So my run schedule is:
M- 5
T- 4
W- 3
Th-5
F- Off
Sat- 7-8
Sun- 3
Where the Tuesday is a tempo run and the 3 mile days are recovery… Is that one too many medium days? Because the BarryP stuff ive read is 1:2:3, so should I switch one of the medium days to a short day?
If it was me I would take a few miles from monday and put it on tuesday to make the tempo more specific to racing. If you do a nice progressive warmup of two miles then your tempo, that will leave you with room for a nice cool down or a double depending on what kind of time you have. It all depends on the flavor of training you want. Another way would be to make your medium days 5.5-6 and your easy 2.5-3.
Barry will chime in at some point, but his main story is “Run more, but don’t always run hard”. That’s why he advocates the alternating of harder and easier runs with a longer run thrown in for good measure.
When I started BarryP’s program in January, my 2 tempo runs each week were about 6 - 6.5 miles. I tweaked his plan a bit by lengthening my 3 easy runs to 4 miles @8:00/mile pace. This got me 32 minutes of easy running in between my 2 tempo runs.
I keyed my long run distance off my tempo run distance (not my short, easy run distance). Back then, that put my long run at 9 - 10 miles @7:15-7:30 pace.
This plan allowed me to build my weekly miles, and obviously, my run conditioning throuhout the year. Last week, I ran 70 miles for the first time ever.
Remember, BarryP’s main point is to throw in a couple of easy paced runs throughout the week to build your base without crushing your legs.
Hope that helps.
Remember, BarryP’s main point is to throw in a couple of easy paced runs throughout the week to build your base without crushing your legs.
This is key. Many over-think and complicate this, trying to squeeze in all these different kinds of running workouts. However, for many rec-triathletes and rec-runners, the goal is to just build the base, and the best way of doing that is to try and run almost every day of the week at a length and intensity that is repeatable, day, after, day after day. Once that is established then you can start to stretch the distance of some of the runs during the week and up the intensity of others.
I came across a great article recently that was an amazing summary of where we are at with endurance sports training these days:
http://www.sportsci.org/2009/ss.htm
This is an *outstanding *read! A bit of a warning - it’s a long article with much scientific jargon, but factually correct (not someone’s idea!) with regards to best practices for endurance sports training. In short, it’s more complicated, but also *way *simpler than people realize. Building that aerobic base is critical, and you do that by day-in day-out, month after month, year after year, getting the work done. Successful endurance athletes may have a bit of a genetic gift going there way, but perhaps an even greater gift is an absolute love, and a passion for getting out there and training at a modest level every day.