Went out with the club (Shenley Striders) on Monday, our interval session night. Chris suggested running lamp-posts - essentially running at 80% effort for the distance between 2 lamp-posts then jogging for 1 lamp-post on the way out. On the return journey we ran for 3, jogged for 1. Then back out running for 4, jogging for 1 , with run for 3, jog for 1 on the return leg. Finally we ran for 2, jogged for 1 on the way out and ran for 12 and jogged for 1 on the way back. Total session time was about 1 hour.
I injured my hamstring doing lamp-post speed training last September so wasn't overly enamoured with the idea but did it anyway, taking special care when accelerating and decelerating. My hamstring was a bit sore from Friday's long run but it didn't get worse. Good news and it feels fine today after a night of rest although the legs are a bit 'exercise tender'.
Over the past 6 months I've really noticed the improvement in lung capacity that speed training brings. There's been an interesting thread on the WHWR forum on the benefits of speed training and a fair amount of concern about injury risk but the overall consensus seems to be that speed training is useful, but needs to be approached with caution for ultra training.
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2 comments:
Hi Brian
Only just came across your blog today. I'll be back!
You asked about our discussion on speed training. Our coach at Kilbarchan Derek Parker posted a very helpful comment on the thread. If you've not seen it have a look.
One of his main points is that he felt we were all talking about different things when we talk about speed training.
Speed training for an ultra runner is going to be very different than for an 800m runner.
For what it's worth I'm planning to keep going with my Monday night Fartlek sessions for the next couple of months and then do a tempo run from April onwards.
John
Yes, I read the posting by Derek - it was very useful - thanks to you both.
It really seems that there are benefits to speed training but injury risk must be managed. And no all out sprinting for ultra runners is probably very sensible!
I'll be continuing with speed sessions mostly centred around 2-4 minute efforts (@80% speed) and plan also to try 1 mile efforts with 2 mins recovery. Marco recommended this latter option.
I currently do speed intervals 1 week then hills the next in a build up to a 1/2 marathon early March. I'll change this after the 1/2 to mostly hill intervals (3 out of 4 weeks) as I think uphill and downhill strength and endurance is more important for races like WHWR.
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