Hills, Tempos, Speed Oh My

Saturdays are for long slow miles. Weekdays are for shorter often harder workouts. So what are these workouts and why do they matter.

Hills - They are hard. Most people have a love or hate relationship with them. There is rarely any in between. Plain and simple hills make you stronger. It's strength training using your own body as the weight (at least going up). There are different ways to do a hill workout. You can do hill interevals; running up and jogging or walking down then turn around and repeat. Start with three or four and add one each week. Some folks simply run a hilly route (Like the Valley Forge Loop). Be sure to charge the hills. Form is important on hill both going up and going down. Don't forget to practice going down, too. Click here for a collection of articles on hill running. Walkers can do Hill workouts too. Substitute run for power walk.

We do hill work in the first 5 weeks of the program. Then we switch to speed work. If you haven't done the hills or want to do more consider swapping out a few speed weeks for hills.

Speed work - Speed work is another strenght builder. Not a whole lot more fun than hills, speed work will also....wait for it.... make you faster.We work on long slow running on Saturdays; teaching our bodies to handle the distance, to burn fat for fuel. We focus on conversational pace. On speed work days we are going to push our bodies to its limits. If we could carry on a conversatoin it's doubtful the words would be pleasant.  But the benfits of speed work far outweigh the short periods of discomfort we feel while doing them. Eventually, speedwork will translage into faster conversatoinal pace on Saturdays and faster finish times in races.
On the schedule speed work looks something like this : 8x30-30. This means 30 seconds fast followed by 30 seconds slow; repeat 8 times. The goal is to be doing the last fast segment at the sam effort as the first. Don't forget a 5-10 minute jog to warm up and a 5-10 minute jog to cool down after these workouts.

Tempo runs- Tempo runs are a form of speed work. However, instead of running top speed for short distances the effort is 80-85% longer distances. A 40 minute tempo workout is bookended by a 5-10 minute warm up and 5-10 minute cool down. In between there is a 20 (or more) minute run at a comfortably hard pace; talking might be possible but not easy.

Walkers do speed/tempo work as well. When your schedule says 10.10.10 thats 10 minutes easy. 10 minutes hard and 10 minutes easy.

These weekday workouts WILL improve your performance on race day. However, if you have difficulty with them - especially if you are new to half or full marathon training - don't sweat it. Run or walk for the designated minutes instead. Your goal the first time out is to finish.

Lastly, remember to follow your hill, speed or tempo workout days with a rest day or easy day. Do not do these strength workouts back to back. Your body needs rest to reap the full benefit of your work.