2 to W, Th.

Very general here:

If you race on Saturdays consider a long run later in the day Sunday to allow for 6-8 hours more rest plus the chance to sleep in and hydrate (i.e. especially when traveling), as well as for general recovery.

Non-race weeks:

Sunday (long a.m., gradually increase pace to a fairly intense second half)

Monday (easy + strides/plyos))

Tuesday Q-hills/speed

Wednesday (medium long run, moderate pace, hillier)

Thursday (easy + strides plyos)

Friday (Q-tempo)

Saturday (easy)

Race weeks: Friday take another easy day, Saturday race, Sunday p.m. long run (instead of a.m.).

jonesy. wrote:

his tempo would be harder than it needs to be, because he'd not yet be recovered from the track workout a day earlier. the answer, slowing down the tempo, would probably not be advantageous for his development.

For 99% of you slowing down the tempo pace is exactly what you need. What's wrong with back-to-back running anyhow? Why can't he run a tempo run on Monday, with the next workout on Tuesday or Wednesday? What's wrong with Thursday?

Where is it written you have to a 7-day cycle?

My suggestions is to use a 10-day cycle. Months are better suited than weeks for scheduling.

What happens on a Thursday when you're blown out from a Tuesday speed work session? Do you forge ahead when you have a Sat. race? Or you travel Fri., race Sat., travel home Sun trying to get your long run in too, Mon. workout, then Tues. speed work. That can be four stress days out of five.

Not wise.

I ran my PB 10k on the track with the following sequence in mid 1970's.

sun/mon - distance and hills

tue/wed - intensity

thu/fri - easy

sat - race

I would aim to always feel better on the 2nd of the two day sequences. If not, then the 1st day was too hard. The intensity days varied based on experimentation and objectives. Sometimes the 1st day was longer reps, and the 2nd day shorter/faster ones. Sometimes they were the same, but the 2nd day slightly faster.

Thursday I'd keep a good distance but moderately easy. Friday would be less distance and easy. This worked well for me and I feel it's a good schedule, though too much intensity for the marathon.

I am trying to follow Daniels Running Formula, and he says that the key factor is always to give top priority to the primary quality workout. The primary quality workout is never a tempo run until phase 4(assuming that I am not training for a marathon). If you are curious, I am using the 5k-15k training program.

malmo wrote:

Why can't he run a tempo run on Monday, with the next workout on Tuesday or Wednesday? What's wrong with Thursday?

I used train with a guy named Steve MacCormack in San Diego back in the early 90s. Anyone who knows him and the group he ran with then knows his credentials.

I followed his schedule for the last 18 months I was out in San Diego - ran my 5k and 10k off this schedule.

SUN - Long run up to 16 miles when not marathon training

MON - PM 9 mile tempo run - Note - this was done weekly in the evening - typically we would run 54:00 minutes for 10 miles.

TUE - 8 miles easy

WED - speedwork - Mac loved 6-8 x 1000 with 2:00 recovery I did them in 3:00, on the grass.

THU - 8 miles easy

FRI - 8 miles easy, but sometimes the Friday run got a bit quick on the boardwalk

SAT - Race or 10 miles

Nothing special. Note, this was my schedule, Mac also did a morning run M - F. The reason I think I could come back after a long run and run a tempo on Mon was:

1 - Mac said to do it!

2 - I had a day and a half recovery after the Sunday long run.

No heart rate monitors, no GPS. Although D. Fleet did measure our course in PB with a bike after his knee surgery.

eddylee wrote:

I am trying to follow Daniels Running Formula,

Perhaps you need a better formula? Perhaps one that is realistic, not rigid?