[SPEEDWORK DEFINED: For this article, speedwork refers to reps performed at your VO2 max pace (pace for an 8- to 10-minute race) or faster. A typical speed workout in this range would be 6 × 800m repeats at VO2 max pace with a 400m recovery jog between.]

He got fried. He knew better, but like many athletes who are running fast, he lost the forest for the trees.

Jordan Horn was coming off his best track season to date. The previous spring, he had lowered his 5K from 14:01 to 13:31—the result of a couple of years of smart, consistent training. His next goal was to break 4 minutes in the mile.

I was his coach. We adjusted our normal training periodization and included more speed and sprint workouts in the winter to get ready for indoor track, where the best mile races are run. And it worked. He ran 3:58 for the mile. Mission accomplished.

Here's where things went wrong. Instead of taking a break after indoors, we tried to take this speed training and extend it to the spring track season right around the corner. Bad idea.

“It was frustrating. I just came off a big PR and great training but felt ‘off,’” Horn says. “Gradually, racing and training got worse and worse.”

Horn's is not an uncommon scenario. Athletes do some speedwork, improve, then think, “If speedwork makes me fast, then I should do more speedwork.” But they soon find that they are actually getting slower. To avoid falling into the same trap, here are my speedwork golden rules:

1-Don't Sabotage Your Base Building

Arthur Lydiard learned this more than 50 years ago. Too much speedwork in your base phase will interrupt your fitness development. Olympic bronze medalist Lorraine Moller, whose training was Lydiard-based, says that in the era of New Zealand track domination, “Going to the track to do speedwork during the base phase was considered the height of folly and something only the ignorant would do.”

Endurance training (all training at an easy effort, below your lactate threshold) causes two important adaptations within the muscle cells. First, you grow more and larger mitochondria, often called the “powerhouses” of your cells because they provide essential energy for distance running. This increase allows you to run faster and is a primary reason why new runners find their pace gets quicker over the first two to six months of training. This aerobic (with oxygen) energy system has no detrimental side effects, so it's highly desirable to develop more mitochondria.

Within the mitochondria are key enzymes that help liberate energy from our fuel stores. Endurance training produces more of these aerobic enzymes, the second key adaptation that occurs during base or conditioning training.

In preaching against speedwork during endurance training, Lydiard was fond of saying, “Don't pull down the pH in your base phase.” Peter Snell, exercise physiologist and Lydiard's most famous runner, explains that the enzymes within the mitochondria operate at an optimal acidity (or pH) level. High-intensity exercise, however, causes significant and repeated high levels of lactic acid (and thus decreased pH) in the muscle cell. Given too much intensity, the environment within the cell becomes overly acidic and the enzymes can become damaged. Snell says that the increased acidity is also harmful to the membranes of the mitochondria, and it takes additional recovery time to allow the membranes to heal.

Given this damaging effect, large and frequent increases in lactic acid during a period when you're building your aerobic energy system (mitochondria and aerobic enzymes) are a big no-no. The purpose of the conditioning phase is to facilitate the increases in mitochondria and their enzymes, not impair them.

2-Remember: A Little Speed Goes a Long Way

Speedwork makes you faster—for a while. It's like a shot of espresso: You get an instant boost. Drink another and you fly higher. But eventually you crash hard.

Athletes who do too much speedwork for too long soon find, like Horn, that their racing and workout performances start to decline. Hans Selye, a groundbreaking scientist in the mid 21st-century, was one of the first to discover this, calling it the “exhaustion state.” Selye found that when the body is continually challenged in the same way, over and over again, it soon becomes exhausted, unable to perform at normal levels. This can happen with volume (increasing weekly mileage too quickly), but it's easier to fall into and much more common with intensity.

The mitochondria and enzymes become compromised, making it more challenging to hit your paces, even on easy runs. In response, athletes often then begin to train harder, only to see the condition worsen. Cortisol (the stress hormone) levels increase, which is quickly followed by a decrease in mood and loss of motivation. Not good.

Speedwork produces great results: It increases VO2 max, changes fast-twitch muscle fibers to perform more effectively, and improves lactic acid tolerance and running economy. And it does these things quickly: You can get the bulk of these improvements in just four to six workouts. After that, it's a matter of diminishing returns and risk versus reward. Your ideal is to do only as much speedwork as you need to achieve your desired benefits, and no more, to avoid any risk of overtraining.

This is the fate of many high school runners who do a lot of speed early, race fast in the middle of the season, but fail to perform by the championship season.

