mprevost
Level 7 Valued Member
The reason I ask is because after reading Reload and then comparing it to 5/3/1, it occurred to me that none of my running books are as systematic of approaches. All the books I have about running are pretty vague about periodization and progression. To summarize them:
Specifically, the tempo and interval work is what I want to program a little better. I have some good books but they focus a lot on the methods and not so much on progression.
- do lots of slow base miles increasing mileage each week
- start adding tempo and intervals to the mix increasing mileage a little each week
What they do have is always pretty generic and doesn't account for individualization. For the 800m for example, it might say to do 5x200m, 3x300m, 2x200m which might be way too much volume or adding a third 200m the next week might be too much too soon depending on the individual.
Is Jack Daniels Running Formula more detailed?
If you train with a heart rate monitor, progression is built in automatically. When you run in a fixed heart rate zone, you have to go faster and faster to achieve that same heart rate as you get fit. In a typical 5 zone heart rate system (which is what I use), heart rate training works well for zone 2 and 4 training. For zone 5, you have to use pace because the intervals are too short.
Typical example. A person starts running and their zone 2 heart rate is 120-140 bpm. At this heart rate they are running a 10:00 mile pace. 3 months later they have to run an 8:00 mile pace to get their heart rate in that zone. Same thing happens in zone 4. Periodization in running is really simple if you work with heart rate.