Planning your program - 10k to Marathon planning
Martin Lewis
This is a no nonsense, all business, piece on planning your training leading up to a distance run - 10k to Marathon first timers/enthusiasts may find it useful. The guy who wrote it is tall, skinny and can run very fast for a very long time.
In sport, few concepts are accepted as universally as the benefits of periodisation in assisting optimum performance. Periodisation (how you arrange the training sessions, their goals, and the end point competitions) and its underlying concepts, ground how the coach and athlete should structure their training program :
· Overload
· Specificity
· Adaptation
These three concepts are the foundation for your periodisation. A program must be progressive and difficult, training the correct energy systems, performed at the correct pace on the appropriate terrain, with periods of increased intensity and recovery to promote adaptation.
The following advice will not give specific training sessions, but Instead, a format to build the sessions into.
Periodisation is always written in reverse. On any training program, the first thing to be written is the last thing to be performed. For our example we will consider the target competition to be the Marathon. An idea of the general length of a program for the chosen event is advantageous; however it is essentially an easy task to identify the desired result (which should be realistic from the offset), the current fitness/performance level and to assess a reasonable time to improve.
Marathon programs will typically last 12 – 24 weeks; where the norm is a 16 week program. A 2% improvement in marathon time is a reasonable target, whilst a 5% target is probably unreasonable and requires a dramatic change in pace for a marathon runner of any standard.
The next step is to write the taper period, considering the event and targets in mind. In any taper the volume should reduce over the final two weeks (for some this taper may need to be longer or shorter by a week; something which should be tested over time), however intensity should be maintained. The reason for this is to maintain awareness of pace, buffering capabilities of the body, but without undue fatigue which will be carried into the competition. Strides and short efforts are perfect, as are smaller tempo runs. It can be a common problem to rest instead of taper, and this might lead to loss in performance. Advice for this stage is to maintain marathon or event specific pace – (see table 1.1)
Next is to build the general format for the program and you will soon find that once the vital pre-race competitions, preparation runs and adaptation phases are introduced the writing of key sessions and decisions regarding volume for the week, will become a simple task of filling in the blanks.
The next element to build into the program is the testing events. These are intended to guide the program for the marathon (focus race), and ensure that if training has not gone to plan or performance has exceeded expectation, that the program be re-tuned to get optimal results. As a guide, in the early weeks of the program adaptation or low volume weeks (volume is less, intensity remains high or close to optimal), may be further apart, perhaps every 5 weeks. This encourages a slow build up to a program. Anyone trying to make dramatic improvements in the first 5 – 7 weeks is on a sure footing to injury or upset.
Building the program slowly and introducing the first race either late in the program or without proper taper ensures that training is not overlooked in favour of an early and expectedly slow race. The first race target should be conservative, perhaps looking at how the race is run over-all and looking to match the pace over a shorter distance at some time with the pace expected in the long races at the end of the program. Later races are targeting achieving the end goal (ensure training is specific). Adaptation phases are kept post race, although there may be some overlap. There is little benefit in tapering all the time as the athlete would get few training advantages from the week; however the athlete should be at least in a condition to closely represent current fitness/ performance to guide the writing of future sessions.
The adaptation phase offers the athlete both recovery from the race and recovery prior to the next overload phase.
Table 1.2 Weekly breakdown Sub 3 Marathon Target
Start your preparation for race day early. All methods should be practised well in advance. This includes time trials pre-race to assess likely pace targets, whilst offering a good training session. Introduce an easy run/rest day a few days before the race to allow some recovery pre-race. In addition the run the day before the competition should be trialled; a guide is given in table 1.1. Any run the day before a race should be practiced and should cater for how you the athlete would like to feel the night before a race. The run should be non-strenuous but provide some flexibility both from stretching dynamically with increased pace such as strides and statically with a post session recovery stretch.
The remaining program should be based on development of the key requirements for the event, i.e. specific race pace sessions, long distance runs, short track efforts for speed, and hills for strength. Some of these issues will be covered in future articles. The take home message from this article is that the program should always be testing, both through its intensity and by regular assessment.
About the Author
Martin is a gifted athlete and has a huge brain. Not only did he graduate from Loughborough University with a 1st class degree in Sports and Exercise Sciences, he can run very fast for a long time. He currently spends his time studying for a PHD in Simulation Modelling (we don't know what it is either) as well as continuing to train hard. He is an expert in endurance training and has experience of training with elite skinny dudes. He will though, completely ignore you if you go to support him in the London Marathon so I wouldn't bother if I were you.
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