

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

One Mile Training Plan

Looking past this endless winter and the upcoming ultra, I thought I'd put up my weekly plan for getting into 1 Mile racing shape again.

I'm currently in about 5:30 Mile shape:

Monday: 3 miles (23-26 minutes), preferably trail
Tuesday: 7 miles (about 55 minutes) with 5x1200 in 4:43 - 400m (walked)
Wednesday: 3 miles, preferably hills, with sprints
Thursday: 7 with 10x400 in 90 - 400m
Friday: 0
Saturday: 7 with 1 Mile time trial, plus 3x400 in 80-1200m.
Sunday: 9 (75 minutes) with 16x100 in 20.5-100m and last 3 miles in 21.

Not sure how I'll build into that. The faster paces and lower mileage could be a shock to the system.


Anonymous said...

What two workouts would you do to I prove your mile time if you we're only going to run twice a week? I was thinking a 10x400, 1' rest and a 20 minute tempo run. Thoughts?

SteveQ said...

A tempo run is almost meaningless for a miler. If doing only two workouts, it would depend upon what your goals are, but generally one workout stressing lactate tolerance and one stressing VO2max would be my choices - and that's what my Tuesday and Saturday workouts do. If you're new to the distance or slower than I am, I'd do one workout of long (400-600m) hills each week and the other one I'd alternate between repeat quarters at pace and time trials.

Robyn said...

Doing any weights in there? I would imagine that as you transition from endurance into serious speed, strengthening your posterior chain [more that running will] should improve speed and prevent injuries.

Tabatas might be good for developing VO2max and a final kick.

Colin Gardner-Springer said...

Is there a typo in your Tuesday workout? Seems like you'd need to be in sub-17 minute 5K shape (or very close) to get through that one, in which case the other days would be almost trivially easy (Saturday time trial excepted, of course).

Some day I'd like to try and train properly for a mile race ... in the past I've run them mainly on training for longer races (with some shorter intervals thrown in). It won't be this year though as I unfortunately have conflicts with most of the major mile road races.

Good luck Steve, always enjoy reading what you have to say!

Alene Gone Bad said...

Looks pretty intense, even if the mileage is short. Will be interesting to see how it pans out.

SteveQ said...

Colin, that is indeed a mistake, as 5:20 pace for 1200m repeats in a 5:30 mile schedule is nuts. I have it written down wrong twice, so I'll have to look up what it's supposed to be. It was originally 5xBrickyard Hill - I'm guessing it was 5x1200 in 5:00- 3(or4) min. recovery.

Robyn said...

And what are you going to do with all your free time? Does this mean we'll get more Evil Kitchen posts on your used-to-be-long-run days?

SteveQ said...

Colin, I made the correction. Robyn, the Tabata workout only works for people who are not in good shape to begin with; I plan to continue with my hills, trails, sprints, core and yoga - and hope that that and some drills will preclude the need for weight training; I won't have much extra time, considering that I haven't been doing my long runs, but I have plans to make the Evil Kitchen something from which people can make purchases.