Your training plan in 6 steps

You’ve been running for some time now and you have colected a bunch of kilometers. At the beginning, each additional kilometer gave you great satisfaction – the lengthening distance you could cover, running was easier and easier. At certain point, however, a boredom appeared, hasn’t it? Each workout seemed identical to the previous one, week after week the same thing and you begin to wonder – could I do something different- maybe a change in training? But where to begin with? I run with aid :-)

TRAINING PLAN IN 6 STEPS

To create a base training plan it is always best to ask a good coach, but, with a little knowledge, you can create yourself a good outline of the plan that will evolve over time. In this article I will describe in general how to create such a plan. Why in general? Because a detailed discussion of the topic would require many, many pages. If you want to explore the topic, I recommend the book „The Triathlete’s Training Bible” (by Joe Friel). The book is addressed to triathletes, but the planning principles and training methods are adequate for each discipline.

If you are a novice runner and do not plan to finish a marathon or something similar, you can start from point 3 below (or completely omit the following 6 points) and go straight to the training plan.

First of all, preparing for the next running season, we have to answer several fundamental questions:

1. DESCRIBE YOUR GOALS FOR THE NEXT RUNNING SEASON

Goals aren’t dreams. Dreams are important, but when describing your goals you should look at your abilities  and with „realistic optimism” define such goals that will require a sizeable amount of work, but are within your reach in the upcoming season. Remember that your goal, must be measurable (as detailed as possible, so that you can measure your progress towards the goal at any time), demanding (too easy goal is no goal at all) and positively expressed(don’t formulate the goal like „not to break a leg while running” – you know how this will end? Our mind uses „pictures” so with such goal in mind it would have a picture of a broken leg all the time – are you sure that’s what you want to imprint in your mind? Create positive goals – „Improve my score at 10 km distance and beat it in less than 44 minutes” – that’s a good one).

2. SET OBJECTIVES THAT WILL HELP YOU CHASE YOUR GOALS

To set your objectives, you must first determine what is your weakest side that can stop you from achieving the goal. Your objectives must be set in time – then they present a challenge. If you aren’t able to keep the assumed pace of more than 20 minutes, your objective may be „to be able to run 40 minutes with a pace of 4:50 effortlessly by the end of April”.

3. ESTABLISH THE ANNUAL NUMBER OF TRAINING HOURS

To determine the annual number of training hours you first need to know the total time spent on training over the last year. Currently, each application or a sports watch gathers all of our workout data. However, if you don’t have such data of haven’t been running for the full year, try to at least estimate how much time do you spend a week running. Even the estimated guess gives you a starting point. Add 10-15% (no more!) to this result and the number of hours will be your new goal.

4. CREATE A LIST OF RACES AND ASSIGN THEM PRIORITIES (A, B, C)

If you want to create an annual plan, probably you have been thinking about taking part in a running competition for some time now. Select the appropriate races for next year and give them priorities: A, B, C. A competitions are a maximum of 2-3 events that are most important for you – your main goals for this year. You’ll try to achieve your best fitness level exactly at the time of those competitions. B competitions are significant, in which you want to do well, but they aren’t a priority for you. All other events are C competitions – these events should be treated as heavier training sessions or test runs. This doesn’t mean that they should be disregarded, but they will be more of a training means and points of reference to our fitness level.

5. DIVIDE THE SEASON INTO TRAINING PHASES

Divide the running season (macrocycle) into training phases(mesocycles and microcycles) – you already know at which point you need to be in your best shape (at a time of an A competition). Now, count 2 weeks back from this point – that’s  when you will be in your PEAK shape. Another 8-12 weeks back – this is the  BUILD PHASE. Now go back to the competition and count 1-2 weeks forward – mark this as a TRANSITION PHASE. It is a time of recovery and gathering strength for further efforts. The rest of the calendar is a BASE PHASE.

6. ASSIGN THE NUMBER OF HOURS TO INDIVIDUAL WEEKS

If you eastablished an annual number of hours, what’s left now is to divide that number into individual weeks (microcycles). For now assign an equal number of hours to every week – you’ll receive an average, which we’ll adjust accordingly during the weekly cycle planning stage.

YEAR CYCLE (MARCOCYCLE)

The year cycle emerges as you progress with the above steps. As a result, you should have all the months filled and a picture of how your training will change over time should appeer. This is just the outline, but without it we wouldn’t be able to schedule individual weeks and introduce appropriate training methods that will give you the best results as the time passes.

Following step 5 you simultaneously create a plan for all mesocycles. These last from several weeks to several months and gradually introduce consecutive training methods so as to achieve the best results in an appropriate time.

