"Racing, together with sprinting in training, should not exceed 20% of distance run, and should probably be around 10-15%."
Look, we are not talking about 400/800 specialists here. This applies to all distance runners whose events are mainly endurance events and who race mainly long races.
Unless you want to improve 400/800 times, then only about 15% of your total distance should be fast.
So the secret of training for distance races is - SLOW DOWN for most of your training, so you can run further.
LSD – Long Slow Distance – should be the norm.
When I started serious marathon training in about 1973, at first I couldn’t run for longer than an hour – because I was running 16k in that hour. When I learned to slow down I could run for much longer, and much further. And that is when I started to get really fit.
I also discovered that such training helped all distances down to 1500 metres. And my 800 metre times only slowed by 3 or 4 seconds (from 1:57-ish to 2:00-ish) although I did soon stop running 800s regularly.
Later in the 1970s I would run the Cotter 18 mile up to an hour slower than some of my team mates – yet continue over the next few years to finish 10 to 20 minutes ahead of them in marathon races.
Slow down; run longer; and keep your sprinting/racing to only a small proportion of your training.
Training Principle #4 - Racing, together with sprinting in training, should not exceed 20% of distance run, and should probably be around 10-15%.
.
Look, we are not talking about 400/800 specialists here. This applies to all distance runners whose events are mainly endurance events and who race mainly long races.
Unless you want to improve 400/800 times, then only about 15% of your total distance should be fast.
So the secret of training for distance races is - SLOW DOWN for most of your training, so you can run further.
LSD – Long Slow Distance – should be the norm.
When I started serious marathon training in about 1973, at first I couldn’t run for longer than an hour – because I was running 16k in that hour. When I learned to slow down I could run for much longer, and much further. And that is when I started to get really fit.
I also discovered that such training helped all distances down to 1500 metres. And my 800 metre times only slowed by 3 or 4 seconds (from 1:57-ish to 2:00-ish) although I did soon stop running 800s regularly.
Later in the 1970s I would run the Cotter 18 mile up to an hour slower than some of my team mates – yet continue over the next few years to finish 10 to 20 minutes ahead of them in marathon races.
Slow down; run longer; and keep your sprinting/racing to only a small proportion of your training.
Training Principle #4 - Racing, together with sprinting in training, should not exceed 20% of distance run, and should probably be around 10-15%.
.
