Lydiard or Speed Endurance?

[Turlough]

Your entire post was well worth reading a number of times, however the section above for me is key for many runners who only have a limited time to train. (That's probably the majority of athletes.) There is loads of info out there on training plans for elites and those with loads of time, but on the adaptation of those programmes for those on limited time there isn't as much. It is a really interesting topic.

For those faced with a schedule that calls for 5-6 days of running, it can be a difficult decision as to what to drop if you only have 3-4 days a week to train. Yours is good guidance.

Hi Harry

Ive come across one or two schedules for say 20-40 mpw looking to improve in races. Ill try and dig one out.

Turlough - really interesting posts.
just a bit confused by use of % paces
eg
marathon pace = 6 minute mile
90% of marathon pace = ( 6 / 90 ) x 100 = 6:40 minute mile. Correct ?

Sorry Andy, missed your post. It would be 10% slower i.e 6:36 pace, or pace multiplied by 1.1.
The coach in question describes all the paces like this, and i had forgotten the anomaly.

A lot in common with my independently-developed approach, which I personally refer to as Pace Interval training. Others have described it similarly for decades.

Move it to a gym-standard 15% treadmill and you're getting close to my 'secret'! On such a gradient, anyone can fill their legs with lactic in one minute if they push the speed up 1 or 2 kph. Then reduce the speed to the fastest speed at which you can recover for one minute. I usually use 2kph differential, eg 8.5/10.5kph (for women you'll be close to English Champ with that.. my first go was at 7.0/8.5 I think ~ a couple of weeks before I have definitive records though). The first time, start slow, aim for 15 minutes, and if it's too easy then keep adding 0.1-0.2kph each session until it's pretty hard.

A big goal of the session is to judge what pace you can manage for the whole 15 minutes from your first 3 minutes (slow/fast/slow).

Believe me, this session hurts if you do it properly! You're working on lactate tolerance, lactate buffering, lactate removal/use, and breathing/chest/heart muscles all in one go, plus maximum running & energy efficiency in your recovery interval.

Eventually, if you go for ultimate pace, you need to maintain good technique in the fast intervals, and leg power/muscle glycogen becomes the limiting factor; at this point it is probably a less effective session & the intervals need serious revision, although I'm more likely to shift training outdoors then.

Like any interval work, it's good in phases of 4-8 weeks max.

Thats a very tough session!
It sounds very adaptable in that you can work on increasing both speeds or one at a time. If powerf becomes the limiting factor you can keep effectiveness of the session by upping the recovery pace only, to squeeze another session or two out. Do you find the paces get closer together as you go through the sessions? I suppose all is governed by how hard the hard minutes are.
My season starts in mid April, so might get cracking on a few of these before the intervals get longer and very specific.

When you go outdoors do you then use a descent as the "recovery" portion to gradually make the session more specific? Making the reps longer to start working on specific endurance for racing?

Lactate buffering/tolerance and re-use sessions have been around for decades. I guess the difference with Canovas approach to it is that the particlar session is heavily concerned with its re-use @ marathon race pace, which ahd been overlooked for thsi event previously. And any session which slows down the rate of glygogen depletion is gold in an event where this rate is a major limiter of race pace.