- So when it comes to including structured
running in our training schedule,
we've all heard of interval running,
threshold, or even Fartlek training.
Now don't get me wrong, these are all excellent options
and clearly have their time and place
in any training schedule.
But the progression run,
or the build as it's also often called,
is well, one of my favourites
and that's largely because of its simplicity.
Indeed, whether you're a beginner starting out
or a seasoned elite,
there's just so much to be gained from it.
So today, I'm going to outline the benefits
of including that in your training
and talk about some of those varying examples
so that you can include a progression run
in your training too.
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Now as triathletes or runners,
we tend to focus on building a good aerobic base
in our training and then over time,
we gradually increase that to improve on our endurance.
And then the next step in our training usually
is to lead in what we'd call speed endurance,
so we can get through that distance quicker,
and there's many ways of doing this
and incorporating into our training the likes of
the threshold, or the interval
and Fartlek training sessions I already touched upon.
Now historically, these are always viewed as the best way
to help improve us and get quicker
for an upcoming running race,
but another very good example of a session that we can do,
complementing these other ones, is my focus for today
and that is the progression run.
Now many of you might find that you're already
doing one of these progression, or build runs.
You might head out the door for an easy run,
and before you know it you're coming home
at a quicker pace than you started out.
This is largely because you've probably warmed up
as the run goes on, or it might even be
that you're simply eager to get home
and get back in through the door quicker.
But either way, if they sound familiar to you then great,
because that means you're including
a progression run in your training already,
and there are definitely some benefits to be had from them.
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Now there's many good reasons for including
these progression runs in our training,
and first of those, I think, is that it just teaches us
to be more intuitive in our running.
It shifts the focus away from worrying about pace
or specific speeds and allows us to be more, well,
in tune with how our perceived effort is going.
We can start asking ourselves questions like,
am I going harder here or could I push myself faster?
And I genuinely feel these are really effective questions
and tools to have mid-run.
Secondly, well, progression runs simply teaches us
to run harder and faster when we've got tired legs.
Now whether that's a 5K at the end of a sprint triathlon
or an Iron Man with a marathon at the end of it,
being able to finish strong and run harder when we feel
tired and exhausted is an invaluable skill
to have taught ourselves.
And lastly, it's a really good tool for
coming back from an injury layoff.
If we want to start thinking about incorporating
faster running into our training,
but we're worried about having to hit certain splits
or paces, then the progression run is an ideal way
to get around that.
So if, for example, you wanted to do something
like six by three minutes at your desired 10K pace
with two minutes recovery in between each rep,
and an ideal substitute would be
a 30 minute progression run.
We could start by ramping that pace up
to get in close to that desired 10K pace,
but if for say, it's some particular reason
we feel we can't quite get there
because we're flitting up that injury, then that's fine.
We can just stop and not be despondent
about not having hit those specific times.
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Now as with other types of speed sessions,
the beauty of the progression run is that there
isn't any particular cookie cutter format to follow.
Indeed, far from it.
There are infinite different ways to adapt
a progression run depending on your level of experience,
and what I mean by that is, well,
one runners natural 10K progression
could be another runner highly-structured
half-marathon distance session.
Now my point is here that there is no right
or wrong answer to a progression run.
Just different ways to tailor and adapt it
so you can come away from your run feeling that you
have increased your work rate throughout it.
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Now then, let's get stuck into some examples
of these progression runs.
Now if they're new to you, and you haven't had them
in your training before,
then I've got some nice simple examples for you here.
The first up being the out and back.
Now it is a simple as it sounds.
The idea being that you start out for a period of time,
let's say 25 minutes, at a nice and easy pace,
turn around, and try and come home quicker.
An ideal location for this would be a nice and smooth trail,
a bit like this one that's behind mine,
like an outdoor path, or just find a really quiet road
that's got some minimal traffic.
But in essence, what we want to do is bring that return
leg home at a faster pace and increased effort.
Take a note of the time differential
and over time try and improve on it.
Now, second up on these progression run options
is what I'd call split thirds, or even quarters.
