Update on my 800m training – Jan 2023

I feel like I’m in wash-rinse-repeat with my training at the moment. I keep cycling through the right training sessions yet the race results keep coming out the same. I can see some improvement in the stats and speed, yet when I race it is no faster. But this really is the secret to coaching – figuring out where to apply effort.

Coming into January I was working on top-end speed using short intervals lasting around a minute. The pace was intended to be at my calculated 3K-pace broken into sets. The sessions I did were made harder by high winds and I ran my 300s along a section of road which caught the brunt of it along with a gradual hill in the first/last 100 metres depending on which direction I was headed.

Illness strikes …

I had done two sessions at the end of December then my Sunday run went backwards. I wasn’t too concerned as a VO2 lull usually happens at the start of a new training block. But there was a concern – my sister brought a hacking cough to visit over the Christmas period and I fell under its spell. I wasn’t terrible but I was struggling. Yet after a couple of days, I felt slightly better and mistakenly did a 3^rd session which, while generally close to target, led me to scale back training as the coughing got worse. I missed the next session of 300s and focused on getting healthy, but was still running each day. By the following Monday it had gone. My mother is still coughing all these weeks later whereas mine was gone in ten days. This is why I believe in keeping fit and healthy especially as you get older. With a good aerobic system your body’s immune system can fight stuff.

Race taper

With only two weeks left to the rescheduled Christchurch Christmas 10K, I knew I needed to taper so I did one more session of 300s and then an even sharper session of 10x100m with 30s standing recovery aiming for 5:30/mile. I found them really easy which probably aligns with why I’m better suited to short distance than long.

A week ahead of the 10K, I went to Poole parkrun on what was an atrocious day. Very high winds and rain. It was absolutely pelting down as I arrived but had eased off by the start. Once again my speed seemed lacking as the first kilometre only came in at 4mins. Along the windiest stretch I ran a 4:20km – at 6’2” and broad I’ve got a large frontal surface area to be blown back. The finishing stretch headed into the wind a second time and having passed them earlier, five men now passed me as my pace dropped to 8min/mile and I felt like I was barely moving. My finish time of 21:02 was good enough to place 19^th. I’d guess it’s a long time since Poole parkrun’s 19^th finisher ran over twenty-one minutes. While I could make excuses for the wind and rain, the fact is my opening kilometre of 4-mins was fresh-legged and running with the wind; however much others may suggest a sub-20 was on the cards; it wasn’t.

Race

Christchurch 10K itself reinforced this analysis. The run was another cold morning and it was a shame to see the race not as well attended as it would have been before Christmas – less than 200 runners. Many of the others had deferred their places until next December because they’ve started marathon training or other races were taking place on the same day.

I set off quickly not holding back, but again my kilometres were all over four minutes. I reached 5K in 20:38 and then held on for the second half to finish in 42min08. I was somewhat disappointed as it was only fifteen seconds or so faster than last year. All my efforts from a year’s training had added barely anything. However my heart-rate monitor told a different story. Last year my average heart-rate was 159, on this day it was only 152. That’s incredibly low for me on any race. I’d expect it to be up around 161bpm. What it suggests is my fuel source is mostly aerobic but something is blocking me from running faster. When I look at the final miles the pace is consistently 7min/mile.

Finding the problem

On the Tuesday before the race I did a 7-8 mile Steady run averaging 7:17/mile. I felt blocked to run any faster, when I arrived home I realised I had put in more effort than I should have. On the Friday following the race, I did a Steady run at the beach – just letting my body pick up speed and it settled around 7:35-40/mile with heart-rate hitting 150ish. It was a completely comfortable run but slower than I expected.

The day after the Steady run at the beach I went to Upton House parkrun and ran 21:58 averaging only 149bpm. I started slowly and picked up pace as the run went on. But again, it was a big effort to get any much quicker than 7min/mile on tired legs.

A quick look at my old favourite, the Jack Daniels’ tables shows a VDOT of 49 results in a 20:18 5K and 42:04 10K. My Christmas Day parkrun was 20:27 so matches up quite nicely to this. Jack’s tables give a Threshold of 6:55, a Marathon pace of 7:24 and Easy run pace of 8:40. Each of these matches with what I’ve found in training.

Fixing the problem

All these facts – speed of steady runs, not being able to run quicker at parkrun or 10Ks, lower heart-rate when racing, feeling the pace at which I have to put effort in to go faster suggest my aerobic system is clogged and causing the anaerobic system to kick in too early.

In all my years I’ve learned that you have to trust the results from races, especially longer ones where speed counts less. However good things may feel in training or what the heart-rate monitor may suggest, race results are the best guide to what needs to be done.

I could probably just get faster doing Steady runs twice per week with easy runs or recoveries on other days but I want to experiment a little. I want to see whether I can do the same set of Threshold intervals I did this time last year but with more control. I’m going to stay at around 7min/mile as VDOT suggests it’s my Threshold and see if that filters things down.

The block of training I did last year through February and March went well and began with intervals at 6:50 pace and by the end I was closing in on 6:30; but when I arrived at April’s half marathon my legs had nothing. I’d overcooked it. This time I’m going to make sure I don’t exceed Threshold by focusing on my breathing. That will be my guide. Last year, I was pushing efforts to hit a target and it didn’t work.

I did my first session on Tuesday and having warmed up for two easy miles averaging 7:20/mile – not that far off the repeats pace – I began the session. I accelerated just past 7min/mile and the mile repeats then felt limited at around 6:55 – in line with Jack’s prediction. But, unlike last year, it never felt too taxing and I never had to push harder to hit similar numbers. I’m going to give it three weeks of these and see how things are progressing. If it isn’t going to plan then I’ll drop back to doing the Steady runs instead.

