aerobic conditioning in earnest

The foundation for a successful year begins in earnest this week with the XC Aerobic Conditioning schedule listed in the Summer'11 Notes section of your training plans. Make sure you familiarize yourself with the definitions for the different efforts. But keep in mind that ALL efforts are AEROBIC, none are anaerobic. That means your efforts should fall in the 85% range or below on the pace chart. Only when you are doing the fast striding once a week should you exceed 85% speed.

The pace chart is where you should start. Locate a conservative estimate of your current 5k shape. One way to do that is to locate the general pace at which you have been running for that last couple of weeks on the pace chart in the 70% column and use the corresponding 5k time.

For Tuesday's fartlek you should alternate between 85% and 65% efforts. So for example, using our standard 5-4-3-2-1 fartlek, you would run 5 minutes at 85%, 5 minutes at 65%, 4 minutes at 85%, 4 minutes at 65%, 3 minutes at 85%, etc. You can use that standard fartlek or you can structure something on your own, just alternate between 85% and 65%.

Friday's effort approaching 80% is just that - start out a little slower and progress towards the 80% effort corresponding to the 5k time that is right for you.

For your Sunday long run, try to keep the pace in the 70-75% range.

Make sure Monday and Saturday's are light, recovery days.

The pace chart is an excellent guide and has shown itself to be very reliable and accurate. But ultimately, these efforts are about 'feel'. Begin to understand what each effort feels like, then try to execute the runs by feel, and not by constanting monitoring your pace on your GPS watch!

Add in your general strength-training, your recovery nutrition, a focus on improving your mechanics as you run, and living like a clock. You're on your way to a great year!

I enjoyed the blog comments from last week, especially deejerz's offering of the Kroger Slim-Rite shake as a recovery option, the newly-loquacious joe stowe, betsy's outing of maureen, and doug's shout out for midfoot-striking. Apparently we're adding a new "ask doug" feature to the blog :)