Staple Workouts

Emily and I got talking about a hypothetical situation on our run tonight. Say you had to choose one workout, and one workout only, to be your ONLY workout for an entire season. What would you pick? Of course the answer depends on what race you're training for, how big a variety of races you want to compete in, and where your particular strengths and weaknesses lie. Of course this conversation segued into our favorite workouts, which segued into something else, which turned into something not running related at all. But I digress. Below is a description of a few staple workouts, some of which we do frequently, others that we should probably do more often.

10 Mile Progressive Tempo: For my money, this workout by itself would be enough to get anyone to a damn good performance from 5k all the way to half marathon. The beauty of it is its flexibility. Unlike other workouts, that don't really belong in the early stages of a training season, this one changes as your fitness improves and your needs turn more towards specific fitness.

Emily has done this workout 3 times since we started training again after the marathon. The first time, 4 weeks ago, she averaged north of 7 minute pace for the whole thing, well above marathon pace. In fact only the last mile (6:25) was faster than she had averaged for 26.2 miles a mere 3 weeks earlier. The second time she did the workout, 2 weeks after the first, her fitness had started to come back and she was able to average 6:45 pace for the whole thing. The base was starting to form, but she was still far away from the sharpness that comes from REALLY getting in shape: although she ran 4 minutes faster, her last mile (6:22) wasn't much faster than it was the first time out.

Yesterday, she did the workout for a third time, again running 4 minutes faster than the last time out. This time, the whole last half of the run was faster than her final miles had been before - 30:40, or 6:08 pace average - for the last 5 miles. Her final mile of 5:42 was now much closer to race pace for a 5k-15k race, so the workout has gone from entirely general base preparation to somewhat race specific.

You can see how, if you really wanted to just try to get the most out of a single workout, you could begin to hammer the last 2-3 miles harder and harder, eventually getting to the point where miles 8 and 9 are at goal 10k pace, and mile 10 is at goal 5k pace. Fortunately we're allowed to use as many different workouts as we can make up, so we don't have to worry about the mental strain (and boredom!) that would probably results from doing the same 10 mile tempo a million times.

Now just for fun, a list of favorite workouts! Not necessarily staple workouts, but important nonetheless.

1. Emily - Aussie Quarters, 8x400 @ 3k-5k pace with 200 quick recovery. Total of 3 miles of work at a fast overall pace, works several different aspects of fitness, particularly for 1500-10k.

2. Chass - I don't want to speak for my good buddy Chass, but for him it's probably 10x400. I'm not going to specify a recovery because it's not too important. I'd probably go 400 slow jog but Chass often does standing rest of 2-4 minutes. This is the quintessential miler workout; it has its place for anyone looking to race from 800 all the way to 10k, but for the 1500 it's a tried and true workout that will leave you in PAIN.

3. Jeremy - 4x2 mile. This one hurts in a different way, but it's great preparation for a 10k or half marathon and I need to do it more.