Competition and Peak Training for 3000-5000 Meters

Last month I wrote a bit on some schedules for the precompetitive phase for 3000-5000 meter runners.

Unfortunately, at least for track, we didn't even have much of a phase for that. Mostly due to the weather and snow cover. For myself, I've done three 5Ks now, but with temps in the single digits, low teens, and mid-twenties none of these felt exactly ideal. Training wise, not bad, about normal maybe a step or two behind that but I'll blame that on the cold. e.g., the other night I did 6 X 5 min at threshold with 9 sec rest and averaged under 6:00/mile. It's coming.

And the kids track, well they've only had one official meet so far thus their season has been severely limited. Kids in Alaska are really at a disadvantage. Quality running over the winter is all but impossible and at best they cannot run on a dry surface until early April; this year it was even later. Here they are on a high intensity-low volume program, of which I must admit I'm not a big fan. Over the past two weeks, they've been at about 40-45 miles (and have to sneak in extra miles to get that) with 15-25% at race pace or faster.

Here's what Vigil recommends:

Vigil (1995), Road to the Top

Chapter 6: 3,000 Steeplechase, 3,000 meter and 5000 meter Training

Competition Microcycle (7 day)

Long run (<20k>Recovery run (40-60 min)

Speed alternate 4X400 all out with full recovery one week with other distances the next week (anything from 60 to 600 m)

Recovery run (40-60 min)

Repeat miles (2-3) at 94% maximum (which is approximately 3K pace)

Recovery run  with 6-10 all out strides of 75-100 meters

Competition or 20 minutes of threshold

Broken down into traning zones, assuming 6-8 hours of training:

1-2% speed (5-7 minutes)

3-5%  V02 max (10 to 16 minutes)

3-5% racing (10-15 minutes)

0-5% threshold

so that's approximately 7% to 12% at race pace or faster; the remaining 88% to 93% of the training is aerobic.

Likewise, Daniels recommends a mix of long run (10-12 miles), threshold and race pace. Race pace/speed is less than 10% of total weekly mileage.