Taking advantage of the lockdown I’ve been trying to up my running game by completing one of the Garmin Connect training programs.
Garmin allow you to set a distance and choose a coach, to achieve a race time. I’ve gone for a 10km race to start, however they’ll only let you go as low as 44mins, so I’m pushing the numbers to try and squeeze a sub-40min. This works out at about 7min/mile for 44mins and 6:25min/mile for 40mins. My coach is Jeff, each coach having their own style and differing numbers of workouts per week.
The program starts with a benchmark run of 5 mins, this sets the pace going forward, and gives you a confidence rating for successfully completing the program.
There’s then two weeks of programming, weeks A and B:
Goal-pace repeats are a warm up, cadence drills, a 1mile best effort, then half mile intervals at between 6:45 and 7:05 per mile.
Hill repeats are drills for maintaining pace and cadence on hills. Unfortunately I live in Suffolk so the biggest hill I’ve got is the ramp outside the library, but needs must.
Speed repeats are half mile intervals again but at a pace of between 6:25 and 6:45 per mile, again with a technical warm up.
Long slow run is done at 3 - 4 min per mile slower than goal-pace.
For the benchmark run I did 0.72miles, giving a pace of 8:00min/mile. Not great, not terrible. Going forward the mile best effort on goal-pace days is the benchmark test.
Starting week 6, my mile best effort has gone from 8mins, to 7mins, to 6:24mins, to 6:14mins so progress is being made.
Repeat sessions have increased from 4 to 6 to 8 to 10 intervals.
Long slow runs have gone from 6 miles to 9 to 11. I was sceptical at first why I was running 11 miles for a 10km race, but I’ve got faith in big Jeff and his methods.
At the end of week 5, start of week 6, I had to pause the program for a week because I got appendicitis, but hoping to get back into it in about a weeks time.
For reference I wear On Clouds or Inov-8 Mudclaw 275, and a Garmin Tactix Delta.
Garmin allow you to set a distance and choose a coach, to achieve a race time. I’ve gone for a 10km race to start, however they’ll only let you go as low as 44mins, so I’m pushing the numbers to try and squeeze a sub-40min. This works out at about 7min/mile for 44mins and 6:25min/mile for 40mins. My coach is Jeff, each coach having their own style and differing numbers of workouts per week.
The program starts with a benchmark run of 5 mins, this sets the pace going forward, and gives you a confidence rating for successfully completing the program.
There’s then two weeks of programming, weeks A and B:
Week A is goal-pace repeats, hill repeats and speed repeats.
Week B is a long slow run, hill repeats and speed repeats.
Goal-pace repeats are a warm up, cadence drills, a 1mile best effort, then half mile intervals at between 6:45 and 7:05 per mile.
Hill repeats are drills for maintaining pace and cadence on hills. Unfortunately I live in Suffolk so the biggest hill I’ve got is the ramp outside the library, but needs must.
Speed repeats are half mile intervals again but at a pace of between 6:25 and 6:45 per mile, again with a technical warm up.
Long slow run is done at 3 - 4 min per mile slower than goal-pace.
For the benchmark run I did 0.72miles, giving a pace of 8:00min/mile. Not great, not terrible. Going forward the mile best effort on goal-pace days is the benchmark test.
Starting week 6, my mile best effort has gone from 8mins, to 7mins, to 6:24mins, to 6:14mins so progress is being made.
Repeat sessions have increased from 4 to 6 to 8 to 10 intervals.
Long slow runs have gone from 6 miles to 9 to 11. I was sceptical at first why I was running 11 miles for a 10km race, but I’ve got faith in big Jeff and his methods.
At the end of week 5, start of week 6, I had to pause the program for a week because I got appendicitis, but hoping to get back into it in about a weeks time.
For reference I wear On Clouds or Inov-8 Mudclaw 275, and a Garmin Tactix Delta.