Update on my 800m training – Dec 2022

I reached December after three months of training to boost lactate threshold and began tapering for Christchurch 10K on Dec 11^th. My performance at Boscombe 10K on Nov 27^th was less than desirable but I knew I was still early in my taper. As I reported in November’s update, I ran easy all the following week and my legs began to freshen up nicely. It was quite a change to be simply going out and not doing any thing extra where usually there’s some kind of workout or longer steady effort each week. Each run was limited to forty mins and in the week before raceday I began to reduce this further. On the preceding Tuesday I found myself running five miles in under 36mins which is better than my last five mile race in 2019!

Anyone living in the UK this month knows how bitterly cold it got. Reading the forecast I had doubts whether the race would be on and come raceday I drove there with the car’s external temperature gauge reading -3C while slushy rain, or maybe it was snow, hit the windscreen. Walking to get my number presented a hazard in itself with the pavements very icy. I sat in my car shivering despite being wrapped up and, in a rare display of negativity, hoped the race would be called off. It was. Ice is my one major concern when it comes to running and I felt sure with the temperature still around freezing that it wouldn’t get warm enough to melt any on the course. The organisers came to the same decision.

I went for a run later in the day, taking it carefully around local roads then next day went to the beach to do some interval work. I figured the one place that wouldn’t be icy was somewhere with lots of salt water and sand!

That same day I received an email from the organisers saying they were hoping to reorganise the race in early 2023. While this was great news it also left me in limbo not knowing when it might be or how to train so I just continued with the easy / steady runs. On the following Saturday with the intervals out of my legs, my early morning run just flew. My forty-one minute run covered 5.8 miles and I barely got out of breath. The last mile and a half was on the roads by my house and I was hitting 6:35/mile. It felt great.

A week later, with Christmas Day falling on Sunday, my usual long run day, I ran down to Poole parkrun. My legs felt good but seemed to lack another gear. When the parkrun began my glutes fired in a way I’ve never known and I was propelled forward yet I didn’t seem to have the pace to break twenty minutes. I managed to put in some surges to overtake runners but could never up the pace for long and finished in 20:25. Slightly disappointing from the perspective of being fifteen seconds slower than last year yet a feeling that the run was a breakthrough as I’d jetted along. The run home felt comfortable and I found myself able to run closer to seven minute miles as I approached home despite having already put in 10+ miles. When I analysed my parkrun I found that while the kilometre splits reflected the small up and down gradients in the park, my mile splits came in at 6:31, 6:32, 6:33. A consistency suggesting I’d hit my lactate threshold but had nothing more to give. It identified the direction I now need to take training.

Looking back it’s almost six months since I did any dedicated speedwork. At the beginning of July I was passing my peak and finding my aerobic endurance starting to decline. All my training since then has been focused on rebuilding stamina and raising threshold. It seems I’ve been very successful at this but my fast-twitch have been deactivated in the process. This is very much expected and part of the periodisation process Arthur Lydiard coached his runners with back in the sixties.

The aim now is to start doing faster efforts lasting around a minute to rebuild anaerobic capacity and give me the speed to push harder at parkrun next time. The session I’ve picked is three sets of 4x300m with 45secs rest and three minutes between sets. I’ve done two sessions of this workout and the results have been good. I’m aiming for around 66-67secs per effort and on the first session, only two days after parkrun, I averaged 66½. The course I’ve picked is straight but does have an up / down nature to it and it’s been windy this past week. I’m finding the downs are closer to 61-62 whereas the ups are barely hitting target. The second time I did the workout my legs were fresher and I averaged under 65s and was able to hold back on the privileged efforts.

The news has come through that Christchurch 10K has been rescheduled for Jan 22nd so that’s what I’m now working towards with these. I think I should manage two more full weeks of them and then take it easier in the week preceding the race. After that I’ll look to go back to winter endurance training and prepare for an April half marathon. I’d also like to get to parkrun and run a quick one at some stage.

Update on my 800m training – Nov 2022

Winter training continues with building the aerobic base. In October’s recap I detailed the nine weeks of solid aerobic and threshold work I’d done since late August. Now my thoughts turned to faster anaerobic training at 5K and 10K paces in preparation for two 10K races.

Each week I ran kilometre repeats twice. On Tuesday’s it was 5x1K with 3-min standing recovery aiming for 3:48; Thursday was 6x1K with 200m jog recovery aiming for 4:00. I returned to an undulating course which runs alongside a main road. In one direction it is net downhill which are the 1^st/3^rd/5^th efforts while the uphill occurs on the way back. Despite November being full of high winds and rain, I couldn’t have had more perfect weather when I ran. Somehow every session was still, blue skies and sunny.

The sessions came in as follows:

*Date*	*Session*	*Total time*	*Avg pace*	*1^st*	*2^nd*	*3^rd*	*4^th*	*5^th*	*6^th*
Nov 1^st	5K-pace	19:21	3:52	3:48	3:54	3:49	4:00	3:50
8^th	(3:48)	19:10	3:50	3:43	3:51	3:48	3:59	3:49
15^th		19:32	3:54	3:48	3:56	3:52	4:02	3:54
22^th		19:46	3:57	3:47	4:01	3:53	4:05	4:00

3^rd	10K-pace	24:16	4:03	3:56	4:05	3:56	4:08	3:58	4:13
10^th	(4:00)	24:39	4:06	3:55	4:09	3:57	4:11	4:08	4:19
17^th		24:22	4:04	3:55	4:02	3:58	4:07	4:03	4:17

Alongside this I started doing some body weight squat work on Tuesdays and Fridays to try and strengthen up my quads and glutes. When I tried these last year I discovered my left glute was particularly weak; this time it was strong from the first session and I decided to build up my volume slowly. I even started doing a couple of minute’s worth of balance work on each foot to try and improve balance as well as taxing the kinetic chain up the leg.

