Senior Endurance Training Guidelines

AN OVERVIEW

OBJECTIVES
To provide a template around which individual and group training can be planned. It assumes a year cycle divided into two half years focussed on Summer track / road race and Winter cross country periods. This avoids fatigue.

The principals are well founded in experience with the Autumn / Winter focussed on Strength and stamina development and the Spring / Summer on speed. Even for summer road racing this strategy is sound as races are typically shorter and faster.
This strategy is essentially a linear strategy with a progression over the course of the cycle.

CONSIDERATIONS

  • Every athlete is different. Factors such as age, time to train, reasons to run and ability to train are important. We understand running is hard work so training requires to be achievable and motivational. Hence it is advised that the construction of a principal training plan involves discussion.
  • Experiences of mileage differ
  • Long term objectives are different, an older senior will not expect to plan for county / international status, but a teenager might aspire to this.
  • Ability will differ, and so expected target speeds and intensity of sessions need to be happily modified when required.
  • Training plans need to show, when required by the individual’s objectives, progression.
  • Everything will change. Its important to feel comfortable about modifying and missing training!

RACING
When a set of objectives include performance at specific events this requires to be taken into consideration. For example, training and rest periods in the Autumn and Winter will take into account, typically, the Manchester League, county and National championships.
In the Summer specific events may be targeted but the nature of track competition allows the variety of events to be considered to provide virtual resting.

 

JULY 2020 – UPDATE

The disruption of our Spring and Summer objectives presents a number of challenges.

  • There are zero official competitions to focus on
  • It’s too early to start a period aimed at competition in early 2021 – progression will increase intensity too excessively
  • July and August should be a period of lower intensity so this is an opportunity to trial a number of new session structures.

The proposal is to commence a 4month training period with progression of mileage, volume and pace in September. This year there will be modifications to the plan regarding recoveries, length of repetitions and target pace.

Due to the recent issues the crucial element of hill runs could not be exploited in early Spring and this form of session will be added. This is also a good opportunity to experiment with pace, heart rate analysis and cycle lengths.

The training mix will comprise of Steady and Tempo runs, long runs, Long and medium intervals, Style Sprints and Hill runs (not in the same week!). Variety with a number of paces.

JULY

Mileage

Not specified but as this is normally a competitive part of the year (both on the track and the road)

Aim at a comfortable mileage for your circumstances, I expect this will typically be 20 -25 miles a week but higher for those with half marathon and marathon targets. In addition to the Tuesday and Thursday training sessions

  • Include one longer run (upto 10ml) once every 2 weeks.
  • Include a 4 mile tempo run on alternative weeks (85% of race pace)
  • We will attempt to arrange a group hill session during July

Week 1

Tuesday 7th                        

  • 4 mile Fartlek with variable length and pace efforts
  • 1 mile easy w/u and w/d

Thursday 9th

  • 4 x 5 minutes (5k pace, 3 mins recovery)
  • 5 minutes jog
  • 3 x 100m concentrating on running style

Week 2

Tuesday 14th                      

  • 3 x I mile (5k pace, 400m jog recovery) 2mi easy w/u and w/d

Thursday 16th                    

  • 2 x 5 x 400m (100m rolling jog rec, 5 mins between sets)

Week 3

Tuesday 21st                      

  • 3 mile Fartlek with variable length and pace efforts
  • 2 mile easy w/u and w/d

Thursday 23rd                    

  • 4 x 800m (3 min rec)
  •  5 min jog
  •  6 x 100m concentrating on running style

Week 4

Tuesday 28th

  • 20 x 200m (1 min recovery) if grouped
  • OR 20 x 90 seconds (60 secs recovery)

Thursday 30th                    

  • 2 x 200m, 1 x 400m, 1 x 800m, 1 x 1200, 1 x 800m 1 x 400m, 2 x 200m (target 5k pace, 2 min rolling jog rec)