In order to better understand the training program you will soon follow, I want you to have a picture of how the entire training year is organized. This will help you know what we are going to be doing in our training as well as why we are doing it – what we are trying to accomplish in our training.

BASE TRAINING (June-August)

During this training period, you will develop your aerobic capacity. The workouts you will be doing will train your body to use oxygen more efficiently to develop the energy you need to run fast. No single factor is more important to a distance runner than being aerobically powerful, that is, able to run fast while using a steady supply of oxygen. The workouts you do in this period of your training will develop more mitochondria in your muscles – these are the little "factories" in your muscles that produce energy. The more mitochondria you have, the more energy your body can produce and the faster you will be able to run over longer distances.

The runs in this stage of your training get progressively longer and, hopefully, faster. The key factors in the development of mitochondria are intensity of the exercise and duration of the exercise. Therefore, while you are doing your distance runs do them at a crisp pace and attempt to increase the distance or time that you can hold this crisp pace. Even our recovery runs are done at a faster pace than you may be used to. We start them out slow and build, getting faster and faster as the run progresses, until the last 10’-15’ of the run, when the pace is pretty quick. Because you only do 10’-15’ at the faster pace, the run is sill a recovery run yet can help in the building of mitochondria.

CROSS COUNTRY TRAINING (August-November)

Cross-country season is characterized by a still increasing mileage level as well as an increase in the intensity of training paces. In addition, you will start doing what we call over-distance intervals, such as repeat miles, repeat 2000s or repeat 3000s. These intervals are done at cross-country race pace or faster, with only moderate recoveries. They are designed to further help the body increase its ability to use oxygen efficiently. In addition, we start doing threshold runs (sometimes called tempo runs) on a regular basis. These runs train the body to run at a pace very close to race pace without producing too much lactate. You will learn to judge, by feel, what is the pace you can maintain without producing too much lactic acid and dying. Finally, during this part of the training season you will also do long hill repetitions. These are done to build leg power and prepare the body for the short, explosive hill work we do prior to track season. In a word, the cross-country season is devoted to building running strength. Without strength it is not possible to develop much speed. So the cross country season is really essential to a successful track season.

PRE-COMPETITION TRAINING (December-March)

This part of the training year is really an extension of the cross-country season. We continue to work on the over distance intervals we started in cross-country and pick up the pace at which we run them. Repeat miles and repeat 2000s are the intervals we use most often. We also continue to do threshold runs, again increasing the pace at which we run them. We shorten our hill work, picking up the speed with which we run the hills. Whereas we might run 800M-1000M hills during cross-country, we might now shift to 400M-600M hills at this point of the year. We are still concerned primarily with developing running strength – the ability to hold faster paces over extended distances, with relatively short recoveries. During January and February we might have an indoor race or two, but we primarily concentrate on training over racing. We also start to do a little speed-endurance training toward the end of this period. This is to get the body ready for the really intense speed work we will be doing during the competitive season. Our most common speed-endurance workouts are what we call float-kick sessions. You might run 3 x 1 mile with a 200-200 float-kick where you would alternates 200’s at a fast pace like 5:20 mile pace and "float" 200’s at a pace like 6:30-7:00 / mile pace. S this part of the training year goes on, we increase the pace of the fast 200’s and speed up the pace of the "float" 200s.

COMPETITION TRAINING (March-May)

This is the fun part of the training year. This is when you get to get on the track and race at your top level. The really hard part of the training year is over and we are really more or less fine tuning you to reach your peak performance levels. We drop our mileage and concentrate on speed and speed-endurance workouts. Everything is geared to fast running at this time of the year. Whatever success you have at this time of year is in the largest part due to the work you have done in the previous parts of the training year. To the degree that you have had success in the other parts of the training year, you will be successful in the competition part of your training. If you were not able to accomplish much in the previous parts of the training year, you will not be likely to accomplish much at this late stage.

Hopefully you can see that everything we do is built upon what comes before. It is all sequential and based on the laws of physiology. There are no shortcuts or magic secrets. Consistent, hard work and attention to detail are what bring success. If you do the work you cannot help but succeed. If you don’t do the work, you cannot succeed. The laws of physiology will either work in your favor or work against you – it all depends on how you work in each of the parts of the training year.

Taking a long look ahead for a moment, after the competition part of the training year is completed, we start over. We take a short rest and start with the base training again – hopefully at a higher level than we did at the beginning of the just completed year. The speed you have developed in track will help you train and race faster during the next cross-country season, which will help you race faster during the next track season. And so it goes. Everything builds upon what went before.