The net result of all this was, as you can see from the sessions, my legs couldn’t cope with what I was doing and I started going backwards. “No matter” I thought as I’d deliberately planned a three week taper into Christchurch 10K on December 11^th.

The taper started on Sunday 20^th November when I ran a shorter (10-mile) long run on a flatter course than usual. It was the best time I’ve ever recorded on the route – under 1hr14 on a fasted run straight out of bed. It was a real confidence builder but in retrospect perhaps it was too much only a week out from my first 10K at Boscombe.

The first week’s taper included the final 5K session which, coming two days after the best ever long run, was a little disappointing. But I still had five days for the legs to recover before running the 10K on the Sunday. It turned out to a somewhat disappointing race as I clocked 42:49. I thought my legs were beginning to perk up when I ran in warm-up (I was amazed to see myself running 8:20 pace at 122 heart-rate) but the first kilometre of the race was only 4:07 and I never cracked four minutes. When I compare that to my training intervals I’d expected to have some sub-4s and be holding back in the beginning.

The question is why did I not run well? The conclusion I came to is my legs were carrying too much fatigue and muscle damage. Now that isn’t necessarily a problem as the whole point of tapering is to let the legs freshen up. The first kilometre of the race not being able to get close to what I’ve done in training really highlights the legs were under recovered.

Looking back over the past few years of running this has been something of a perpetual theme. Trying to run races or parkruns without a decent taper. Or to put it the other way round, doing too much training during the week which I’ve been unable to recover from. I’m always a lot more careful with runners I coach but my legs more often than not haven’t felt painful or tired by the time a race comes around so it hasn’t seemed like that’s the reason I’ve underperformed.

I think the biggest culprit has been pushing the Sunday long runs along rather than allowing the pace to come to me. It becomes a third workout for the week. When I was racing well a few years back; I never pushed the long runs just did them easy. Yet I’ve been arriving home and not feeling tired or hungry which suggested I hadn’t overdone things. I’m not some of the weekday sessions haven’t been too big either – I’ve been chalking up fifty miles per week and following the 80-20 rule and that’s where the limitations of using heart-rate monitors and formulaic training appears – there is no easy way to identify how much muscular damage you’re suffering other than by results.

Three years ago I started a run streak that lasted until April this year when I finally took six days off around the Bournemouth Bay half marathon. That’s another race that didn’t go well because my legs were heavy and fatigued. That was why I decided I needed a three week taper for Christchurch 10K.

But I also didn’t recover enough after the half marathon. The rule of thumb is to recover for a day per mile of racing yet a week later I was beginning my next block of training and doing hills for the first time in a couple of years, so I accrued more damage on other damage. It’s hard to look back and know when I last had a block of training where I wasn’t on fatigued legs. Maybe it was late October 2021 after an 800m time trial or the May before that. Whenever it was, it was a long time ago. If I go back to 2020 I did some very easy running when I started all of my 800m training.

As I said before, the point of tapering is to give the legs time to freshen up. Since last Sunday’s race, I’ve gone out and run easy for forty minutes each day. Genuinely easy or effortless runs as I like to call them. It’s felt lovely to arrive home from every run and feel like I could go round again. The avg. pace has gradually improved over the week – Monday 8:24, Tuesday 8:11, Wednesday 8:03, Thursday 7:47, Friday 7:31, Saturday 7:27. None of this has been forced, it’s just what happens as the legs freshen up. Yet I can still feel a little bit of missing oomph and spring from my legs, there’s still more damage to repair.

With the improvement I’ve seen over this past week the temptation is to believe the legs are ready to run and squeeze in one last training session. That’s the mistake I’ve been making in the past. My legs function best when I let the fast-twitch freshen up. I’d really wanted to go to parkrun and see where I’m at but I only get one shot at my 10K; whereas I can go to parkrun on any other week after the race so I’m just going to keep taking it easy next week and see how it goes at Christchurch. If nothing else I’ll learn a little more about the effects of my taper and how I can best peak for a race.

Update on my 800m training – Oct 2022

Offseason training continues. I’ve just put in nine weeks of solid aerobic and threshold work and it went both well and badly. The aim had been to improve my threshold from where I estimated it currently to be at 6:50 to 6:30 – so the plan was to do three weeks at 6:50/mile, three at 6:40, three at 6:30. Each three week block would be a progression of 6×1 mile, 4×1½ mile, 3×2 miles with a jog recovery.

The results came in as follows:

*Date*	*Session*	*Total time*	*Avg pace*
Aug 30^th	6×1	41:11	6:52	6:50	6:46	6:48	6:49	6:55	7:03
Sep 6^th	4×1½	40:55	6:49	10:13	10:16	10:12	10:14
13^th	3×2	40:52	6:49	13:28	13:42	13:42

20^th	6×1	39:39	6:36	6:35	6:36	6:35	6:37	6:36	6:40
27^th	4×1½	40:17	6:43	9:54	9:57	10:15	10:09
Oct 4^th	3×2	39:36	6:36	13:07	13:06	13:24

11^th	6×1	38:37	6:26	6:22	6:23	6:20	6:24	6:35	6:33
18^th	4×1½	39:13	6:32	9:40	9:47	9:48	9:58
25^th	3×2	41:11	6:57	13:27	13:56	14:21

While there were ups and downs in there, I rated the first 8 weeks as having gone decently and there was an overall improvement from where I began to where I’d reached. Not perfect but a definite improvement. You can see the average pace improving over the weeks in line with what I was hoping to achieve.

Then came week 9, it was atrocious – overall worse than week 1. There was a good reason for this. It didn’t simply come down to having screwed things up, I caught something and spent the week blowing my nose hundreds of times each day and waking up through the night. Whatever it was, it raised its head on the previous Friday where I was inexplicably thirty seconds per mile slower than the previous week over my nine mile course.

