Road Folks,

Building on what we established this past month, we want to maintain the higher weekly miles and slowly raise the intensities so that will arrive in Big Sur and beyond ready to surprise a few people. The 10 miler and the 12k in late March can be looked on to help build on the strength.

My feeling is that it is a pretty bad idea to go out over your head right now in these events seeing as we have a good amount of strength and not much else to accommodate a very hard first few miles. The races though will get you fitter than most anything else, so if you're on the fence and thinking "I need to train another month to make sure I'm really ready." Well get that crap out of your head. Do less thinking and more racing. Once every 2-4 week is recommended if you're serious about improving.

Here's what we had as weekly planned elements for Feb:

Higher weekly miles

Strides

Economy work in the form of hill reps and 400's.

LT work in the form of progressive runs and tempos.

Weekend long run

Mid week longer run

Recovery

Suggested weekly outline. As much as possible you want to space the higher intensity days with 1-3 days of moderate to easy running. Based on this, here's how we tend to organize things around here:

Day 1: Long run: 20-25% weekly mileage. 80% of 5k pace at fastest. Covering the distance is much more important than the pace with which you run this.

Day 2: 45-75 min easier.

Day 3: Workout #1. Optional second run of 20-40 minutes easy.

Day 4: Mid week longer run. 15% weekly mileage, last 5k at progressive effort. This means if you start to loosen up, the last 5k or so coming home should be at a decent clip. Approaching tempo pace if feeling really good.

Day 5: Recovery. 30-45 EASY, like a jog or DNR. Can do 2 runs on this day at this effort if you'd like.

Day 6: Workout #2. Optional second run of 20-40 minutes easy.

Day 7: 45-75 Min easy.

Now for this month, we maintain the above and add another main element. We add some traditional 5k-10k effort work in the mix. Something at 2-5 minutes in length with an equal recovery jog at 5k-10k race pace effort. Total amount of hard running should add up to 15-25 minutes depending on where you've been at recently in your training with recently implying what you've done the last year or so. If you've been at 15 minutes of hard running within your normal harder workout (ie 6 x 800) workout, it's probably not a good idea to jump right up to 25 minutes, but 18-20 would be a reasonable option. So here are some examples of workouts for March:

Fartlek's:

8-12 x 2 minute on/2 min off

5-8 x 3 minutes on/3 off

4-6 x 4 min on/4 off

3-5 x 5 min on/off

Now you can always go to a track and do the following, which would be pretty much identical to the above:

8-12 x 600 w/ 300 jog

6-9 x 800 w/ 400 jog

5-8 x 1k w/ 500 jog

4-6 x 1200 w/ 600 jog

3-5 x 1600 w/ 800 jog.

All the above at 10k pace to start with and dropping to 5k effort the last rep or two if feeling fresh.

To figure out what workout to do and when, the easiest thing to do is simply take the 3 main workouts we're doing (5k/10k stuff, hill reps or 400's, tempos), rotate through them individually, then repeat. So for instance for a 2 week period it may look like this:

wk #1: hill reps or 400's, tempo (10 mile race)

wk #2: fartlek, then we start the rotation all over again at the end of week #2 with hill reps or 400's and then come back in week #3 with a tempo early in the week, then hill reps or 400's later at the end of week #3. If you have a race at the end of the week, go ahead and do 400's early in the week and substitute the tempo with the race.

This just keeps you covering all relevant training systems without overthinking the thing. Now this may come as a shock, maybe not, but all the workouts you can do as a distance runner basically boils down to these 3 workouts. If you do something shorter/faster with longer recoveries, something at roughly 5k-10k race pace with equal or slighly less recoveries and some longer tempo work with little to no recoveries, you've got just about everything covered. Just add some races to tell you where you're at and also to work on racing skills while bumping up fitness and there you go. What I'm telling you is this month we are just training like most top programs. Higher weekly miles, some races here and there, 3 basic workouts, strides.

Betty Crocker program.

The other thing I suggest is running one primary workout early in the week of a race, maybe some light 300's or strides a few days before the race and then give yourself at least 2, preferably 3, sometimes 4 days until the next hard workout following the race. Just keeps you from overdoing it and trying to get in more work than is adviseable. I would also suggest 400's or hill reps early in the week before the race as the race is very close in format to a tempo or fartlek, so in keeping with the rotation of workouts idea just going 400's before the race seems to be enough to get some work in, but not enough to kill you off for the race.

Make sure you get in consistently 1-2 days each and every week that are either DNR's or just a plain EASY 30-45 minutes. This serves as a mental and physical break which is an essential part of the training process. Planned rest is not a bad 4 letter word - it's part of the whole process of increasing fitness. By the same token, make your harder workout days hard. If you're thinking double days, do them first and foremost on your harder workout days, plus get in a 25-30 minutes warmup, get in a longer warmdown, do your strides right, make the day count. If you make your hard days like this, your week will have a few days at 16-22 miles and a few at 4-6, but the fact you're doing 16-22 some of the days of the week and most of it is at a faster pace means you're getting much fitter than if you ran moderate every day.

As far as the hill reps and the 400's go, either is fine and interchangable to the other. Sometimes you just don't want to go to the track and run 400's or maybe it's pouring outside and the track is a mud bog. No biggie, go do some hill reps and shake things up. Same effect.

