Latest revision as of 04:00, 18 September 2010

Back to Australian Running Guide

General

• Need a diary?
• Need a Running Log?
• Need a Calculator?
• Training and racing through pregnancy

Beginners

• CoolRunning's Beginners Guide
• Tips for improving your running form
• A Running Journal keeps you on track and charts progress
• If Your Runs are Boring, Change Your Routine
• Getting Faster with Interval Training
• Strength Training on Hills
• Fartlek
• Rest Days and Easy Weeks

10km Training

CoolRunning Threads for 10km but these in particular:

• Tips for running my first race (10K)
• My First 10km
• 10km Training

Half Marathon Training

• CoolRunning Threads for Half Marathon training

Marathon Training

• CoolRunning Threads for Marathon training
• 10 Tips for Running a Marathon
• Marathon minus 1 month
• Marathon minus 2 months
• Marathon minus 3 months
• Marathon minus 4 months
• Marathon minus 5 months
• Marathon minus 6 months

Online Training Guides

Note that there are a number of Australian coaches listed on our links page - not listed here to save duplication.

• Runner's World UK Smart Coach running plan generator
• Jack Daniels
• The Pfitzinger Lab Report
• Sports Coach
• Hadd's Guide to Training
• Hal Higdon's Training Guides
• Jeff Galloway Marathon Training
• Time to Run - Coaches
• Endurance Sports Training

Types of Training

• Hill Training
• Run Quick on Hill Training
• Uphill Training
• Downhill Training
• Endurance Coach Tips for Intervals
• Sports Coach Tips for Intervals

Tempo

The term "Tempo Run" gets thrown around and abused quite a bit, so I thought I needed to try and find out what it actually was. Then I thought I might as well share what I had found out with everyone so they didn't have to do the same mucking about that I did.

When you muscle cells need more oxygen than they can get a hold of they switch over to generating energy anaerobically (without using oxygen). The problem with that is that the anaerobic method is not as efficient, and it also generates by-products that your body doesn't like (lactic acid) that causes muscle pain. A tempo run basically trains your body to use oxygen more efficiently so that you can run faster/harder without building up lactic acid. In other words, it increases your lactic threshold.

So, how do you actually do it in practice? Well, Jack Daniels is the one who seemed to have popularised the term and technique, and he suggested running for 20 minutes at "threshold pace" (with an easy warm up and cool down added op to that).

Great, now we need to figure out what "threshold pace" is! If we look back at what a tempo run is we can see that it is training your body to raise its lactate threshold. So threshold pace is the pace at which you run which is just at the point where you will start to build up lactic acid (note, you will probably be generating it already, but this is the point at which you generate it faster thjan it can be taken away by the blood). that pace is generally is just a bit slower than 5km pace (10sec/km or so slower) or about 90% of your maximum heart rate. For those who don't have a HRMs then it should be run at a pace that could be maintained for an hour in a race.

Generally tempo runs are the most beneficial to those running distances greater than 5km as they run long enough for lactic acid build up to become an issue. 5km runs are often run high enough above the lactic threshold that raising will not make any great benefits.

• The Tempo Run - Runner Resource
• A tempo run by many other names
• Peak Performance Lactate Threshold Training
• Lactate Theshold Training Len Kravitz, Ph.D. and Lance Dalleck, Ph.D.

Pacing

• Runningtimes.com has a number of pace charts for varying paces, including:
  • 6:00-6:59 minutes per km
  • 5:00-5:59 minutes per km
  • 4:00-4:59 minutes per km
  • 3:00-3:59 minutes per km
• World Records for Lanes
• Running Race Warm-up & Pacing Strategies (Multisports.com)
• You can also get a temporary tattoo with your desired pace on it! Don't forget to get the metric one.

Heart Rate Training

• Heart Rate Variability Article 1996
• Using Heart rate variability to help athletic performance
• Sports Coach and there is also a neat excel spreadsheet
• Mark Allen on Working your Heart
• Training at a threshold level
• Time-To-Run heart rate adaptions for swimming
• Pursuit Performance [/url
• Sally Edwards The Heartzone

Injuries

• Prevention of Injuries
• Achilles Tendonosis
• Stress Fractures
• Sacroilliac Problems

Nutrition

• Guide to Runner Diets
• Carbos on the move
• Is Fat the Fuel of the Future?
• The Salt Story
• Fluid Replacement During Exercise

Competitive Edge & Elite

• Older section of CoolRunning

Other race-related pages

• Cool Running DIY Pages