It lasted for 4-5 days and knocked my fitness backwards. I’m hoping this loss is temporary as the body recovers and returns all its hormones and red/white blood cell counts back to normal. I seem to be okay now.

I’ve written a lot about Maffetone training and while I don’t rate low heart-rate training as a method, I agree with the idea of a strong aerobic system being important to health. It was certainly the case for me. While my running went backwards for a few days, I never stopped being able to do the things I need to do on a daily basis. Once I realised I was under the weather, I cancelled my supplemental training (core work, press-ups etc.) and avoided other unnecessary activities. Basically I took it as easy as possible while still running every day. It’s debateable whether it was worth doing that 9^th workout? I wanted to give it a go and just decided to get the best out of it I could. I didn’t push to hit target once I saw how far off the pace I was.

The days of the training week have been building endurance to support this work. I’ve done an hour Steady run on Fridays and an 11.7 mile long run on Sundays straight out of bed. On week 4, I went to Sandhurst Memorial parkrun, where I ran a tired legged 20:48 in place of the Friday Steady run. The parkrun still came in around 6:40/mile which suggests my threshold is improving. Then my Sunday long run* was 12 miles up and down the Basingstoke canal towpath. The legs were naturally not up for a faster effort after an all-out parkrun.

Week	Friday 9miles		Sunday 11.7mile
1	1:07:45	7:32/mile	1:32:33	7:56/mile
2	1:07:17	7:33	1:34:31	8:05
3	1:04:26	7:13	1:30:54	7:46
4	—	—	1:38:54*	8:16*
5	1:05:17	7:18	1:30:22	7:43
6	1:04:15	7:11	1:29:09	7:37
7	1:03:13	7:08	1:31:49	7:52
8	1:08:31	7:37	1:31:54	7:52
9	1:05:38	7:20	1:32:30	7:54

What’s strange is my Fridays haven’t been quite as good as they were six months ago when I was doing a similar block of training yet the Sundays have been really pleasing. Almost every week has been a sub-8 avg. pace which is a level of consistency I’ve never seen before. It hints that I’m finally building the base endurance to a point where the body is recovering quicker.

All in all, it’s been a decent block of training through September and October and I achieved what I set out to do. I feel confident I can crack 40-mins in the 10K for the first time since 2015 and then later run a parkrun PB. I’ve got four weeks to the Boscombe 10K and then a further fortnight until Christchurch 10K which is the more likely course to break forty on. These first four weeks are going to see me running kilometres intervals with shorter rests to boost lactate tolerance and clearance and fire up the fast-twitch muscles enough to get me on pace. It’s time to go anaerobic!

Update on my 800m training – Aug / Sep 2022

In my last update I detailed that I had gone back to endurance training as all the hills and speedwork of the spring had toppled my aerobic base. It was somewhat disappointing but also necessary if I’m to sort out my 800m. I now realise I’m done for this year and it’s going to be a winter of building endurance and stamina. The introduction of hills and sprints was great fun but also introduced way too much naturally anaerobic fast-twitch muscle. As I haven’t been near these areas in years, things toppled quickly. Hopefully by next winter, my base will be bigger and I’ll be able to handle the anaerobic side better.

Having restarted endurance training in early July I found I wasn’t making much progress; then in early August I realised I was beginning to get aches and pains of the sort when you’re training too anaerobically. I had to reset AGAIN. My focus became to ensure I set off on runs at a slower pace and built up to my aerobic limits. That reset did the trick as the pains dissipated and the endurance began to build. Even so I was still a good 30+ secs/mile down on where I was back in March. It was a surprise to me how easy it is undo everything.

Mid-August I did an all-out parkrun at Poole and clocked 20:25. Quicker than running there at Easter (20:40) but slower than last Christmas (20:11). I cannot tell you how frustrated I am feeling at not being able to get back under twenty minutes. Another parkrun at Sandhurst Memorial parkrun in late September was even worse at 20:48 but it’s a tougher course and my legs were fatigued so that didn’t concern me.

I’ve entered a couple of 10Ks – Boscombe on Nov 27 and Christchurch two weeks later. I’ve gone back to using the training system I used on my only ever sub-40 run back in 2015. Controlled threshold work on a Tuesday, a Steady run on Fridays and a long run on Sunday. This is the same as I was doing in February and March this year.

My plan is to do intervals at Threshold pace (6:50/mile) for three weeks, then up the pace to 6:40 for three weeks and again to 6:30 which will take me through to the end of October. After that I’m going to do shorter intervals at 5K and 10K pace which will hopefully see me breaking forty minutes again. It’s an aggressive schedule but so far the body has been holding up.

Endurance-wise it took me until mid-September to get back to where I was in February. That said, my fasted Sunday morning long runs have all been coming in at a decent pace, usually sub-8 average for 12-miles, no stops. For whatever reason, I seem to be running these quicker than in February.

Possibly some of the drop off I’ve been experiencing is down to a change in running form. Since last October I’ve been working on my form using drills at least once per week and somewhere around late June, combined with the sprints I was doing, I began to feel I was running differently. Less hip rotation and more power from the glutes. Of course, using muscles that have never been involved in my running, meant they needed to be trained and quite possibly they had a lower lactate threshold due to this. Whatever it is, the form change is beginning to feel powerful at times and I just have to keep working at it.

Behind the scenes I’ve been wondering about whether I’m cut out for training like this. For all the miles and effort, I’ve put in over the years; my improvements have been sporadic. I’ve decided this winter will be the acid test. Hopefully when spring arrives next April, I will see a decent improvement in my half marathon time. If I don’t then I’m scrapping the endurance focus and putting my training time into working on speed and to see whether I can get my 200/400 times down, even if it’s at the expense of longer distances.

