Workout of the Day
Tara Welling (right) pushes the pace at the 2016 edition of the Portland Track Stumptown Twilight Women's 5,000m, where her front running efforts produced a personal best mark of 15:26.80.
3 x 2000m @ 5K + 4 x 1000m @ 3K
Splits:
- 2,000m reps — 6:21 / 6:21 / 6:24
- 1,000m reps — 3:02 / 3:03 / 3:02 / 3:03
Recovery: 400m jog between each rep in 3:00 - 3:30
Tara Welling — Jan. 27th, 2016
Context & Details
This was a straight-forward session. Nothing fancy. Two-Thousand meter repeats at 10% slower than current 5K fitness and followed by 4 x 1,000m at her current 3K fitness. Ten-thousand meters of quality work total. It should be noted she ran this session on a 200m indoor banked track. Solo. No pacers. This was all Tara.
She was 10 days out from her only indoor 3,000m race of that season. This was the final session that could legitimately have any positive impact on that race. Here the emphasis was to expose Tara to running 3K rhythm in a state of ever increasing cumulative fatigue and practicing managing such a burden. Some may call 3K - 5K speeds Max VO2 pace, but I tend to shy away from this terminology with athletes as it hinders rather than helps. From my experience, an athlete cannot effectively use the concept of running "efficiently" at Max VO2 pace whilst in a race to their advantage. It is too sterile of a construct. A track race for the distance runner is a raw, visceral, intense boxing match. For athletes I coach, the goal of this type of session is to better familiarize them with the harsh realities of maintaining desired racing speeds while fatigue rapidly increases. One cannot outrun fatigue in a race, only delay and/or tolerate it. If they can do this well repeatedly in practice, then they may have the confidence to repeat it come race day.
Tara had two targets for that upcoming indoor 3,000m race:
- Compete for the win.
- Finish under 9:10 (which would mean a PR).
She nailed this workout. And met her objectives for the race as well, leading most of race, being over taken for 2nd but rewarded for her boldness with a new personal best of 9:09.35.
Any questions? I'm happy to answer. You can send me a Direct Message on Twitter or email me at jmarcus.hpw@gmail.com
Thx // jm