Q for Renato Canova, Aerobic House - Gradual or Quick Mileage increase?

Renato, do you vary the distances on the easy/medium/easy/steady days during the base phase, or are most of these runs a similar length?

I generally like to have short easy days and longer hard days, as I think the easy days are mostly for recovery and regeneration.

So, for you or anyone who tried this approach, any success stories? How did you rotate your long runs and how many days (if any) of recovery runs between them?

I'm planning on using this philosophy for my next base training as of December, so any input is welcome.

I"m an older runner (56)and recovery isn't what it used to be...

We just finished our high school cross country season, and our team improved by an average of 40 seconds per runner. Renato was 100% right with his sub threshold training advice. I admit that I was scared of doing three months of runs that didn't touch 5k race pace. But I trusted Renato Canova's advice and had my boys and girls do these runs during the summer. The start of the season saw my team run their very first race a few seconds faster than they did a year ago. But the main difference was that my team wasn't that tired after the race. They weren't worn out in September and they were very very strong.

October was the month that I saw the biggest improvement. As we shifted our training towards slightly more anaerobic and race pace work, my cross country team made big improvements. Once again, my team wasn't worn out in October. They were still fresh and strong, but they were missing that final gear that would allow them to really be at their best.

As we got into November, I remember being worried that my team was just going to make small improvements from a year ago, and that we were going to finish 6th at State again for the third year in a row.

The workouts in late October through mid November were according to Renato's plan. I threw in some goal pace work, and mixed in an "El Medio" workout. The "El Medio" workout consisted of a 2.75 mile run at 95% of goal race pace. I did this 12 days before the State Meet.

The day of the State Meet, one of my parents came up to me and told me how "fresh" my team looked as they ran their warmup. I told him about my Renato Canova training plan, and he respnoded by saying, "that Canova guy usually peaks his runners at the right time".

To make a long story short, my team ran awesome at the State Meet and we finished a surprising 2nd Place. Five of my seven runners ran personal bests. My other two runners were within 4 seconds of their personal best times.

I want to say thank you Renato Canova for all your help. It was because of you that my team performed so well at the end of the season. Your training scheme was great. My kids did not get tired during the season, and they ran their best race of the year at the State Championships. If I see you in Europe this summer I will buy you dinner. Thank you again Renato! You are the best!!

I do "steady state" runs regularly, especially in a base period. I've noted a big improvement from them. If you look at something like McMillan's calculator, you'll see he has a steady state pace. That's too fast. That's barely slower than tempo pace.

The beauty of running faster than easy, but slower than tempo is that you can stay aerobic and not stress your body excessively. You work your heart in a quality way that can be repeated more often and at paces that work your muscles closer to the paces you race. I think runs at comfortably fast paces are the most commonly missing element in training schedules.

These runs aren't about pace, but feel. Run quite a bit slower than your tempo pace, but still faster than your easy pace. You should break a sweat, but finish feeling like you could have kept going for quite a bit longer. The closest race pace I can associate it with is marathon pace, but for less than an hour.

Coach AJ,

It would be interesting to see how you adapted Canova's principles for the HS xc team. Any chance you could post or make the season plan available for analysis?

Congratulations on your team's performance.

TG

I would be very gratefull to read about the plan you used.

Been looking around on the internet but couldn't find a real plan, just general guidelines. I am very interested to find out how I could use that plan for long distance (marathon / HM)training.

For those who have used it in the past, please chime in with your stories, positive or negative.

Coach Canova:

Would you advise running a hard half-marathon effort 15 days out from a marathon with aims of well under 2:19.

Thanks Coach.

Coach Canova,

I haven't really seen a suggested schedule posted by you for someone racing 1500 - 5k and was wondering what you make of John Kellogg's general training outline listed here:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&id=192559&thread=192559

Thanks for your reply in advance.