A few ?’s wrote:
How long was your formal build up?
What were a few favorite workouts for your build up?
Taper/peak?
Discus
Here are some workouts copy and pasted from another thread:
-21 miles with 10-20 alternating 5:34/6:40
-4 mile tempo at 5:22 followed by 4 x 1:00 up 3% grade at 5:00 (jog back down for recovery)
-8 x 1k at 3:06.7 avg with 400m jog
-22 miles with last 7 at 5:34 average
-16 miles with middle 10 at 5:28 averagde (this was a 10 mile race that I won by 7 minutes; 3 mile warmup, race, 3 mile cooldown)
-3 miles at 5:33, 2 miles at 5:27, 1 mile at 5:18 (2:00 jog between each)
Sunday, 9/16 - 22 miles with last 6 at 5:33, 5:34, 5:34, 5:33, 5:33, 5:30
Wednesday, 9/19 - 20:00 @ 5:33 pace, 6 x 1:00 on/1:00 off @ 5:10 pace, 15:00 @ 5:32 pace
Sunday, 9/23 - 20 miles with last 10 alternating 5:35/6:25
Wednesday, 9/26 - 3 miles @ 5:27, 2:00 jog, 6 x 1k (400 recovery) @ 3:11 avg, 2:00 jog, 2 x 400 (200 jog) @ 72, 71
Sunday, 9/30 - 20.6 miles with first 6 @ 6:50 and then 2 x 6 miles with 1 mile in between, and 1.6 miles cooldown; 6 mile segments were 5:34, 5:34, 5:33, 5:35, 5:33, 5:33 ... 5:35, 5:33, 5:33, 5:36, 5:34, 5:17
Wednesday, 10/3 - 6 x 1 mile on the road (2:45 jog recovery) @ 5:24, 5:14, 5:07, 5:13, 5:14, 4:54. **My coach said I could go sub-5:10 on #3 and #6 if I was feeling good. The 4:54 was the easiest sub 5 of my life and I definitely felt like I could have done a few more reps.
Sunday, 10/7 - 20.7 miles easy
Wednesday, 10/10 - 15 minutes @ 5:28, 2:00 jog, 4 x 800 @ 2:33 (400 recovery), 1:00 jog, 4 x 400 @ 74
Sunday, 10/14 - 14.1 miles with lat 6 miles at 5:35, 5:37, 5:32, 5:34, 5:31, 5:23
Wednesday, 10/17 - 2 miles @ 5:30, 3:00 jog, 1 mile @ 5:25, 2:00 jog, 2 x 800 @ 2:36 (400 recovery), 1:00 jog, 2 x 400 @ 74
You can see the taper in the workouts. For mileage, I was above 100 every week for 15 straight weeks. The week of October 8 - October 14, I dropped to 87.1; the week of October 15 - October 21, I hit 83.9. That did include 28 miles on race day though.