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Coaching Runners Podcast

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Welcome to the Coaching Runners Podcast. I’m your host for this podcast.

The goal of the podcast is to help high school coaches broaden their knowledge of the craft of coaching and help them take their programs to the next level.

I interview coaches at all levels of the sport, as well as athletes, sports scientists, and medical professionals. These interviews, ranging in length from 60 to 120 minutes, are released on Sundays.

Most Wednesdays shorter episodes are released, featuring content from High School Running Coach and the Boulder Running Clinics.

If you have questions or comments, please email Jay at Jay@CoachJayJohnson.com.

Enjoy the show!

Q&A: Minutes vs. Miles? Can Easy Days Be Too Easy?

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What following is a transcript from the Run Faster Podcast. Thank you Jim – the four questions you sent were great and no doubt questions other readers and listeners have had. Click here to download a PDF of the podcast.

Hello, this is Jay Johnson and welcome to the Run Faster podcast. Today is a Q&A, so if you don’t like Q&As, you can fast forward. If you do like Q&As, that’s great. I hope you’ll enjoy this and that means that there’s no guest today. It’s just you and I. Okay? Four questions came from a reader. Jim. This was in response to a newsletter and I really appreciate these questions.

They’re rooted in a really good understanding of the information I’ve been putting out via the newsletters. I believe Jim has read Simple Marathon Training. If he hasn’t, I would be surprised given that these questions are in some ways rooted in the information in that book. I am going to come back to Simple Marathon Training at the end of this podcast in a little bit of a plug but more, and I’ll use this as an example.

I’m working with a couple new people who aren’t running the marathon and yet all of the things I believe in that apply to distance running, whether you’re a high school athlete training for the 1,600m or you’re an adult training for ultra marathons, it’s still the crux of it is in the Simple Marathon Training book. The marathon training is obviously different in that the focus on the long run and needing to utilize fat is important.

Okay, but I digress.

Here’s the four questions and we’ll see if you’re interested in listening further.

First question. ‘Do you always prescribe minutes to even advanced runners? If so, why?’

Second question. ‘Can you run your easy days too easy?’

Third question. ‘During your fundamental phase, do you see value in hill sprints as well?’

Forth question. ‘During your fundamental phase, do you see value in starting to progress a moderate speed long run in distance to prepare for marathon-specific training?’ [Read more…]

Aerobic Workouts: Progression Runs

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Progression runs are not only a great way to get a significant aerobic stimulus, they are also an indicator of your ability to run by feel. Let me explain.

Because a progression run has you running progressively faster throughout the run, you have to gauge your effort early in the workout. While you don’t want to run so slow to start this workout that you’re not being challenged, there is a tendency to run a bit too fast on the first segment of the progression run. You’ll have to speed up at three points in this run, so you have to make sure that in the first section you are being challenged, but running conservatively. If you are skilled at running by feel, this won’t be a problem, but if you’re still honing that skill then knowing what rhythm you can run and still be able to speed up three times will pose a challenge.

I really like a 50-minute progression run as the bread and butter version of this run. Do 20 minutes steady, 15 minutes a bit faster, 10 minutes a bit faster, 5 minutes fast but controlled. If you do a 10-minute warm-up and a 10-minute cool-down then you have 70 minutes of running. If you do LMLS before the run and SAM after the run then you’ll work out for 90 minutes, start to finish. This is a realistic amount of time to ask of even the busiest adult runner, let alone a high school or collegiate athlete training in the off-season. [Read more…]

Aerobic Workouts: Progression Fartleks

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Once you gain a solid foundation of fitness, there is a very good chance that this will be your favorite aerobic workout.

The workout is exactly as it sounds. You’ll be doing a fartlek that gets progressively faster, and the fartlek segments get progressively longer. Just like the fartlek workout I’ve described previously (click here) you will run two paces: “on” and “steady.” The difference in the progression fartlek is the the on portions will increase in length as the workout progresses. And you should be running faster as the workout progresses as well. Similar to the progression run, this is a great workout to get you mentally ready to run faster at the end of races (that is, running a negative split race).

The first progression fartlek is simply:

3/1, 3/1, 4/1, 4/1, 5/1, 5/1, 6/1, 8. So 3 minutes on, 1 minute steady, 3 minutes on, 1 minute steady, 4 minutes one, 1 minute steady, etc. The fastest running should come in the final 8 minutes of the workout. Most athletes run about the same pace for the first two 3-minute segments, speed up for the 4-minute segments, running this new pace for both 4-minute segments, etc.

Key point: Do not use your GPS and run pre-determined paces. This workout is designed to sharpen your skill of running by feel. You need to run this workout in such a way that the last segment has you running faster than all of the previous segments. And that will be a challenge as the 1-minute steady recovery will go quickly. Bottom line is that this is a killer workout and you’re going to be challenged. [Read more…]

Aerobic Workouts: Aerobic Repeats

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Most runners think that speed work is a key to gaining fitness and being race ready. While it’s true that you need to do some race pace work (use that term rather than speed work) to race to your potential, you need to have done weeks and months of challenging aerobic workouts first. Aerobic repeats are done entirely below your anaerobic threshold, which is different than workouts such as 10 x 400m with 60 seconds of walking, where you are maxing out the aerobic metabolism plus dipping into the anaerobic metabolism. The aerobic repeat workout is entirely aerobic and it’s the type of workout you want to be doing regularly in the foundational phase of your training.

4 x 8 minutes with 3 minutes steady is the first aerobic repeat workout I use with athletes. Totaling 41 minutes of high level aerobic running, this is a challenging workout, so long as you run steady rather than easy for the 3-minute segment. Yes, it’s slower than the 8-minute segment, but don’t think of it as a full recovery. By the end of the 3 minutes you should be thinking, “I wish I had another minute at this pace.” Do a 10-minute warm-up and a 10-minute cool-down to get 61 minutes of total running.

What paces should you run? I have no idea. I have no idea what your fitness is, so I can’t tell you what paces you should be able to run for this workout. What I can tell you is if you run by feel you’ll be able to execute this workout on the second or third try. The keys to this workout are as follows.

First, you need to make the first 8-minute segment very conservative. Do that and you give yourself a great chance of running faster on the next three 8-minute repetitions. [Read more…]

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