I’m going to give it a fair crack of the whip and train the best way I know how to. The one sticking point is I entered the London Marathon ballot yesterday not realising the race is in six months’ time (April). If this were to be the year I get a place then my training would have to look at lengthening my long run out to twenty miles. Even so I’d expect the training I’ve got planned, to fit in well with how I would need to train. We’ll see when the ballot results are announced at the end of October. I’m currently doing just shy of fifty miles per week and have been for the past two years so the base is there for whichever direction I need to go.

Update on my 800m training – July 2022

The intention entering July had been to get the final six weeks of 800m training done, using JackD’s schedule as a basis, then run a 800m time trial. It didn’t work out like that.

I did the first week and was a bit sluggish on a 3-mile tempo – aiming for 6:40/mile, I ended up averaging 6:54. Not great given I was running 6:48/mile average on similar session in mid-June but I had done sprints two days before so figured that might have left some fatigue in the legs. Two days on, I did 3x600m and only ran 2:05, 2:05, 2:12 where I’d been hitting as fast as 1:58 in training last year and was expecting to go faster – closer to 1:50.

The following Tuesday I did some 200s that came in around 5:20/mile whereas I’d been hitting as quick as 4:50 in April and then immediately went into a couple of individual miles. It was one of the hottest days of the year but I didn’t feel bothered by it. The first mile came in at 7:02 then a 2-minute standing recovery and my legs were like lead and I could only hit 7:28 in the second mile. I’d overcooked it. Peaked too soon this summer.

So that’s it, since mid-July I’ve gone back to recovery work and hour-long tempo runs to rebuild my endurance. The first run I did I covered 7½ miles at 7:46/mile pace. The fastest individual mile was 7:18 even though that was predominantly downhill. This really highlighted how much aerobic fitness I’ve lost. At the end of March, just before my half marathon, I was running 9 miles at 7min/mile, now I couldn’t even run one mile at that pace.

This has been the focus for the rest of July and will be through August – rebuild endurance. By month end, I’d reached the stage where I could average 7:25/mile and my legs were begin to run better but I’m still finding it a struggle to run faster aerobically.

But the focus of the last few months has been to recruit more running muscle and build my speed, I think I achieved and now I have to train some of that muscle to be more enduring. It’s somewhat frustrating to see myself go backwards like this but it’s what all elites go through. It’s difficult to build and maintain a peak for any longer than twelve weeks, I’d say I got 8-10 weeks.

The other thing I’ve been working on is strengthening with various exercises, including one legged chair squats, and my glutes seem to be firing and my core stabilising better during runs. I feel like I’m gliding over the ground more than I used to. In the short term this may also be a source of my problems – using muscles that have never been used before and needing to train them more aerobically. Hopefully as the body adapts to their introduction I will speed back up. Whatever it is, I’ve learned that the only way through this is to up the aerobic work.

Update on my 800m training – June 2022

Last update I mentioned improving top-end speed is the priority this summer even if it comes at the expense of other parts of training. I’ve been doing weekly sprint sessions which alternate between hills and on the flat. The general process has been one of starting with a small amount of sprint work and gradually increasing it. Back in April my first session was 6x8secs – a total of 48 seconds effort. The next week it went to 8x8s (64s), then 10x8s (80s) followed. This morphed into some 60m flat sprints which came in at just under 9-10secs each but only four of them to avoid overloading the body with the new type of effort.

The hills then lengthened to 10secs (x8 reps) that still totalled the same 1min20s of volume before pushing up again to 10x10secs (1min40s). On the alternate weeks, 80m flat sprints were taking around 12s and then a 100m in 15s. Back on the hills, a single 20s effort replaced the final two efforts of the previous 10x10sec and oh my, that was hilariously tough. I was good for the first 15secs but as I entered the new territory of the final 2-3 seconds, my legs became jelly and could barely propel myself. That set the stage for adding a 150m sprint (22+ secs) on the flats and then hills went all-in with 2x25sec. This was my biggest session to date at 2min10 of hills and they won’t get bigger. On the flat, the volume is topping out at 700-800m which fits nicely with trying to be 800m runner.

The latest session was 2x60m, 2x80m, 1x100m, 1x150m, 1x200m as it begins to tip towards speed endurance. The shorter efforts now barely tax me but the 150 and 200 were tough. Ideally I would have taken longer recovery times. A sprinter would usually be taking fifteen minutes recovery before attempting the 200m, I took six minutes. Woefully inadequate and I began to pay for it at the 80m mark as the legs tied up and co-ordination went. My hopes of a first recorded sub-30 sec were dashed.

The setting for these efforts are my local roads. There’s a couple of hills nearby, in fact it’s hard to find a decent straight flat stretch off the main roads. There is one round the corner from where I live which has a slight gradient in the middle so I’ve used that. Unfortunately because it gets busier later in the morning, I’ve been out at 7am doing the sprints which isn’t the best time to go with all-out efforts. With it being mid-June and the longest days, I was up at 5am for breakfast a couple of times to get something in before my sessions. I should add I followed the sprints with some other fast threshold-paced type running.

The results from the speedwork seem to be bleeding through and I certainly feel I’m getting more push in the first steps and technique is improving. While the GPS isn’t accurate on the shorter efforts – it takes around 15-16s to get down to the faster paces – it has recorded me running at 3:35-3:40/mile on a couple of occasions which is scarily only as fast as the world record pace for the mile! But go back a year and I was struggling to run much quicker than 4:45/mile pace, so there is improvement.

The only downside of these sprint sessions is they take 3-5 days to recover from. Quite often my Wednesday sessions were a letdown and off target pace; eventually I ditched the Friday interval session in favour of a Steady run.

Nominally I’m following JackD’s plan and I finished off the 3rd phase of training with one of my favourite sessions … 600m effort in 2:03, 30s standing recovery, 200m in 37secs … three times over with a 7-min jog recovery in between.

