I’ve talked about a lot of different types of training on this blog. The most important type (and the type I’ve neglected to discuss in depth) is basic aerobic work. The tempos, fast long runs, and fartleks that form the bedrock of good training seem so obvious to me that I take them for granted. But I'll leave that for another day: instead of focusing on the core of good training, I’m going to go straight to the other end of the spectrum. I’m going to talk not about how to bake a cake, but how to put the icing on the cake. Because icing is delicious.
True aerobic work, mileage, etc. are the bedrock of training, and can fundamentally change the type of runner you are. They can shift your potential upwards. But when you’re looking at the short term, not the long term, and it’s time to achieve your potential at a given distance, there is no substitute for specific work. This is true regardless of distance: when you’ve hit the last few weeks of the season, it’s time to get focused and get specific.
When I’m getting ready for a marathon, I have a specific series of workouts that I do to prepare my body for the specific demands of the race. Mostly that means specific long runs, where I run within 3-5% of goal pace (10-15 seconds per mile) for 18-25 miles, and other workouts where I run 12-16 miles averaging close to marathon pace. I do these workouts, at the exclusion of almost any other kind of workout, as it gets closer and closer to the time to focus my fitness on one race distance.
The same principle applies to shorter distances, like the 5k. For a real life example, I’ll take a look at Emily’s workouts leading up to her goal race, the 5k at the Rice track meet, which takes place this Friday, March 23rd. Fair warning: context is everything, and just because a workout happens to be of one type (say, alternations) doesn’t mean it isn’t also a specific workout. Here we go:
Workout #1 (Feb. 9th, t-minus 43 days to Rice): 10k of alternating 1ks - 1k fast/1k medium.
Total specific work: 5k @ 3:25/kilometer (3:28, 3:27, 3:27, 3:26, 3:18)
Workout #2 (Feb. 22nd, t-minus 30 days to Rice): alternating 600 fast/400 medium.
Total specific work: 4800m @ 3:18/kilometer (600s ranging from 1:57 to 2:00, 16:33 5k pace)
Workout #3 (Mar. 7th, t-minus 16 days to Rice): 7x1k w/ 400 rec.
Total specific work: 7k @ 3:22.7/kilometer ( 16:53 pace) last 5 at 3:21/kilometer
Workout #4 (Mar. 17th, t-minus 6 days to Rice): 3x1500 + 1x400 w/ 500 rec.
Total specific work: 4900m @ 3:17.7/kilometer (1500 splits of 5:02, 4:57, 4:56 + 400 @ 73)
The last workout deserves a little added detail: most experts will tell you that no fitness can truly be gained in the last week before a race. I agree wholeheartedly, but I’ve found that there’s value to be had in doing what I think of as a “capstone” workout in the last week before a major race. I honestly don’t know why it works, I just know that it does. The workout needs to be hard, but short, as Emily’s was above. Before setting my 5k PR at the UIW meet, I did 4x1600 @ 5:03, 4:59, 4:55, 4:52. I never actually got down to the pace I ended up averaging for 5k (4:49/1600), but it provided both the specific stimulus, as well as the confidence, I needed to race well at 5k. As far back as when Emily was still coached by our college coach, Brant Lutz, she followed a similar plan: 4 days before running 17:09 for the indoor 5k, Emily ran 3x1600 w/ 800 recovery in 5:40, 5:39, 5:36. We can only hope that the conversion between workout time and race time remains similar!
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