Now this is a classic twist in your regular build run
where you divide it up into equal portions
and essentially starting off,
could be your warm up, which is nice and easy,
moving into a steady pace that's comfortable,
but manageable, perhaps even marathon pace,
and then you would wind it right up
to a fast pace to finish that could something
like half marathon pace.
Now I always used to personally like doing this
over an hours worth of running,
so that would be 20, 20 and 20.
You could put that down to 15 minute segments,
or even as you get fitter move that right up to
a 90 minute session where each session division
is 30 minutes of work.
But you could also do that over something like quarters
and have 20 minutes of warm up,
into 20 minutes of marathon pace,
followed by 20 at half marathon
and then a final 20 as fast as you can,
maybe something like 10K pace.
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Now then, for my final suggestion here,
it's what I call specific progression,
because you can of course take your running distance
and divide that up into equal segments,
or reps even, which build upon each other
and get faster in pace.
Now a nice example would be to take a 10K effort,
split that up into five by 2K segments
and take each segment as a 10 seconds per kilometer
build essentially, and getting to about 15 seconds
lower then your goal pace.
Of course, for the non-metrics among us,
that could be a six by a mile session,
again, improving each pace of a mile by about 15 seconds
and aiming to get to about 30 seconds below
that goal mile pace.
However, if you're a more experienced runner,
you're very likely going to be including a long run
in your weekly structure,
so the progression run is a prime candidate
for this type of run.
There's a few options I can talk about
regarding the long run.
The first of which is one I call the long run negative,
and this is probably the least impactful
of these progressive options,
but possibly the most effective,
because in the first half it just places
an emphasis on being nice and easy time on our feet,
but then ramping that pace up in the second half to,
well something closer to say 30 seconds per mile,
or about 20 seconds per kilometer
slower than our goal marathon pace.
Now, whereas these runs are still very much aerobic,
they're not nearly as challenging as some other
long run progression options
and far less demanding on us as we run too.
And the good thing about this is that increased pace
in the second half will still largely mimic
the running mechanics that we will have
at our actual goal running pace,
but crucially without nearly as much
longer lasting damage that we'll get from
running harder in some of the other progressive runs.
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Now the second version of the long run
that I'm going to talk about for progressing is
called the fast finish long run.
Now rather than a subtle progression
like I've maybe talked about in the other
shorter progressive runs,
this one simply takes a steady pace
that we'd have for our long run
and then for the last 10-20% of it,
we really ramp up the pace,
but to a significantly quicker pace.
Something that far exceeds even our marathon pace,
possibly as quick as our half marathon pace,
so as an example, if we were out for a two hour long run,
I'd be aiming for the last 15-25 minutes of it
to move up to this faster pace.
Now a thought when you're doing a long run,
they say it's the last thing you really want
to have to think about doing.
I used to get a really good mental boost
from being able to do this,
because not only does it teach you
how to run on your already tired legs,
but it gives you a real appreciation
for what's going to be coming at say, the end of your marathon,
or perhaps an Iron Man.
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Now the final long progressive option
that I'm going to talk about is one that's
been made famous by East Africans who have
dominated distance running over the decades, the Kenyans.
Now the Kenyan progression run
is one that allows us to listen to our body
and adapt the speed accordingly as we
move through the session.
Now the beauty of this is there's no specific
speeds or splits that we need to hit
in the Kenyan long run, but rather the trick is
just to start off nice and easily,
and then build through the pace as the run progresses,
and this teaches us to well,
understand what we're capable of,
both from an effort and a speed point of view.
Now remember, there are no hard and fast rules
as to how to do a progression run,
but hopefully I've highlighted that learning to run
on tired legs is a really useful skill,
and by including one of these progression
types of sessions that I've talked about today
into your training, you can go a long way
to developing that skill too.
Now hopefully you've enjoyed this video,
so please hit that thumb up 'Like' button,
find the globe on screen too to get all the other content
that we've got here in GTN,
and if you want to see a video that we did
on how to run without getting tired,
you can find that here.
And for another one that Heather did about Fartlek running,
well, you can find that here.