Critique my training

That's a "summer base" schedule?

You have 1 easy day a week and 1 "long run" that isn't very long (especially for a 3200m/5k guy). Otherwise you have 4 quality days in a row. What the hell is that gonna do for you? Especially 10x110 sprints??

Replace Tuesday and Thursday with easy mileage, and increase the distance of your long run and you might be more on to something.

Like others said, you'll peak/burn out in a couple months.

Today's workout was:

1 mile warmup

static stretch

dynamic stretch

6 mile fartlek consising of 0.25 miles easy, 0.25 miles medium (tempo pace), 0.25 miles hard (1 mile-800m race pace) 3-5 minute water break every 2 miles

1 mile cooldown

Static stretch

Core

climvar wrote:

That's a "summer base" schedule?

You have 1 easy day a week and 1 "long run" that isn't very long (especially for a 3200m/5k guy). Otherwise you have 4 quality days in a row. What the hell is that gonna do for you? Especially 10x110 sprints??

Replace Tuesday and Thursday with easy mileage, and increase the distance of your long run and you might be more on to something.

Like others said, you'll peak/burn out in a couple months.

Weights/agilities are specially designed to keep you injury free okay?

Damnit, I'm feeding a troll aren't I?

Not bad. 6/10.

i know this is a troll but....

The whole point of aerobic BASE is to build an AEROBIC BASE, off of mostly easy runs to help develop your aerobic systems in preparation for cross country. Along with this, maybe 2-3 weeks into your training, depending on how you feel, you can add in some tempo and fartlek workouts to help increase your lactate threshold, but at most you would do these 2 times a week, maybe 3 if you made your long run a harder effort. The workouts you are describing A) do not stimulate your aerobic base system and B) are workouts designed to increase your VO2 max, which is supposed to be done later in the season. By repeatedly doing multiple hard workouts, and not to mention racing, you are essentially beating up your body without allowing it to rest and build up a base, which is the entire point of summer training. Weights are fine as long as you don't overdo them and get injured.

The pro jumps in.. :) You are correct! There is few runners in the elite today that only build aerob load in a base period. Even the great A. Lydiard,the father of LSD( long steady distance) had his runners to do some fast drills during his basic aerob period. I myself prefer a "never ending story".....with that I mean my runners do the same lowmileage weeks(low compared to the highmileage brigade) year around . The 3 most important factors for running results in middle-longdistance are maxVO2-pace, threshold-pace and the very best aerob distance-pace. So....then the "secret" is just to put in those factors in at every week......functions for all levels of runners. Looks at a first glance to be too "simple".....but it`s supereffective!

The Wizard

Although it is true that you should try to incorporate some speed (strides/striders) and a couple workouts like the ones I have previously mentioned, your reasoning that low mileage is superior is entirely incorrect. Look at any of the elite distance runners now and see how much mileage they are putting in. Heck, look at the top high schoolers and see their training. High mileage is key to aerobic development, which thereby will aid your ability to function well during VO2 max workouts during the season. You are not supposed to completely disregard speed in the pre-season, but rather incorporate some of it in a way that does not lead to burnout or peaking. You are supposed to lower mileage and do more quality DURING the season, as you have said, but this post is about the pre-season.

J.S wrote:

The pro jumps in.. :) You are correct! There is few runners in the elite today that only build aerob load in a base period. Even the great A. Lydiard,the father of LSD( long steady distance) had his runners to do some fast drills during his basic aerob period. I myself prefer a "never ending story".....with that I mean my runners do the same lowmileage weeks(low compared to the highmileage brigade) year around . The 3 most important factors for running results in middle-longdistance are maxVO2-pace, threshold-pace and the very best aerob distance-pace. So....then the "secret" is just to put in those factors in at every week......functions for all levels of runners. Looks at a first glance to be too "simple".....but it`s supereffective!

The Wizard

So one you think the OP is right by having only one easy day a week and a long run, and everything else race pace efforts and tempos for the other 5 days? Whoa. I wonder what your training would be if we weren't discussing aerobic base building.

I think you have to make a visit at Facebook... ;) ....Then maybe you understand that it`s not true that you must be in the highmileage brigade to reach world topclass running. When I think of highmileage I mean 100 mpw and more......my runners do about 75- 88 mpw if they are fulltime runners. Otherwise less. What does that give? One of Kenyas very best juniors and a lot of topclass runners.

The Wizard

No! The program was not correct... :) I said OP`s words that one must have some fast running even in the build up phase is CORRECT. Thats a big difference.

Ok, I don't see what your whole "facebook" thing is about, but I do agree with you that it is true that you cannot completely ignore speed during base training. However, the OP's plan is clearly not smart in any way.

Wow have any of you aerobic junkies heard of Jim Ryun?

There are many examples during running history with worldclass runners that seldom ran aerobic...... In Sweden we have Dan Waern who mostly trained anaerobic and he did about 3.37 at 1500 and 2.17 at 1000m in the -60s........but......it seems best to reach the world records of today with a more mixed approach anaerob- aerob.

y u warm up fo easy runs boy-o

long runs and easy runs need no warm up, speed workouts do to avoid muscle tears and such.

Are you Jim Ryun tho?

nerd wrote:

y u warm up fo easy runs boy-o

long runs and easy runs need no warm up, speed workouts do to avoid muscle tears and such.

To keep it safe by avoiding injuries.

Why are you Dean Karnazes?

If troll 8/10 cause you got me good. You are so dumb its not even funny. The worst part is that you think you know what you are talking about despite having only anecdotal evidence. Just because Jim Ryun did crazy hard workouts and was successful does not mean you will be. Chances are you are a 18:30 back of the pack plodder with not even 10% of the talent Ryun has.

Also HS XC Runner wrote:

If troll 8/10 cause you got me good. You are so dumb its not even funny. The worst part is that you think you know what you are talking about despite having only anecdotal evidence. Just because Jim Ryun did crazy hard workouts and was successful does not mean you will be. Chances are you are a 18:30 back of the pack plodder with not even 10% of the talent Ryun has.

Hehe try 20:00+ but what I'm doing works just ask my coach!