Coach Bill Aris, whose Fayetteville-Manlius women's team has won seven national cross country titles, says, “It's best to focus first on developing a deep well of aerobic reserve. Then, later in the season, build upon this with strength and speed running, which are integrated as your championship season nears.”

Each runner will, of course, respond differently to different amounts of speed training, but it's always better to err on the side of caution. Typically, athletes who spend time building their endurance base (See No. 1 left) need less speedwork to be race-ready. Their improved aerobic ability allows them to perform better-quality speed training when the time comes. They get more bang for their buck.

Also, endurance-oriented runners will find that they perform better off of fewer speed workouts, whereas runners blessed with more basic speed capabilities may be able to get away with a few more speed sessions.

Sixty to 70 percent of your training cycle should be focused on building your endurance, stamina, running form and injury resistance. Only the last 30 to 40 percent of your training cycle should include significant amounts of speedwork as your peak race nears. You can fit the necessary four to six speed workouts into the last four to eight weeks to see significant improvement in your speed fitness.

3-Build Speed By Working Around the Edges

Thankfully, there are other ways to get fast without having to overdo speed training. Tom Osler, a top runner from the first running boom who authored the seminal The Conditioning of Distance Runners in 1967, suggests that runners continue their basic training (endurance and stamina) until their race performances plateau. Then, and only then, should they begin speed training, or “sharpening” as he called it. New runners (and many experienced runners) are often surprised to hear that one can race fast off of just endurance or base training. Says Aris of his consistently good high school teams, “Our real quality work doesn't begin until the season is well underway.” Osler was definitely onto something.

Stamina training”workouts designed to increase the pace at your lactate threshold”can result in faster racing and be performed more frequently than speed training without as much risk of overtraining. The classic stamina workout is the 30- to 40-minute tempo run, a medium-hard effort at your 1-hour race pace. Or it can be broken into repeat segments, such as 3–4 × 1 mile tempo intervals, or what coach and author Jack Daniels calls “cruise intervals.” Another option for stamina training is to run slightly slower (approximately marathon pace), yet longer, steady state or rhythm runs. Or you can do progression runs that work from an easy pace to tempo pace. You can safely do a stamina workout once every week or two for six to 10 weeks and see continued improvements in race performance.

To make sure you aren't turning a stamina run into a speed run, use the talk test. As long as you can talk in complete sentences, you are good. If you're breathing so hard you can string together only one or two words at a time between pants, you've crossed into the speed zone. While you may get faster initially, you are eroding your aerobic base and starting the time clock toward peaking too soon.

On the other end of the speed scale, neuromuscular or leg-speed training offers runners the chance to run very fast year-round with little to no buildup of lactic acid. These workouts—strides, sprints and short hills—last only 10–20 seconds at near top speed with long (1- to 2-minute) recovery jogs or rest between. (Note that even 200m repeats are too long and count as anaerobic, lactic-building speedwork.) Doing 10–20 repeats once or twice per week year-round can develop and maintain speed with little risk of overtraining. Leg speed workouts aren't “heavy breathing” workouts. If you can't quickly regain your breath after each repeat and start each sprint breathing normally, you are building up too much lactic acid and need to shorten the repeat length or increase the recovery period.

Speed Rules

To avoid the acidic buildup that disrupts your aerobic development and leads to burnout:

Delay frequent (1-2 times per week) speed training until 4-8 weeks before your peak race. Limit any speed workouts during base to once every 3-6 weeks.

Keep all of your training during the first 60 to 70 percent of the season either slower than lactate threshold or short enough to avoid breathing hard.

Do only 4-6 workouts that contain repeats between 30 seconds and 6 minutes at VO2 max pace or faster during the final few weeks of training.

Be careful, as your fitness improves, to control your effort and paces in the last few workouts before your peak race so you don't “leave the race in training.”

Au Contraire

Not all coaches rule out lactic-acid-producing speed training while building an aerobic base. Some, like Scott Simmons, coach of the American Distance Project, believe all components of training (endurance, stamina, speed and sprint) should be addressed simultaneously across a training cycle. According to his book Take the Lead, Simmons includes some speed training even at the beginning of a training cycle. These speed workouts start with a low volume of repetitions but gradually build in quantity and quality all the way to the athlete's peak race(s).

“When you cease developing any system, you lose it,” Simmons says. “Endurance and speed training are not mutually exclusive. You can have an anaerobic stimulus that doesn't have to be that big, but you're keeping in touch with that system.”

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