When I did this session six weeks ago near the end of May my legs were simply too tired and I couldn’t get below 2:10 / 39s for the 600 / 200 split, I totalled 8min39 for the 2,400m.

This time around my times were 2:02 / 39 … 2:05 / 37 … 2:07 / 36 – 8:06 total time. Unfortunately the scheduled day saw me running into a hefty headwind for over half of the 600m efforts. I think they would have been on target on a calmer day, but it did give me an advantage on the 200s although I think I’d have been hitting those numbers anyway.

All in all, it’s been a good month with fitness improving and the goal of improving speed beginning to take place. I can’t believe I’m already down to the last six weeks of training before I attempt another 800m. It’ll be almost a year since the last one by the time I get around to it. I’m not expecting miracles but I am looking for a decent improvement over last year’s 2:49.

Update on my 800m training – May 2022

Was it the hills? I entered the month feeling positive after some very quick short intervals in April but throughout May my legs have struggled. I started doing hills in April to build speed and they’re certainly feeling stronger but they also tend to take a few days to fully recover.

I’ve never been a decent sprinter but I think I probably should have been. Firstly because I find it easy to put on muscle, and secondly because I’ve never found it easy to be good at distance running. Once I got on Strava I began to see how often quicker runners are able to get better results despite training half as hard as I do. I seem to lack the natural aerobic capacity that many distance runners have.

This is all behind the reason why I decided to give 800m running a try. It’s an event that still needs decent sprint speed backing it up. But when I started following a plan by Jack Daniels eighteen months ago, it didn’t do much for speed recruitment and I made a deliberate decision not to overdo things as I found it easy to run quicker than expected. This again is another reason why I think I’m better suited to short distance racing.

Even so I felt my top-end speed was missing as I could barely get my peak speed below five minute mile. Last February, I started looking at how to improve cadence in the hope this would improve my form for sprinting and top end speed. Six months ago I started doing ten minutes of sprint drills twice per week to clean up my technique. It’s made a huge difference.

So here I am doing Summer Training to build speed and peak for my next 800m attempt. With my aerobic base enabling me to run seven minute miles for an hour in the winter, I decided it was time to introduce hill and flat sprints on a Monday to recruit more running muscle and get faster at the top end. It seems to be working.

Six years ago, I was doing the same set of workouts and my times then for 60m, 80m and 100m approx. were 10½ secs, 12 secs, 16½ secs. Admittedly I tended to do these after another session but this year I’ve recorded times of 8.75s (60m), 11.5s (80m), 14.6s (100m). A definite improvement and fairly good considering I’ve barely done anything like this in the past half-decade and I’m now in my fifties.

I also found on the most recent block of flat sprints I was hitting some high cadences with the two highest values coming in at 262 and 278 on different efforts. I’m slightly wary of whether the cadence monitor is wholly accurate but if it is these are genuine sprint numbers. Again this backs up the belief my form is improving.

The rest of May’s training was something of a slog to hit target paces. Quite often I missed my faster targets but the legs always seemed sluggish after the sprints. This resulted in a decision – I’ve decided though that working on speed over this summer is the priority so if other sessions are a little behind because of that, so be it. Overall my numbers are still an improvement over where they were a year ago.

On into June. This is the hardest block of training. I’ve felt tight and slow on recovery days but hopefully I’ll get through it!

Update on my 800m training – Apr 2022

April has been a month of weeks! Following on from Bournemouth Bay 1/2M on the 3^rd, I took a few days break. That was the first week. Then I started training and it was a heavy-legged slog culminating with a not-too-great parkrun. That was the second week. It was followed by three workouts in a week and the legs finally beginning to lighten up. That was the third week. And finally, last week I’ve begun to feel back to where I was in March aerobically.

I’ve been wondering how to approach this block of training. While I liked the structure of JackD’s 800m training plan which I followed for two cycles last year, I didn’t feel I improved enough off of it. Having worked on my endurance all winter, I felt I would be safe to begin working on speed and wanted to use some of the concepts which Steve Magness talks about in his book – The Science of Running. Most notably this would involve hills and breaking the interval work into sets of 800m.

Hills

Mondays has become hill sprint day. These are the tool espoused by Magness for improving speed and recruiting more muscle. It’s all about short, all-out efforts lasting only 8-10 seconds followed by long recoveries. By working as hard as possible on each effort, you maximise the speed and recruitment without having the legs tie up with fatigue. The long recoveries then allow the energy systems to recharge for the next effort.

My legs have lost a lot of muscle and size over the past ten years. When I was in my early twenties, the gym report states my quads were around 26”; these days they’re 23” at most. It’s no surprise my legs were so strong because every sport I played I went at full-force. Playing squash was lunging two or three steps in each direction. Running round a football pitch or basketball court was accelerations of 5-10 metres to close down an opponent. Playing volleyball gave my legs a good workout with constant jumping at the net or squatting down in the back court. When I went for a run, I started off at a sprint and held on to puff my way round. All of that is the antithesis to how I’ve been training for the past five years.

I followed Magness’ plan back in early 2016 but they were usually done on tired legs, after an hour effort run along the beach promenade. My training progressed during those months but I was doing other good effort sessions at the same time so I can’t quantify how effective they were.

I’ve certainly felt good on this year’s efforts and they have combined well with improved running form from the sprint drills I’ve done since October. The following day is always a little slow but that’s to be expected with the muscle fibres recovering.

Short intervals

My intention was to do my own version of speedwork on Wednesday and Fridays. For the first two weeks I decided to follow Jack’s plan of 200s and 400s until I was ready to implement my own ideas.