If the most important competition fall e.g. on April, we count two weeks back from this point – this is the peak phase. At this point, you have to be in the best shape to be able to start tapering period before the competition. Further 8-12 weeks back is a build phase, in which the built-up fitness is polished up through specific training methods. After the most important competition you need to recover, so the two weeks period that fallowds is a transition phase, in which your body regenerates after the great effort you made and gather the forces for further training. Base phase is the time to build aerobic capacity and prepare the body for subsequent stages so as to cope with increasing loads. The preparatory phase is a short link between a light transition phase and the base phase – it serves as an easy introduction to the training regime.

As a result, your year plan should give such a picture:

periodization

TRAINING PLAN

Now we should have the image of an entire year and individual mesocycles. At various phases we use different training methods.

In step 6 you divide the total number of hours to the number of weeks in the year, getting the average number of weeklyt hours. Now it’s time to slightly modify the plan.

  1. The load from week to week should grow. Let’s assume that your average number of hours per week is 5.
  2. Divide each cycle into 4-week periods. In the first week plan a bit lower training time. Let it be 4.5 hours.
  3. Every fourth week you need to relax after fatigue accumulated in previous weeks. Here, training time should be slightly lower than during the first week. Let’s make it 4 hours.
  4. The remaining hours split between second and third week. You can divide them evenly (in which case you will use methods of greater intensity) or in a way, that the time increases with the consecutive 3 weeks (if you put emphasis on increasing the duration, eg. a long run competition).
  5. The last few weeks before the peak phase may have the same number of hours in all 3 weeks (then hours schedule will be: 5.5h / 5.5h / 5.5h / 3.5h). Here you will use intensive training methods to polish up the strength or speed, hence the increase in duration of exercise is needless..

A sample training schedule for a given month could be as follows:

month

INDIVIDUAL TRAININGS

Individual workouts will have different form in different mesocycles. The list of the most popular training methods can be found here. Below I posted characteristics of trainings in successive training phases:

PRAPERATORY PHASE – is a relatively short period of time before specific training. At this stage, you can use cross-training or carry out various types of test runs, so that you know what is our starting point, and therefore how much separates you from your goal.

Characteristic for this period will be continuous runs in the 1st HR zone, cross runs and long runs.

BASE PHASE – During this phase you build your aerobic capacity, work on endurance, strength and speed. Remember not to apply several intense workouts in a row. If you run 3-4 times a week, one intense workout (eg. on Thursday) a week is enough.

During this phase you will use lengthening endurance trainings, introduce runs in the 2nd HR zone and strength training. You may also try intervals on full rest.

BUILD PHASE – This is the most intense and the longest training phase. Smoothly you move from the base phase, increasing exercise intensity, so that by the end of the build phase your workouts will have reached maximum intensity. Here we turn from the holistic training to specific methods with emphasis on your weak points that you identified at the beginning of the training plan creation. If it was „strength” and you prepare for a mountain trail run – introduce more ascent runs of higher intensity.

During this phase, you can use all available training methods, according to the element which you focus on. While training for long runs, work on long runs and endurance runs (2 and 3 HR zone). Training for the shorter distance competitions where you lack speed, apply incomplete rest interval runs, etc.

PEAK PHASE  – This is the time for the last strong workouts, best muscle performance and anaerobic runs (most intense), but due to the high intensity, you should slightly shorten the duration of training.

Accordingly 1-3 weeks before major competition begin the tapering, i.e. reduce the intensity of your workouts. This is the moment when you have already achieved your maximum potential. There’s nothing more you can improve, so the best you can do is to give your muscles a break for them to fully recover before the competition. It doesn’t mean you should stop all the activity. Do train on, but with less intensity.

TRANSITION PHASE – This is a period of mental and physical rest. Keep active of course, but instead of running, try something else like cycling or swimming . Give yourself a couple days off..

KEY RULES OF BUILDING A TRAINING PLAN

  • 80/20 rule – Try to keep approx. 80% of the volume within one week done in the aerobic range and only 20% in the high intensity. It has been proved that these ratios provide the highest efficiency and development while maintaining the lowest susceptibility to overloads
  • periodization of weekly workouts – intertwine easy workouts with the intense ones. Don’t ever plan several intense workouts in a row – Your body needs time to recover
  • periodization of training in cycles – remember to reduce the volume and intensity every fourth week  – then the body will have time to rest after the accumulated overload, and be ready for the next, more intense stage.
  • 10% more – increasing the volume of your training, be it on an annual or weekly basis, add no more than 10-15%. Larger loads lead to injury over time. While the muscles quickly adapt to new conditions, for tendons it may take even up to two years!
  • intensity vs duration of training – increasing the load, raise either the intensity or the duration of training – never both at the same time. This leads to excessive overload of the body and may result in injury.
  • never restrict rest – rest is as important, if not more, than training. It is then tjat alll the changes in the body happen, leading to the improvement of our condition. During training we exhaust our body, that adjusts to the new load only during the time of rest.

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Sources:
Friel Joe, Triatlon – biblia treningu (The Triathlete’s Training Bible) , 2012, Warszawa, Wydawnictwo Buk Rower

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