Turkey Trot 5 Mile Training- Week 3

Back to Basics: the importance of building an aerobic base

(part 1)

Welcome back to the Westfield Turkey Trot training blog! Hope you had a good training week.

Today we will talk about the importance of running consistently, so you can build up an aerobic base. Your weekly short runs are the bread and butter of your aerobic training. That said, the long runs have their value too, we will discuss them next week.

If you have been consistent with your running for the past 3-4 weeks (run 3-4 times a week, with no more than 2 days off in a row) you should see a difference in your body’s response to exercise. There is no magic, if you run consistently and you are healthy, with enough time, the same distance at the same pace should have become easier.

Among the many training variables there are to make training efficient, one of them is frequency. Let’s say that last week you ran on Mon, then things got busy and the next run you were able to do was Friday, and then nothing during the weekend, and the next run you might be able to do will be on Tues of this week. Well, that was not a good week for building up your aerobic base. If this happens once in a while and you have been training consistently for a long time, you can get away with it, but if this happens constantly, then you will not be able to see a positive change in your training. Your body has no chance to adapt to the stimulus, in this case, running and what happens is that your system “forgets” what you did last time, and has to start all over again. (Remember - use it or lose it?)

As we talked about it during week 1, setting up short term objectives will help you stay in track, so go ahead and plan those workouts in advance, and if running the 40 min scheduled for that day is not possible, 20 min of running is better than nothing.  

What to do with those missed running days? If it’s one to four days, skip them and follow the training plan. If you missed five or more days in the schedule, you should go back to the beginning of that week, and start from where you last worked out. This will set you back one week in the 8 training schedule, but is safer than trying to catch up and getting hurt. You will be much better off undertrained than sick or with a soft tissue injury! I promise!!

8 Week Training Schedule for the Westfield Turkey Trot 5m - 2012

Week

M

T

W

Th

F

Sa

Su

3

Off

40

X

40

35

X

57

The numbers are minutes of walk/jog, jog, or run at a pace that will allow you to have a conversation (see why I want you to have a buddy? ;-).  

The X means that if you have been racing during the summer, you should do some kind of cross-training exercises, such as swimming, biking, elliptical machine, etc. If you are a complete beginner, you can take those (X) days off.  

If you do strength training (ST) exercises and you just started running, do the ST exercises on non-running days.

If you missed last week's post, here you have the link 

For more info, check out my book: "RUNNING For Girls Like Us"

Happy training and see you next Sunday, Oct 21 :-)

Next week’s topic: Back to Basics: the importance of building an aerobic base: The long run (part 2)