The reality is when I started doing these sessions, I found my pace was off-the-charts compared to last year. Having not run a recent 800 time trial, I had nothing to base my training on so I estimated, based on my half marathon training, that I was likely in around 2:36 form and therefore should be running efforts at 43secs per 200m. The first session of 200s all came in at 39-41secs despite having tired legs. The following week I was aiming for 1:26 for 400s and found myself running a couple at 1:17 and a couple at 1:22. This was a huge improvement over the same session in training last year when I was hanging on for 1:30-32. The previous cycle it was 1:35-36 hanging on.

Last year I would feel tired after sessions; this time I’ve been running far quicker than expected but not feeling torn down afterwards. Given I was so far ahead of my intended pace I’ve decided too stick with Jack’s plan and not change anything around in terms of the efforts and splitting it into sets. The only change I have made is not to adhere so stringently to the warm-up and cooldown durations.

The final session of April was two sets of 6x200m with 10-min jog recovery between. The first effort of the second set came in at 35.2 secs which is the fastest I’ve done. Compare this to the 48-secs I was running when I began 800m training in December 2020. It wasn’t just one fast effort, all but one effort was sub-40 and the average came in at 38.16sec.

Near disaster

Despite my success, I’m slightly concerned I may be overdoing these. At parkrun after the successful 200s session, my left Achilles ached and then popped on the Sunday long run. My first thought was “oh no” but I could run without pain and have just seen it as a warning sign. I’ve probably been doing these efforts closer to 800m pace than the intended mile pace and during May, I’m going to focus on pacing these at around 41½ sec per 200 (5:30 per mile).

Actual disaster (minor)

On arriving at Poole parkrun in mid-April, I cinched on my watch and the strap broke. I had to carry it all the way round. That evening I went away to a birthday party and danced until midnight. Next morning, waking early at 5:40am in a strange bed I went for my long run up the Basingstoke Canal. I intended to do my standard 10-12 mile run lasting 1hr20-40 and popped the watch in my back pocket. I didn’t mind running without the numbers but I had no indication of how fast or how far I was going. My legs were so tired from the all-out parkrun and a night of dancing that it was a trudge. The final miles back I gutted through, working mentally hard to avoid the urge to stop and walk. When I arrived back and pulled the watch out of my short’s back pocket, I was stunned to see I’d run for 2hr05 and 14+ miles. No wonder it was tough – that’s my longest run in time and duration in almost two years.

Can’t decide whether to change both parts of the strap!

I carried my watch around in my hand for the next two weeks. It’s impossible to know when to start or stop efforts in an interval session if you’re carrying it in your back pocket. What I noticed is the outsides of my shoulder aching towards the end of runs. I’m not sure if it’s down to carrying the (very light) watch with arms/hands locked in position or whether it’s just the effort of the sessions. I have had shoulder aches at other times when I’ve run fast. Nonetheless it got me wondering about those people who carry bottles which are much heavier.

It’s been a great month of running. I’m not sure whether it’s the hills or the winter training but something has improved about my running since the last cycle. I’m sure it’s down to improving my aerobic system over the winter and closing the gap between the fast paces and my general runs. Where last year the gap was the better part of 3-mins (9-min mile vs 6-min mile) now it’s closer to 2-mins (7:30 to 5:30).

I’m certainly finding it easier to recover between intervals and be ready for the next effort. But I also wonder if that’s partly because they’re being run quicker! Running an effort in 1:17 compared to 1:30 a year ago may not seem much but it’s 15% less time. Friday’s intervals, for example totalled around seven and a half minutes, a minute less than last June and ninety-seconds less than six months before that. While the individual efforts may be using as much concentration and energy, overall there’s less to recover from. This is why elite runners end up doing bigger workouts, they can do more as they get fitter. I could theoretically add a couple of more efforts to be doing the same volume of work as last year.

I’m looking forward to May’s training. My focus is on getting the pace right and ensuring I get enough recovery to avoid any injury.

Update on my 800m training – Feb-Mar 2022

To recap: since my last 800m time trial I’ve spent the winter following the traditional offseason regime of an 800m runner. Building the endurance base while slotting in some fast parkruns to try and build leg strength / speed replicating cross-country racing.

After a couple of months my parkrun time began to drop but it was also clear my top-end speed was limited. This was never a problem for me when I was younger because I used to throw myself into every run, play sports with lots of sprints / jumps and do circuit training. But my thighs have lost 3-4 inches over the past few years by focusing on endurance over speed and I lost over a stone during 2021 (188lbs down to 174lbs).

By end of January, I’d improved my speed for a kilometre interval to 3:42 and moved back towards endurance work in preparation for the Bournemouth Bay Half marathon which takes place this Sunday. The plan was as follows:

Monday – 30-min recovery run fasted straight out of bed followed by ten minutes of form drills.
Tuesday – session to work on half marathon pace (aiming for 6:45-50/mile).
Wednesday – 40-min recovery run plus ten minutes of form drills.
Thursday – 1hr easy run around Poole Park – mostly flat.
Friday – an hour Steady run around the area – 7+ to 9 miles.
Saturday – easy parkrun. As I no longer wanted to work on speed, I only planned to do one all-out parkrun about midway through these last eight weeks just to keep it ticking over.
Sunday – while in an ideal world I would have lengthened my standard 11.7 mile long run out past the half marathon distance, I made a choice not to. I’m interested to see whether the last mile or so of the half is a debacle or whether the rest of the training sees me through.

Tuesday

I began February with a couple of 10K-paced interval sessions of 6x1K with 200m jog recovery. These were a follow on from the 5x1K with standing recovery I’d done throughout December and January. By using a shorter jogging recovery, I’d begin to improve the aerobic functioning of the muscle fibres.

