Run Coaching UK Tips and Advice
Basic principles of running
Before you embark on a programme to improve your running, it is important to establish where you are now. A good indicator of this is to determine your current racing pace. For example if your last 10k was run in 40.30 then your average mile pace was 6.30, this can be used as a rough guide to determine your current training paces. If you were to increase your speed to say 5.45 per mile during the race, you would start slowing down due to the accumulation of H+ ions in your blood (not lactate which is a fuel source or lactic acid which does not exist), so one of the main goals of training is to improve your threshold pace by over stressing your body for short periods of time, with reps much shorter than race distance, but quicker than your average mile race pace (Interval Running). More up to date detailed explanations of how lactate works and explanations of lactate thresholds (LT1/LT2) can be found online at:
www.newintervaltraining.com and Lactate - A Phoenix Risen 2022
Mileage
To avoid stress related injuries, it is important not to increase the volume covered in interval sessions and the distance of runs at the same time and I would not advise you to increase your total weekly mileage by more than between 5-10% a month. Allow 4-6 weeks to get used to longer intervals and then start to add a couple of miles to runs but do not increase both together, otherwise the risk of over use injuries will become much higher. If you keep training through over-tiredness or a minor injury, you may end up having to take weeks off anyway, when the niggle turns into a serious injury. Rest and easy training between hard runs/sessions allows the body to compensate. Adequate training stress, followed by recovery running will allow the adaptations necessary for improvement to take place. To train hard on the key interval days, you need to be fresh! Your body needs time to adjust to the increased workload, the aerobic system will adapt to hard training and improve much quicker than the muscles, joints and tendons in the body. No rest and training hard, hard, hard, is a guaranteed way to get injured!
Your running programme needs to be structured to improve your race times, and ideally you should be running a minimum of 3 times a week to improve over any distance.
USEFUL LINKS.
Aerobic Led Training System
Running Fundamentals
drive.google.com/file/d/1c_8Qhh_TyCii4kISPKGc3XhUxDOXkr6F/view?usp=sharing
Tempo Running
drive.google.com/file/d/1DSnH1T3c2_ToDz73-Du0h1aJThpodiZE/view?usp=sharing
Arthur Lydiard Training
drive.google.com/file/d/1I-3yzhHhJGzOM4lPPI-HWJawag2dha5l/view?usp=sharing
J Daniels Running Lectures
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnAKD1Q8PRQ-lo2fMXbYdLyaJUHznbfvG
Peter Snell on Lydiard Training
drive.google.com/file/d/1C3bBI1fnQpL3HJ_0OncG5JbmwE1CVoUV/view?usp=sharing