If doing progressives, probably a good idea to add a few reps over what you did last month. If sets, add another set above what you accomplished last month. Here's the workouts:

Hill rep workouts. Ideally on a 250-300m gradual, smooth uphill. Dirt is best, asphalt is fine. Jog down recovery, Form is to be maintained throughout all reps. If form falls apart, you are running these too hard.

All should be proceeded by a 25-30 min warmup, 4-6 strides (important!) and a 20-30 min cooldown:

1. Progressives. 6-10 reps start at a fairly easy pace focusing on running with good form. Goal is to make each rep faster than the previous one. Good for those just off an extended break.

2. Sets. Each set is made up of 3 reps (easy, moderate, hard). 3-4 sets.

For the 400's, dropping the pace slightly (maybe by 1-2 seconds faster) than what you were doing last month:

400's: 8-14 x 400 at 3k-5k effort with 200 jog. If you're looking for another option, try 8-10 x in/outs. 400 at 5k effort/400 at 15-20 second slower - just back and forth within a continous run on the track.

Either with a 25-30 min warmup, 4-6 strides and a 20-30 min cooldown.

Tempos. Now tempos aren't supposed to be like a 10k race, they should be pretty controlled. If you cannot at any point drop the pace a good 10-15 seconds per mile within a tempo run and then return back to the original tempo pace without undue hardship then you are probably verging on racing the tempos. Not really the idea. These are supposed to be moderate intensity runs at a slightly faster rate than you would normally run if feeling good.

For the tempo workouts this month you should be able to cut the recovery in half over what was done last month. Keep the pace and volume roughly the same if you've been doing tempos in a rep format, just take out some recovery. So if you were doing 4 x 1600's, this month should be 2 x 2 miles. If you were at 2 x 2 miles, then it should be 4 miles. If it was already at 4 miles straight through, you should add a mile - maybe 2 to the workout. Longer warmups of 25-30 minutes and strides are a good thing. 20 or so minute cooldown as well. Now some of you are looking at that and thinking, 25-30 min warmup + 4 mile tempo + 20 minutes warmdown + an AM run of 30-40 min = a lot of running. Yeah it is, but it'll get you fit and the reason we want the intensity on the actual tempo end and not the 10k end.

Tempos workouts: Idea here is to run at an effort you could honestly maintain for an hour. Running controlled and strong throughout the workout is the goal. Running so hard that you give yourself the chills and diarrhea in not. 4-6 strides before the tempo part por favor.

1. Out and back. 30 or so minutes out at an easy warmup pace, come back faster.

2. 2-3 x 2 miles at tempo with 3 min recovery. 30 min warmup, strides, tempo, 10-20 min down.

3. 1 x 4 miles at tempo. 30 min warmup, strides, tempo, 10-20 min down.

The following variations on tempo runs are reserved for pretty fit marathon type people.

4. 2 x 3-4 miles. First at marathon pace, the second at tempo. 20-30 min warmup, strides, workout, 10-15 min warmdown.

5. 1 x 6-8 miles at tempo. 30 min warmup, strides, workout, 10-20 min down.

Finally on the mid week longer run, if you are doing these they should be at a progressive effort if you get the urge to run faster. Last 15-30 minutes should be at the fastest, smoothest effort of the run. Kinda like watching Geb in that movie - running fast, felling good, no worries, just flowing. The first 30-45 usually sucks, but after you work through this, it tends to end up a great run. This is a key element to add to your program. If you are looking to add one thing to your week that really adds fitness, this would be the one. Unfortunately few do them. The extra 15-30 minutes you do in this run at an uptempo pace after you have 40-60 minutes already under your belt just plain get's you very, very fit.

Long run: Standard 90-2:00 on the slower side of life.

Here's the PA road schedule:

03/08 NorCal John Frank Memorial 10-Mile Redding

03/23 Across the Bay 12K (formerly Houlihan's) San Francisco

04/13 Hewlett-Packard 10K Cupertino

04/27 News Channel 46 5K (Big Sur) Carmel

05/11 Hoys Zippy 5K San Francisco

05/18: Bay to Breakers Pede (non-PA)

05/26 Pacific Sun 10K Marin

06/14: Tahoe Relays (non-PA)

06/21 Shriners 8K Sacramento

07/13 Fleet Feet Capitol Mile Davis

08/28-9/1: Aggie Camp (non-PA)

09/14 Jamba Juice 5K San Francisco

09/28 Heritage Oaks Bank 10K Paso Robles

10/19 Humboldt Redwoods Half Marathon Weott

11/09 Clarksburg Country Run 30K Clarksburg

12/14 Christmas Relays San Francisco

Think that's it. Probably be a good idea to take an easier recovery week from 3/16-3/23 preceeding Houlihan's to increase the odds of having a solid outting there and help consolidate the training up to that point.

Let me know if you have additional questions. Have a great weekend and best of luck ti those running in Redding and the 12k. Wish Searls, Boaz, Swart, Hurley and I luck as we tackle the Catalina Marathon and an equally brutal mini golf course on 3/15.

See ya all at Stanford Invite 3/29-3/30 where we see the real serious people in the club light it up. Meet in the seats at the start of the 1500, distance carnival is Friday night.