Time Trials and Track Workouts

Track work can be fun & even a bit addicting if you are a sports fan that enjoys data or statistics. 

Remember that this type of workout is 15% or less of your total program and yet you will often see results in the data in just 3-4 week of work. These workouts are seldom easy and because it is not easy – and it pushes the body to a new place in your running, the rest of the work will feel more effortless. Track work develops both aerobic and anaerobic capacity. You’ll get more efficient moving lactate (metabolic waste) out of your system and you’ll enhance your running form. All these benefits from only 15% of the work sounds like an infomercial – too good to be true. Well remember I said it was hard and it is also demanding on the body, so it is not for folks who do not already have four to five months of regular running under their shoes. Some of the folks in our group are already there on this which is great because speed work will tune you up for any race goal. First timers will be ready for some speed work as the program concludes and because of this I introduce track workouts. This is not intended to be a comprehensive workout description but a way to sell you on the basics and guide you through what you need to know to get started. You’ll find these workouts everywhere in magazines and online so you’ll have some tools when you’re ready.

This lesson is a chance to explain some terminology and serve as a primer to track work. You’ll need a stopwatch (or stopwatch function on your watch), maybe a buddy for motivation and to help keep count, and a paper and pencil plan about how to progress before you start the process.

How fast do I run these? Short question - big answer. Most folks will use a recent race that went well to estimate what their fast pace. Those without a race will calculate running paces based on a “miracle mile”, so what is this all about? You head to the track or a pre-marked distance on the bike trail, and run your fastest pace that you feel you can sustain for a mile and clock the time. This uses your “central governor” that we have talked about before – your own very well trained, race computer in your brain that will not let you blow up and will adjust performance by how much is in your individual tank. Once you have a race time or your own one-mile time trial you have a reference point or baseline. This is a starting point for you to calculate from & you can have a professional trainer calculate for you - for free.

http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/mcmillanrunningcalculator.htm

This tool is great because you will get a full spectrum of running paces for the types of runs you’d like to do in a given week. These times were designed with the idea that you’ll not be overtraining or stressing yourself anaerobically too often but allowing adaptations to develop gradually. You’ll still need to fine tune these with your own heart rate or level of perceived effort to make sure that they work for you.

Remember that we have already covered lessons regarding the 4 types of workouts. These are LSD runs, everyday runs, tempo work, & threshold or track work (see “the Mix” lesson). Any running above your goal pace - for a planned length of time falls into Speed/track work. We have already talked about Perceived Effort (PE) & how it relates to your heart rate & pacing (see Pacing lesson) – so you know a bit about how to not overdo it & you can estimate where you’ll want your PE to be for these workouts. You want to warm up and cool down MORE for this workout –a mile of easy running beforehand & walking a mile or more afterwards. Low level aerobic activity after the speed work helps to clear lactate from muscles faster due to increased circulation. You’ll be asking your body to run into the 8-9 range (anaerobic work) for SOME these runs/repeats but you will be careful to never go all out. You can only drive the car as fast as it was designed for – if your form is suffering, simply slow down and work up to that pace later as you progress gradually.

So here are a few terms and ideas to get you started:
These concepts you’ll see over and over – so they are the best place to begin and with just these building blocks you can begin to construct your own track progressions. 

Miracle mile – you head out and run the best mile that you can run (four laps on a standard track, 440 yards /lap or 5280 feet total) and the key here is that the pace must be steady. So go out and finish at the same pace, no heroics. This is a good measure for shorter races and a decent way to start any endurance program. You’ll know what your best possible race pace is right now – a snapshot.

Time trials – several kinds of time trials you can do. One type would be to start a long endurance program and you go out and see how long you can run without stopping, running by time. You hope to have a steady pace throughout and you simply stop when you have had enough. This time/distance trial is the starting place for your long runs (LSD runs) that are the cornerstone of any endurance program. Many who start a half-marathon or longer program do not know how long their first long run should be and this is a good measure of where to set the initial distance.

