Training Plans

 Training Plans to reach your Goals.

Do we exercise or train?

What is the difference you might say. I suggest we exercise to get, maintain or improve our level of general fitness. Whereas to train is exercise with a specific goal or goals to be achieved within a specific time frame. This might be simply to race 5K parkrun under a specific time in the next 3 month. It might also extend to more than one goal event in season or year. However in this case it is wise to establish which is your primary goal and thereby rank the priority you put on the goals. ie you would determine an A, B and C goal. It is unreasonable to be working towards more than 3 in a season. This is not to say you don't enter a range of event types in a season but simply that your training is directed specifically to achieving your best possible performance in your priority race/s.

To achieve this, it is is not sufficient to just do the same training every week an expect to perform at your best at all three events. Although in an earlier Blog it was shown that all events from 1500m to Marathon are predominantly Aerobic events, 90% and 100% respectively, they do place specific demands on your individual physiology and therefore require you to have trained these systems to deliver optimal performance. Marathon runners tend to train a bit differently from track endurance athletes. It is probably true to say however a good marathoner will do a better job of a 1500m race than visa versa. This points to the importance of low intensity aerobic endurance base training first and foremost over high intensity anaerobic interval training. They both have a place but different emphasis.

Training Plan Process

The key elements to consider are:

Test/ Diagnose - Where are you now? What are you strengths and weaknesses? What event(s) are you best suited for or simply want to enter? This can be as simple a looking back on your past year or two and assessing what distance or type of event you are most suited for - are you more suited for shorter faster events or longer slower endurance events. Check back on how your Club standard results compare with the World bests are each event. You may find you tend to have a better percentage at one end of the race spectrum. You may then decide to concentrate on that end of the spectrum. Or you may just fancy a change and train for your first marathon. Or you can plot your times against various distances in a Riegel calculator to see your fatique index which will give you and idea if you are best sticking meantime to shorter events or to go long. (see links below)

Plan/Execute - You then need to draw up a plan to guide your training over the next 12 to 16 weeks to your first event. There are plenty of standard generic plans out there on the internet but they are written for the average Joe and take little or no cognisance of your individual ability, training history, time to train or  strengths/weakness. Some do however will take some of these things into account. If you are training by pace I would recommend you looking at one that will adjust the plans workouts and paces to account not only for your current fitness but adjust pace and distance of workouts as you progress.  No plan can however take a 5 hour marathon runner to sub 3 hours in 4 months. So be realistic with what you are hoping to achieve. I would recommend the Trainasone Web based training system which has a free version that can build a plan for you at all popular race distances. It isn't based on what you hope to do but on what time you have available for training, your current fitness and adjusts according to your progress. It has now also an App for your phone. You are required to do initial max effort tests at 6 min and 3.2km. It syncs direct with Garmin and most other sports watches and can if required add the next workout direct into your watch to guide your training. It also takes into account how you felt doing the individual workouts.

The disadvantage of most of these pace guided plans are they  generally assume that you are training on a flat course with no wind. You are therefore required to use judgment on the target pace to adjust for the geography and weather conditions.

This is where the advantage of using the Stryd power foot pod system comes in.  The pod calculates running power taking into account the hills and wind effects. So instead of running to a target pace range you run to a target power range which correlates directly to metabolic effort and your physiological systems. The pod comes compete with its own training load management app and Powercenter webpage. It also has free training plans for standard race distances. which adjust power targets depending on your current fitness. It too requires initial and occasional testing at max efforts to draw and maintain you power duration curve which is a picture of your individual physiology.  It also lets you see what events you might be best ready for. As a Stryd Certified Coach I can not only assist you with the system but can provide you with pods at a discounted price. There is a free and subscription membership option but you can do the majority of what you need on the free version.

In both options, the training plan is specific to the chosen distance and ensures a safe progression in distance/time and intensity towards your event. They specify workouts by time rather than distance as it is  a totally different workout to ask a 12 min/mile runner to 20 miles than a 6 min/mile runner.

Monitor - Whatever plan you chose be it Trainasone, Stryd or Daniels Running Formula you need to continually monitor progress in terms of what workouts you do, the Training impacts of the runs and the progression in terms of time/distance and/or training stress. Both Trainasone and Stryd do this automatically for you.

The following link from Steel City Striders gives a good overview of the general things to be thinking about in a training plan. Building a Training plan

You may not agree with everything here but it provided an excellent framework.

The follow up posts dig a bit further: Train smart and Strength and Stability

For those that want to build their own plan the following link gives detailed training zone guidance from the well used training system devised by Jack Daniels - the VDOT system. It also contains good guidance for other training systems as well as the Daniels tables build into a spreadsheet and phone App. Daniels Tables

For those of you familiar with the Riegel formula which relates time to run one distance to time to run an other distance [T2=T1*(D2/D1)^1.06] the following calculator allows you to calculate you own personal fatigue factor. The 1.06 is the exponent for elite runner fatigue at longer distances but for age group runners this vary. NB the Daniels tables above use 1.06 exponent. The personal calculator allows you to use a more individual exponent to match your drop off in pace as you run over longer distances. It can typically vary from 1.05 to over 1.08

Riegel calculator (You will need to make a copy of the file to edit.)

The following online calculator can be used to calculate your individual VDOT value for given race performance which can then be used to determine training paces and estimate possible times for various events. You can also use it to check which events you current physiology best fits by putting in current race times for short and long events and see which gives the highest VDOT value. ie you may be better prepared longer distance races than a 3k if your HM VDOT value is higher than the 3K value.