Having built a good base the athletes need to prepare for racing.

This involves re-aquiring ease of running at race paces and the optimization of efficiency that comes with quality practise at race speeds.

It also involves the development of a higher lactic anaerobic capacity - this in my books means runing for longer than the 25 second limit i put on faster work in the earlier phases. To optimally develop this system involves solid efforts of up to 90s. But much of the best work for a MD athlete i think happens at 65s-85s. These reps are mostly done with more than enough rest eg 15min between, last week my squad did 500m rest 15min 400m rest 15min 300m rest 5min 200 - all from flying starts and they all did sessions they could not have believed a few months ago and all felt that as well that the session was "eyeballs out" intense.

The other aspect needed to be fully developed in this phase is Vo2max , I consider that this should be done first before the development of full lactic anaerobic capacity. This can be done with 800-1000m reps done with 3-8min rest or with a continuos sesion of 15+  reps of 200s at 5km pace with 100m recoveries at fast jog pace.  The goal should be to do as much volume at near max heart rate as possible - most weeks. I have this year used 4 x 1000m rest 5min then 5 x 800m rest 5min then 5 x 800m rest 3min and then used a combined session of lactic anaerobic endurance and V02max such as 4 x 600m rest 5min.

I have always found that 5 x 800m rest 3min is a great indicator of 1500m race fitness and this is probably because it involves a combination of Vo2max and Lactic Anaerobic Fitness done over a significant volume 4000m of reps which is a total over two and a half times the 1500m race distance.

I like to return to the 5 x 800m rest 3min for 1500m athletes and have it fully developed about 1month before the first key race. With 800m athletes I favour 3 x 500m rest 8min or 4 x 600m rest 5min.

The next email will have some target times in some session to be hit in the key time of the year to match certain race performances.

regards

Steve Bennett
www.oztrack.com