Race Pace session details 30/3/17

29 March 2017 - By Becky Grimwood

This Thursday’s effort session is ‘race pace’ training which aims to help improve your lactate threshold, enabling you to run at faster pace before your body starts to tire.

We will meet at Witham Leisure Centre as usual and begin our briefing at 7:30pm. We will then jog to Eastways Industrial estate, where, after a warm up, our session will take place around the 400m loop.

The session comprises 2min efforts with 1min standing recovering. We will complete 10 repetitions, therefore lasting 30mins.

Within the 2 min effort –

First 1 min – ‘Steady pace’ – think 15-30 secs slower than your Tues night pace. Able to hold short conversation. The purpose of this is to warm up your muscles each rep in preparation for the faster work.
Next 30 secs – ‘Tempo’ pace – think the pace you run on a tues night or a smidge faster. Able to hold a 2-3 word chat only.
Final 30 secs – ‘Race pace’ – think a 5km to 5mile race as a guide. You should not be able to talk more than a word or so during this.

Examples for pacing –

A 9min/mile runner on a Tuesday might do the following –
1 min @ 9:15-9:30
30secs @ 9:00
30 secs @ 8:30
1min standing recovery

A 7 min/mile runner on a Tuesday –
1 min @ 7:15-7:30
30 secs @ 7:00
30 secs @ 6:30
1 min standing recovery

IF however, you use Tuesdays as a leisurely run, you might want to think about making that pace your slower minute and getting faster over the next 2 segments.
This session is designed to be a challenging one, so if you are carrying any niggles consider adjusting your pace or even skipping this session entirely.

We will have a whistle to mark the times, however it would be highly beneficial if you have set your watch, or run with others who have set theirs. A couple of runners last time said they had set their watch for 30sec beeps – which is ideal as long as you remember to give yourself 1 whole minute recovery and 1 whole minute of steady pace.

As Marc said on Tuesday night, it is still important to wear high vis and as ever, one of us will have a car at Eastways for you to put your coats etc in.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Becky and Kerry