Another type of time trial is a more of dress rehearsal for race day. The Hanson distance project is famous for this type of run and they will choose a route that is 60-70% of the distance of the intended race course. Runners go out and run this trial 6 weeks prior and 3 weeks prior to the event. Running at race pace and seeking to maintain that goal pace the entire distance. Hanson distance project has found that the runners in training who can maintain that goal pace during their program will easily maintain the race pace for the entire race distance after tapering and resting properly. Giving them most of the race at this speed is a great confidence builder as well without breaking them down beyond what they can recover from.

Track repeats - a run length that mimics the endurance level required for your race which is repeated several times and includes a rest or jog between repeats. Endurance is increased by adding repeats gradually over the weeks and by reducing the rest or jog interval in between runs. 5K runners might use 440 or quarter mile repeats, 10K runners might use 440 or 880 repeats, 13.1 mile racers and 26.2 racers would use half mile or mile repeats. Think about these like the granddaddy of a walk run program – instead of running a minute and then walking one, you are running a quarter mile and then letting the body catch up by walking/jogging a lap. This gears you up for speed without the strain of running the entire distance at speed (more than we can recover from). Just like your running - you slowly add repeats and then lower the rest intervals as race day approaches and you hone the runner to race. These should not be intimidating as the system is familiar and the results are the same – you gradually become more comfortable running faster in small doses so as to not wear you down. Research has shown that this work pushes back your lactate threshold. Because the work generates lactate faster in the body, you become more adept at clearing it and thus more efficient at lower intensity running as well, making you faster.

Ladders - many programs will choose a distance that matches your race length well and select repeats of these distances which move the runner from warm up to tempo through threshold pacing and back down through tempo and cool down modes. Ladders might look like this:

 1 mile warm-up, 800 meters, 600 meters, 400 meters, 200 meters, 400 meters, 600 meters, 800 meters and 1 mile cool-down. Ladders typically add challenge with progressively shorter and faster runs at the ladder top and repeats of the difficult repetitions. After ladders there is usually a long slow run which allows lactate flushing and teaches the body what the “end of the race” feels like in competition.

Rest interval - most folks start speed work with walking the rest interval which is a good thing. Later they jog the rest interval. As repeats get easier they shorten the rest interval and push the body to better adapt to race pace running because on race day most of us do not plan on stopping to jog a lap. This is where track work differs significantly from Arthur Lydiard’s training philosophy. He felt that you should not train the body to rest but go slower to avoid damaging the runner and instead ask him to keep running. He used track work to adjust the runner to race pace and anaerobically condition the runner in the final stages of a program.

Yasso 800’s – Bart Yasso used the half mile repeat regularly as part of his training program for dozens of marathons. What he found over time in his running logbooks has proven true for many other runners and when he released his findings with the help of Amby Burfoot they coined the term Yasso 800’s. Bart starts speed work training with maybe two half mile repeats and runs them once each week. Every one to three weeks he adds an additional repeat. He tries to run all of them at race pace – what he expects to run on race day. Three weeks before the race day he hope to run 10 or more of these repeats at race pace or faster and if he is successful, then he knows he will run his race in the goal time. He also uses a slick conversion factor to gauge his speed work. If Bart wants to run a 3:00 hour marathon he runs his repeats in 3:00 minutes each. While this pace per mile is a bit faster than a 3:00 hour marathon and is very nearly threshold pace for distance runners, his estimates for this distance have proven nearly foolproof for many marathoners.

When getting into track work – remember a few key concepts that bear repeating

·        Long warm ups and cool downs

·        Very gradually add repeats first, then reduce rest intervals

·        Check your training paces carefully, have a plan, and never sprint all out

·        Speed work on the track is clearly a once a week, maximum, activity (15% of weekly miles, max)

·        Lots of good track interval suggestions at Runner World, McMillian Running, & coaching sites

·        Not for beginners, you need 5 months under your shoes before trying track work