Training is set on a four week rotation where the fourth week is easier to allow your body to recover as it is not possible to work hard all the time without risking illness and injury. This will be altered when races need to be fitted into the plan so that important ones fall in easier weeks so you are fully rested for competition.

Then the amount of work to be done in a hard week is decided. This will generally mean that you will be aware of the numbers of each of the sorts of sessions that you will be doing in a week. For an experienced athlete, running at a good club level this might mean something like the following.

• Monday - Circuits + Run
• Tuesday - Track Session
• Wednesday - Weights
• Thursday - Track Session
• Friday - Rest
• Saturday - Race / Run / Track Session
• Sunday - Rest

Although this programme is set, it is up to the individual to complete what they can, if you need to change the day that you do a certain session that is fine, just make sure you record the change in the comments box. It should be pointed out that if you change the days of sessions you should try to avoid doing two of the same sorts of sessions on consecutive days if possible.

Once the outline schedule is set we need to concentrate on specifics. All sessions are designed to progress you through to your best performances during the competition phase of the year. Rather than specifically categorizing different phases of the year (eg General Phase, Pre-Competition, Competition etc) the aim is to gradually progress the athlete from general fitness work through to event specific work as the year progresses in a way that doesn’t involve a noticeable change in emphasis from week to week.

One point to be made here is that when someone first starts this program the aim is to bring their fitness up to a good level through their road runs, circuits and weights, whilst their track sessions are deliberately easy (or even very easy!). This emphasis changes throughout a year until the situation is reversed. Don’t worry if you think the track work is not pushing you at the beginning – equally if it is, it will just be until you get used to the speed of it, the quantity will never be that great to start with.

If you feel that the target times that are being set for you are far too easy, please don't beat them by huge margins as they are set to help you gradually improve. If you work to hard to soon, the risk of injury is greatly increased - many athletes have learnt this lesson to their cost over the years.

You should aim to be just under the target time for each of your runs.

As far as the running sessions are concerned there are six different sorts. You will become familiar with these as you are going along. Some of them are done more often than others according to their level of importance. The six types are

Running Sessions

• Bread & Butter - Here you run the same distance per repetition throughout the year. Although often pretty hard the main aim of this session is to get some quality running done on a regular basis to get the session “under your belt” or “banked away”. These sessions form the backbone of the training.
• Decreasing Distance / Increasing Speed - These sessions are used to simulate racing conditions in the summer. Earlier in the year they are a lot slower and the early runs in the session provide useful over-distance work in the case of sprinters. For the longer distance runners, at the start of the year we run these as a continuous run with the aim being to gradually pick up the pace as the run goes on.
• Speed / Speed Endurance - High quality runs, usually run quicker than race pace.
• Distance Reps (Short) - High quantity session – here lots of short reps are performed at a speed usually well slower than race pace.
• Distance Reps (Long) - Similar to above, in that the total distance run will be quite long, but here the reps are significantly longer.
• Top Speed - Only used for sprinters the aim being to work on the athletes absolute top speed with no elements of endurance whatsoever.

This is a rough outline of what we hope you will think is a very effective training program. It is a truly personalised training scheme, set to help achieve your aims by setting sessions that reflect your fitness and ability at any particular time. The success of the program relies on our having time to set your forthcoming sessions with full reflection of what you have achieved to date. To this end, we would ask that you fill in your time and comments regularly. As usual if you have any further queries, please feel free to e-mail.