Including a couple of "fun" runs

  • Creator
    Topic
  • #21122
    jschoombie
    Participant

    Hi everyone,
    I am currently halfway through the Max Strength period of the 24 week plan.

    My reason for engaging in this plan is to prepare generally for the upcoming season here in New Zealand.

    As I am not training for any specific objectives what harm do you feel there would be in going off the plan occasionally and engaging in a “fun” run where I push myself and don’t focus on keeping my heart rate at or under AeT?

    I am really enjoying the plan and love seeing the progress I am making however it would be great to be able to go on the occasional long run for the sake of running as opposed to training.

    Cheers

  • Inactive
    Anonymous on #21168

    Sure you can do your “fun” runs. Normally your longer runs will be done at a slower pace than shorter runs. Doing long hard runs, especially if pushing a lot in to Z3-4 will mean you need more recovery time. If your AeT is high then tossing a “fun” run into your program 1-2x/week is an important thing to do. However, if you are aerobically deficient doing these runs too often will derail the intended base building process. As your aerobic base becomes stronger your easy runs will become faster and faster. Then you’ll be doing your long fun runs at a fast pace.

    In the end it is all up to you and what your goals are. When you look at the elite runners one common thing you see is that 80% of their training volume is done below AeT but this is still fast training. It took many thousands of km run below AeT to make them this fast.

    Scott

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.