2 December 1992
Each person has their own personality in training and the training must be developed around that personality. Each person responds differently to all the various factors integral in training and for that reason the training must be tailored to fit the idiosyncracies. One thing is certain, that the person must be very much in tune with themselves and have an insight into what is working and why it is working or my training will not help them. I have never believed in the dictatorial type of coach relationship where the athlete has no say so in their training and direction they are going. There must be a lot of interaction between the coach and the athlete so the coach knows what the athlete is feeling and thinking and the athlete knows what the coach is thinking, seeing and where the coach is going whith the athlete. 1.) Confidence in yourself. Is there an inner voice telling you that you have more in you and that you are not
finished
yet? Without this unwavering confidence - you will have limited
success in reaching and kicking ass at the next level. Everyone
there has this confidence and it is that confidence that drives
the athlete. It is also that confidence that keeps the athlete
calm in the face of pressure as the levels of competition come,
be it college competitions, USATF meets or Olympic Trials and
Olympic competitions. Under no circumstance can the athlete EVER
panic. That spells death.2.) Speed through Stamina. I think that speed work is over-rated and over done and totally misunderstood. How often do you see or read about someone who runs a very fast time early in the season and they comment-"and I haven't done any speedwork." The implicit feeling is that speedwork will make them run faster but more times than not - they do not run faster. The goal of my training is to teach the body to do a fairly high volume of work at fairly high intensities. Seldom will you need to bust a gut in a workout but you will do a lot of work on the low end of high intensity. An example would be 10 X 800 meters in 2:09 with 200 meter jogs in approximately the same effort in late April or early May. Then you back off on the volume and pick up the intensity a little and do 5 X 800 meters in 2:06 with just a little more recovery.
You will find that the stamina work is done in the form of repetitions of varying distances. Repeats of miles, 1000 meters, 800meters and even 400meters. The volume of work will be large - with the goal to be 10 X 800, 8 or 10 X 1000, 4 X 1 mile and 16 or 20 X 400. The pace should be a good rhythm. To survive the stamina work you must learn pace and all of the repeats should be within a few seconds of each other or you are not accomplishing the goal of the workout. Any idiot can blaze the early part of a workout and die, but the person who is training is running the complete workout at the desired paces. As the season progresses and your fitness and stamina improves, your pace will increase with the same intensity levels. This stamina pace work is at or very near your current 10K race pace.
The reason to hold back and not blaze, but to learn a hard rhythm is to teach you to settle into a rhythm in a race and feel comfortable in that rhythm. In a 10K as well as a steeple race, you must find that RACE RHYTHM very early in the race so that you are cruising along and can respond to any move. You must learn to run within yourself and not be on the edge. Your tachometer during the early or late stages of a race must not be near the redline. In a 10K the first 3 miles are a warm-up for the elite while the pretenders are just hanging on. Developing stamina will allow you to do this. Strength work is long runs at a steady but not pushing pace and hill repeats with full recoveries. Strength is the ability to finish the workout, finish a long run or recovery run no matter how good or bad you feel. Stamina is the ability to run the hard pace within yourself (find a good rhythm) with little recovery without a severe drop off in the desired time. Stamina teaches you to suffer and survive.
3.) Smart training not macho training. Your log book is a guide for you and a way to evaluate how your training went. No one wins races because of the numbers posted in the training log. I use the training log as a way of keeping track of what I have done and as a way of keeping my total mileage consistant. You do not want severe fluctuations in the weekly amount of work you do be it mileage or volume or intensity. Seb Coe used the axiom-"when in doubt, DON'T." Use this as a guideline.
For your long run, the general rule is do not let it be more than 2 miles more than your biggest 2 run day total. Therefore, if you do 4 in the morning and 10 in the evening, your long run should not be more than 16 miles. As a middle distance runner, do not run longer than 16 or 17 miles weekly. I see no benefit of running for 2 hours as you need to learn to recover on Monday from the Sunday run and be ready to go on Tuesday. Americans tend to think more is better but in running it is often not the case. If you go out for your recovery run and you are feeling particularly tired, ease back on the pace and the total TIME of the run for that day. Don't get macho and say I have to run for 10 miles when you are beat. It accomplishes nothing. Be smart, you are not being a wussy but being smart. Shoot for your recovery runs to be 65 minutes at a comfortable pace that you feel you are recovering-hence the name.