Aileen Morrison (Ireland)
Aileen's coach Chris Jones not only coaches triathletes, but is also the coach of the current European cross-country champion Fionnuala Britton. She opened her season at Stanford University with a 10K run of 31:29.
Chris cautions that prior to doing the workout series, you need to have spent time developing good aerobic capacity and excellent endurance as well. Once those items are accomplished, the workouts are completed as a progression. These are considered event-specific, preparing for racing. The sessions are "carefully managed" and run at a velocity of 100- to 110-percent of vVO2max.
Each session includes a warm-up of 10 minutes of easy jogging, then another 10 minutes of athlete-specific paced warm-up. This is followed by drills and strides. The main set of each workout follows:
- Session one: 6 x (2 x 400 meters, rest 2 minutes between 400s and take 5 minutes break after the second 400)
- Session two: 5 x (2 x 600 meters, rest 2 minutes between 600s and take 5 minutes break after the second 600)
- Session three: 4 x (2 x 800 meters, rest 2 minutes between 800s and take 5 minutes break after the second 800)
- Session four: 2 x (2 x 1000 meters, rest 2 minutes between 1000s and take 5 minutes break after the second 1000)
"Rest" is defined as easy and active movement. "Break" is full recovery.
More: The Basics of Good Running Form
The overall aim is to not increase the velocity but rather extend event-specific speed you are aiming to develop.
Once you have established your goal velocity and distance, you can build up the amount or again look at an increase velocity in line with the desired performance improvements.
Chris has found that the warm down from these sessions is crucial and emphasis is placed on warm down and recovery from the session. Immediately after the session, easy jogging is done until blood lactate is down to an acceptable level.
In Fionnuala's case, the warm down is 40 minutes. Additionally, any day that one of these sessions is completed, Fionnuala will do an additional 40 minute run, or rather a "super slow jog" to assist with regeneration.
More: 3 Workouts to Improve Your Run
Look for more workouts from world class coaches in upcoming columns.
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