	Effort 1	2 (uphill)	3	4 (uphill)	5	4 (uphill)
1-Feb	4:01	4:12	4:09	4:16	4:17	4:23
8-Feb	3:58	4:04	3:58	4:10	4:04	4:10

6x1K with 200m jog recovery intervals

My notes show the first session was “trying to fit in one session too many over the past five days” and when you compare the second week’s numbers there’s a clear improvement.

I’d like to have repeated this session for a few more weeks but I needed to move onto working at half-marathon pace where the aim was to do much longer intervals at a slower pace (4:12 – 4:15 per km or 6:45 – 50 per mile). The jog recoveries were a quarter of the distance covered.

		Effort 1	2	3	4	5	6	Total	Pace
15-Feb	6x1mile	6:49	6:52	6:52	6:54	6:45	7:02	41:14	6:53
22-Feb	4×1½ mile	10:02	10:09	10:01	10:11			40:23	6:44
1-Mar	3×2 mile	13:16	13:19	13:28				40:03	6:41
8-Mar	2×3 mile	19:42	20:24					40:06	6:40
15-Mar	3×2 mile	12:54	13:04	13:12				39:12	6:32
22-Mar	4×1½ mile	9:55	9:59	9:56	9:58			39:48	6:38

While the first week was tough and I barely got on pace for the efforts, the following weeks saw a phenomenal improvement as the distance lengthened out and the body adapted. A couple of the sessions were run on windier days 7-15mph and, while the course I use was relatively flat and on a figure of 8 loop – running into the wind was sapping.

The standout sessions were the 4^th and 5^th weeks where the 3-mile efforts were worth 20-21 minute parkruns (back-to-back); and then the following week on the shorter three 2-mile efforts the pace came in at 6:27, 32, 37 avg. The final week was slightly disappointing as I didn’t get close to matching it but I think my legs were struggling after an amazing Steady run on the previous Friday.

Friday

With the 7½ mile Steady run I’d been doing through January now taking 53-55 minutes, I decided to go back to an old 9-mile route from home along Gravel Hill and through Canford Heath that would be more challenging due to a long uphill on miles seven and eight.

	Run Time	Pace per mile	Fastest mile
11-Feb	1:05:54	7:17	6:57
18-Feb	53:23*	7:10	6:43
25-Feb	1:03:38	7:08	6:39
4-Mar	No steady run
11-Mar	1:04:43	7:13	6:40
18-Mar	1:02:36	7:01	6:35

Notes: 18-Feb run round the shorter 7½ mile route due to Storm Eunice with its 30mph winds that day. The run itself was never too bad. No steady run on 4-Mar as fast parkrun the next day.

The last time I ran this route in April 2020, I set a course record of 1hr08+ so the first run at 1hr06 was a significant improvement. To be running 7min/mile pace by the end of the training block is testament to how this run combined with the Tuesday Threshold session has made a significant improvement to my endurance and stamina.

Saturday

The only fast parkrun came in at 20:48 at Upton House. It was an extremely windy day and my legs were still fatigued from the Tuesday session. So it was only a small five second PB but I’m sure at Poole with fresh legs I’d happily be sub-20.

Sunday

The long run has continued to be early on a Sunday morning usually at 6am and always fasted, straight out of bed.

Having set a course PB on 28-January I was stunned by how badly the following week went. My legs were absolutely gone and barely had any pace. I think it was down to the change in training phase but gradually as the weeks went by the speed quickened up on these despite doing a challenging Friday session each week.

	Run time	Pace per mile	Avg HR
30-Jan	1:28:28	7:35	147
6-Feb	1:42:09	8:43	139
13-Feb	1:39:30	8:29	135
20-Feb	1:37:23	8:20	138
27-Feb	1:33:07	7:57	144
6-Mar (parkrun on Sat)	1:34:15	8:04	137
13-Mar	1:32:17	7:52	144
20-Mar	1:31:55	7:51	136
27-Mar (10-mile on flat)	1:15:32	7:28	—

I finished off the training block with a 10-mile run last Sunday up on the flat past Bournemouth Uni, through Winton and back through Kinson. At 7:28/mile it was the fastest Sunday long run I’ve ever done and a real confidence booster ahead of the half marathon.

Mileage

The weekly mileages during this period have been 47, 51, 52, 50, 52, 51, 50, 47 miles for a total of 400 miles in two months. This has been by running every day of the week and accumulating 6 – 6½ hours training time each week. More often the weekly structure has seen Tuesday totalling 10-miles, Friday 9-miles and Sunday almost 12-miles for 60% of the weekly mileage.

Half marathon on April 3rd

I was really pleased with this block of training as preparation for the half marathon – I think there’s a high probability of breaking my 1hr31 PB if conditions are good. I’m hoping to break the 1hr30 but the legs have felt fatigued and I left my taper late.

Even so, the whole point of the past six months was to build a bigger endurance base during the winter ready for another round of 800m training and I’ve certainly done that. I think I’m at the fittest I’ve ever been, it’s just a case now of proving this with race times.

With this improved aerobic base, I’m hopeful I can now begin to push the speedwork harder. I’d shied away from running efforts too fast previously as that usually undoes my training, resetting my fast-twitch muscle to anaerobic and precipitating an aerobic rebuild.

I’m not quite sure how I will train in April. I need to give myself at least a week of recovery running after the half marathon and I’d like to see where my parkrun time is at. After that, I’m intending to resume 800m training and while I may use JackD’s sessions as the basis of my training, I’m going to tweak them to try and help improve my top-end speed. Building leg speed is becoming a priority and I may even start doing some hill sprints – I’m just nervous about that because when I did them two years ago, everything went backwards!

Anyway, let’s see how the half marathon goes and leave the future until after that.

Illness strikes …

Race taper

Race

Finding the problem

Fixing the problem

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Hills

Short intervals

Near disaster

Actual disaster (minor)

Share this:

Like this:

Tuesday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Mileage

Half marathon on April 3rd

Share this:

Like this: