WFC Runners: WFC Runners - Track Sessions

News

It's Monday night and I've just got in from a hot a sweaty plod around Winchester. What a beautiful weekend! I hope you all had a good one. In Poland we had the wonderful Magda and Adam competing at the Wings for Life Poland race. The concept of the race is excellent...you set off running and a while later a car starts chasing you. At first it starts off very slowly and slowly increases it's speed. When it catches you, you are out! The races are run all over the world (over 200 locations in 66 countries) and all start at exactly the same time. Madga made it to 14.4km before getting caught and Adam made it to 33.5km. Once again outstanding running from the Stachowiaks! For comparison the global winner ran an astonishing 89.85km!!

This week the Fit Club family turned out in force to do the #finishformatt run. There were 20 of us in total and the writeup can be found here: http://wfcrunners.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/wfc-runners-thursday-3rd-may.html

Thank you to all who came!

With the warmer weather the parkrun numbers were swelled with winchester breaking 400 for the first time! It also saw a number of park runner break their PBs including Tom, Karen, One R and Simons E and B! We also saw a stunning debut from Rueben, Mikaela's Son, who ran under 23 minutes aged 9! Cracking running everyone!!

I personally ran at Southampton parkrun with Elsie in the running buggy. There was a huge field of 1079 an we came in 540th position running 28:06. It was SO busy!! Elsie and I ended up having a buggy smackdown with another dad. it was neck and neck for the majority of the run, but we managed to out kick him in the finishing straight with a daring off road overtaking manoeuvre! All those sprint sessions finally paying off!!

Huge thank you to Catherine for writing up her experiences of the (re-arranged) Fleet Half. Here is her story...

Fleet Half - Catherine Westoby

A couple of years ago I signed up for Southampton half marathon before I could even run 5km. It was a bit stupid but I needed something to motivate me to get out and exercise. My brother who regularly runs promised he would fly over from Ireland to do it with me and made me start my training on Christmas Day 2015! I started slowly, running 4km, then 5km then 6km as a ‘long run’ every weekend. Increasing by 1km intervals every week helped me to get over the mental block of going anything further than 5km. Crossing the finish line of my first ever half marathon in April 2015 was one of the best feelings, as I never thought I could run for so long or so far. I also never knew I would get offered free jelly babies’ by bystander’s …bonus! Needless to say I instantly signed up for another!

Fleet half was the fifth half marathon I’ve run. I had gotten lazy with my running and needed something to work towards. I instantly felt better when I signed up. My training began and I was all set to do it in March this year…alas mother nature had different plans and an unseasonal flurry of snow led to the cancellation of Fleet half on 18^th March.

The rescheduled date of 29^th April came and much to my annoyance I woke up with a sore throat and congested. I was determined I was going to do it so I covered all bases and took anti-histamines, cough bottle and cold & flu tablets…. good thing there was no drug testing!

The race started heading downhill, which was lovely and likely fuelled with the caffeine in cold & flu tablets I set off much faster than intended. I got talking to one of Anna and Mike Hastie’s friends and didn’t notice the kilometres go by as we chatted. I then thought I better bid him farewell, as I was sure I wouldn’t make it past 10km if I kept such a high pace up. I had never been to Fleet before so had absolutely no idea what to expect but was pleased that it was a leafy route and fairly flat. There were some hills but nothing as bad as what we have to train on in Winchester. The climate was pretty perfect to run in, nice breeze and a few welcome drops of rain.

It was a very well organised race with plenty of signage, water and toilets on the route. I really enjoyed it and was proud I got over the line in 1:56:08, which I wasn’t expecting when I woke up feeling so rough and managed to pick up a blister on the way. I didn’t know what my chipped PB was…just that it was just under the 2-hour mark but having gone back to look at Southampton Results from 2017 I ran that in 1:56:52 not exactly enough to say I ‘smashed’ my PB but I’ll take it!

It was great having Mike and Anna also from Winchester Fit Club doing Fleet and also for my husband Allen for coming to be our cheerleader... even if we somehow managed to miss each other at each of the points he was standing. A lesson to take for future races is to discuss which side and where your support will be as I was dizzy from looking in the crowds and disheartened when I couldn’t see him. It was also worrying for Allen…. to the point that he went to the fist aid tent to check I hadn’t stacked it near the start. I did see him about 100 metres before the end, which spurred me on to give a sprint finish. Overall, I would highly recommend Fleet as an event and they did a great job to reschedule it.

Huge thank you to Catherine for her write up! If you would like to put pen to paper about any races you have done, please feel free to send them through to wfcrunners@gmail.com.

Monday was supposed to be the monthly Fit Club track session, unfortunately the track was shut because of the Bank Holiday!! We therefore had to cancel and it was a normal Monday Madness session instead. However, I thought it would be useful to talk a it about track sessions and how they benefit you as a runner.

Track Sessions

The best way to learn how to run faster times is to get used to running fast and track sessions are a fantastic was of building your speed. A one-paced strategy just won’t nibble away at that PB, whatever distance you like to run; so the best thing to do is practice. This means speed interval training and the track is the best place to execute these specific speed-enhancing sessions. For new runners, getting immediate and consistent feedback is critical to improving your ability to execute a specific skill. On the track, you can easily and accurately measure your pace every 100, 200, 300 or 400 meters. Once you start to develop a sense for the effort needed to run a certain pace, there is nothing to distract you.

Overall benefits of track speed sessions

A lot of runners like to incorporate track sessions into their training plans to focus on speed. Although it might not be everyone’s favourite session in terms of location and content, it is the perfect environment in which to focus on structured high intensity intervals to really hone your speed, fitness and running economy. There are three main benefits to speed training:

It improves your running economy. Essentially, shorter, faster repeats train your body to burn less fuel while going further. It’s like getting better petrol mileage for your legs.
It breaks up the boredom. Distances runners have to run a lot, and it’s more fun to get in some speed, knowing it will make you faster overall.
Short, fast repeats allow you to insert some volume of running at a pace that is significantly faster than race pace. If your goal is a 9:00/mile, you’ll do workouts at 8:10-8:50/mile, which allows 9:00 to feel easier.

There are three types of track intervals sessions that you can do. These are dependent on what you are training for. For example if you are aiming to improve your 5km pace, you will typically do shorter speed sessions. A focus on race distances of between 10km and 10 miles would mean you will probably look at the middle distance intervals and half marathon and above will focus on the longer distance intervals.

Short speed intervals

Typically short intervals involve sprints of 100m, 200m or 400m, basically no more than one lap of the track, with a suitable recovery in between. The idea is to boost your power and economy over a burst of short distance sprinting, which will ultimately help you maintain your marathon or longer distance race pace for longer. Over time you can extend the intervals and increase the number of repetitions, which will certainly improve your 5k speed. The key to success here is to make sure that you leave sufficient recovery time between intervals because each interval has to be run at the same flat out speed and intensity. If you don’t leave enough time to recover your speed will decrease and your ability to build power will be diminished. How you choose to recover between each sprint is up to you. You can either walk or jog as you prepare for your next sprint.

Here are some suggested Short Interval Workouts
6 x 100m with 50m recovery

6 x 200m with 100m recovery

6 x 300m with 150m recovery

6 x 400m with 200m recovery

Middle distance speed intervals

Middle distance sessions are generally anything from 400m to around 1200m and these intervals should be run at something close to your 5k race pace. These sessions are all about improving your lactic acid recycling capability and your ability to resist the effects of fatigue. Muscles that are tired just don’t perform as efficiently, so the longer you can maintain a certain pace without getting tired, the greater the likelihood of achieving a PB. As a general rule after each of these intervals, give yourself a recovery period of around 3 minutes to allow the body to recover sufficiently and then repeat the interval with the same intensity as the first. But again, the duration of your intervals and recovery periods will be dictated by your level and ability.

Here are some suggested Middle-Distance Interval Workouts
5 x 600m with 300m recovery

4 x 800m with 400m recovery

3 x 1000m with 500m recovery

2 x 1200m with 600m recovery

Longer distance speed intervals

Long distance sessions tend to be anything from 1600m upwards and they should be run at something approaching your 10k race pace. This is primarily an exercise in lactate threshold running, which means running at such a challenging pace that lactic acid starts to accumulate in the blood. It’s not like an eye-bulging sprint, but a sustained pace that makes conversation difficult and feels hard. If you can maintain that pace over a sustained period, the body’s ability to recycle lactic acid increases. Over time this will enable you to be able to run further, faster and for longer. Just as with all of the other intervals though, it’s important to incorporate a suitable recovery period before going again.

Here are some suggested Long-Distance Interval Workouts
10 x 800m with 400m recovery (Yassos....I will talk about these in a future blog)

4 x 1600m with 800m recovery

3 x 2000m with 1000m recovery

3 x 2400m with 1200m recovery

The track at Bar End is £3 for as long as you want, check their website for opening times. Also, worth noting that at weekends through the summer they will have athletics meets and on Tuesdays and Thursdays WADAC train there and have it booked out.

Fit Club Kit

Winchester Fit Club offers a range of training kit at reasonable prices. They are high quality and can be personalised. By using the kit you will also be helping us advertise Winchester Fit Club at local events.

Mike and Laura place orders at the end of every month and lead time is around 10-14 days.

If you are interested please speak to Mike or Laura, or email me at WFCrunners@gmail.com and I will pass it on!