Hello all,
I had a question about the relative merits of Anaerobic Conditioning workouts (tempo runs) vs. Aerobic Capacity workouts in my training regiment and was wondering if someone could provide some insight.
Some quick background on me, if only because it helps inform the question IMO:
I was a long sprinter (200-400m but had/have a build like Wariner, so I'm not bulky at all) when I ran competitively but now I’m making a transition to 800/1500 racing, so I’ve been doing distance training.
In the four “zones” of conditioning (Aerobic Conditioning, Anaerobic Conditioning, Aerobic Capacity, Anaerobic Capacity), I’ve noticed that the quality of my tempo runs/Anaerobic Workouts lag severely behind that of the other 3 areas. I’ve also noticed in my Aerobic Capacity workouts that my pacing is horribly off, as my splits are pretty positive for a workout (e.g. I did repeat 1200’s with even rest the other day, and my 400 splits were always along the lines of 73, 79, 78). Even with such positive splits, I’m pretty sure I’m running them at the right speed (if not the right pacing), as I’m not turning the workout into an Anaerobic Capacity one by running them too hard. I think part of it is clearly mental: I’m doing the workouts by myself, and I was never good at running workouts alone, even back in the day, plus I had always been mentally wired to be a sprinter and not a distance guy.
With that all said, I guess I have a series of questions that I was wondering if I could answer:
1. What would be the best way to improve my tempo runs – do more of them and try to focus more mentally, I’m assuming – but is there something else I should be doing: should I wait until I’m running more miles until I see improvements? I ran 40 in 6 days last week and plan to be around 50 miles/week by the end of August and around 60/week by the end of September – a very gradual increase. Still, even though I’m only at 40 mpw now, I’m only running 3 mile tempo runs and I guess I figured I would have been at a better level of fitness for my tempo runs.
2. This is more a question for down the road, as it’s still only July; I’ve been reading Coe’s book for training 800/1500m running, and was surprised to see how much emphasis was placed on Anaerobic Conditioning at the expense of Aerobic Capacity; for most of the schedule, he advocates at least 2x as many Anaerobic Conditioning runs as Aerobic Capacity runs per week. Only towards the very end of the running year do the # of Aerobic Capacity workouts surpass the # of Ana. Cond. Ones.
I was wondering what people thought of that: does it make a difference if you’re focusing on the 800 as opposed to the 1500? What (or when) should the emphasis switch from Ana. Conditioning workouts to Aerobic Capacity ones and by how much? (Obviously there should be less emphasis on the Aerobic Capacity earlier in the season, but should the tempo runs continue to have as much precedence as Coe places on them in the sample schedule?
Thanks in advance,