Alameda Runners – Get After It!

Pace and nutrition go hand in hand because you have change what you eat when you change your pace.  I find out things like this the hard way, usually by getting sick.  When you get sick from eating the wrong thing, the rest of the activity can be miserable and you can hit the wall.

Pace – Do not increase distance and speed at the same time.  It is an easy trap to fall into.  We all know how fast we went and want to improve on that time.
Speed – If you run 3 miles a day and try to go a little faster every day, your time will probably increase week after week until you hit a plateau.  Once you hit that plateau, you will have a very difficult time increasing your speed and you may even start to slow down.  You need to cycle your workouts.  Do speed work for 2 or 3 weeks then take a rest week where you cruise through your runs.

Good things for speed:

• cycle your workouts throughout the week.
• Add sprints into one run per week
• Do pace pickups during a run
• Do a pace increase run where you start slowly and pick up the pace until you are going flat out at the end of the run
• Try a tempo run that is just below race pace
• Sign up for a race and find out what your race pace really is
• Attempt to run at race pace while not racing.  It is not easy.
• Use your imagination

Distance – There is a 10% rule for increasing your distance no more than 10% per week.  That is a general rule.  If you have been running 3 miles a day for 5 days a week, you should be able to increase your distance to 18 or 19 miles per week with no problems.  It is not a good idea to increase your mileage by 20% per week for 3 weeks in a row.  A sample increase for our 3 mile per day runner should look something like this:

• 3,3,3,3,3,0,0
• 3,4,3,4,3,0,0
• 3,3,3,3,3,3,0
• 3,4,3,4,3,3,0
• 3,4,3,4,3,5,0
• 3,4,3,4,3,3,0
• 3,4,3,4,3,5,0

Do you see a pattern? Exercising in cycles is good It is a good practice to increase your distance for a few months then work on your speed for a few months.  It is your body, pay attention.  When you start getting into the longer distances, it is easier to get injured.  You do not always get injured the day you over do it.  It can take up to 3 weeks to pay the price for overdoing it.  Be careful.

There are training plans like this all over the internet.  There are also plenty of books on the subject.  I highly recommend books by professionals.  Here is one of my favorite places to buy books.  Alibris.com