The Need for Speed

Referencing Top Gun will never get old for men of a certain age.

Well, I recently finished the first week (last Saturday) of my summer of speed training focusing on the 5k and 10k. They say if you really want to improve your marathon time (3:05 PB - Boston 2014) you have to get faster at the shorter stuff. That's all well and good, but it's not why I've decided to hit it hard this summer. In fact, I may be done with marathons for quite some time unless I can convince my wife it's not only a good idea, but utterly necessary to go back to Boston next year (more on this in the future). In which case, I hope any speed I do manage to develop this summer and fall carries over into next spring. At which point, I'll act like that was my plan all along. 

In fact, the real reason I'm trying to get faster this summer is simply because it sounds fun and I'm itching for a change. I'm only 38, which is prime time in old man running years, so there might just be some speed left in these legs before things start to trend downhill. Furthermore, all the focused training I've ever done - which is only over the past three 2.5 years - has been for the marathon. Over this time period I've completed four road marathons, one trail marathon (loved it), and one 50k. I'd say that's a pretty good resume over that time frame. 

Not only have I never trained for the 5k and/or 10k, I've never even run a 5k  road race, and just a handful of 10k races at that. Last September I ran a 19:10 over the cross country course at the University of Guelph in the Falling Leaves races. I went through the first lap (halfway) in 9:20, and then detonated on the second lap and couldn't manage a sub-19, which was my goal. Lessons were learned. My 10k PB is 39:50, which I did at the Guelph Thanksgiving Day races in October 2012 in the midst of training for an upcoming marathon. My goal is to get my 5k time down under 18 minutes, and my 10k down under 38 minutes. We shall see where the summer takes us.

At this point I'm basing my training off of Jack Daniels' (not the whiskey) 5k to 10k training plan for 64km-80km per week , which he highlights in his Daniels' Running Formula book. I recently read this book and was very much inspired by his knowledge and simple, yet sophisticated approach to running and training. It's simple because he lays out very specific training paces as various intensities based off a recent race time or time trial of virtually any distance. The sophistication lies in the science that establishes those training paces. Daniels has termed this your VDOT value. I can't quite remember what the acronym stands for, but I'm sure there's a Volume and an Oxygen in there somewhere. 

Thanks to Daniels I have a much better idea of the purpose of every workout I do, and which body system(s) I'm training. Knowledge is power. With this knowledge I feel I can effectively train smarter, not harder, and achieve better results.