Coaches Corner

 Declan Horgan, Senior Coach

March, 2008

Dunboyne AC Training Schedule up to Dunboyne 4 mile Road Race on 30th March
Contact
Week 1
3rd - 9th March
Monday
Rest
Tuesday
5*1000m (or 5*800m) in around 3:40 … off 6 min intervals ==> 2:20 recovery
Wednesday
Rest
Thursday
20 mins Tempo run - Steady Hard, no racing (plus 15 min warm up & warm down
Friday
Rest or 40-45 min (or 6 mile) easy run
Saturday
50 min run, steady, preferably with lots of hills
Sunday
60-65 min run, very easy - distance not important
Week 2
10th - 16th March
Monday
Rest
Tuesday
Pyramid Session (2,3,4,4,3,2,2) with 1 & 2 min recover. More Strength/Fitness work
Wednesday
Rest or 5 mile easy run
Thursday
10 * 300m + 2 min recovery (Need to break into groups to ensure recovery) - Build race speed & efficiency
Friday
Rest or 40-45 min (or 6 mile) easy run
Saturday
50 min run, steady, preferably with lots of hills/Rest for those running Athboy race
Sunday
65-70 min run, very easy - distance not important/20 min jog for those running Athboy Race
Week 3
17th - 23rd March
Monday
Rest/Athboy 5 mile (rest yesterday & tomorrow if racing)
Tuesday
5*1000m (or 5*800m) in around 3:40 … off 6 min intervals ==> 2:20 recovery
Wednesday
Rest or 5 mile easy run
Thursday
12 * 300m + 2 min recovery (Need to break into groups to ensure recovery) - Build race speed & efficiency
Friday
Rest or 6 mile run
Saturday
6 miles - 1 mile easy, 4 miles @ just below your race pace, 1 mile easy - Not too hard, build confidence.
Sunday
40 mins easy
Week 4
24th - 30rd March
Monday
Rest
Tuesday
10*400m @ your race pace. 90s recovery after each - Again break into groups.
Wednesday
Rest
Thursday
15 min warm-up, 10*300m strides + jog 100m, 15 min warm-down
Friday
Rest
Saturday
20 min jog
Sunday
The Big Race - 4 miles in your new PB


 February, 2007
The Club that Trains together...???
"Week 10 10*3min+ 1 min recovery     " if you are not getting these TXT messages on your phone each week send me an email at: Declan259@eircom.net with your mobile number.
Tuesday & Thursday training sessions are going strong, a great group of 31 were reported one night. Long may it last. Please send your comments (good and bad with any new ideas) to the email address above, so I can continue to vary the training to suit your needs and wants.
So far I've been concentrating on a program that keeps everybody together. The aim of this is to continue to cater for all standards. This is where the timed interval sessions come from. Everybody gets the same recovery and everybody works as hard as others and so everybody benefits and gets fitter. Some speed merchants were seen running around the perimeter just to stay within the group- Good on you Phelim. Lately, due to popular demand,we've began setting defined intervals on Tuesday's. For now, I'll try Tuesdays to be roughly longer intervals of set distance (longer for faster runners), eg. 800m & 1200m (again everybody does roughly the same time 4-5 mins) with similar recovery (1 lap say). On Thursday's then we'll work on Speed (shorter) and stick to the timed interval.
For anyone interested in reading up on the distances they should be covering in set times (or times for set intervals) let me refer you to http://coacheseducation.com/endur.htm and some articles by a very renowned coach Jack Daniels. Two important points I've taken (from his book "Daniels' Running Formula") are that there is no real benefit in intervals of more than 5 mins: On this our sessions won't go over the 1200m mark. Secondly, the total work-distance of your session should be only up to 8% of your weekly total.  So if you're doing 20 miles a week you should be doing 10
300m etc. I hope I'm not over-training you.   These are all guidelines but make interesting reading.
One last thing. Thursday 22nd February will be the first in a series of 1 Mile Time Trials. Hopefully this will become a monthly event and we can all use it to gauge our progress.
Thanks to Ray, Aidan & Fiona for helping out on Tuesday Sessions as I'll be unavailable.
Happy Running!!
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