Hill work is key to your development. Some athletes use hill work as the way to build strength and speed, and by changing the time going up hills, the length of hills, and number of the repetitions can change the nature and focus of a work out. Finnish Olympic star Lasse Viren used 800m hill repeats to build his speed prior to Munich 1972 and Montreal 1976, due to his sore achilles. He tested his fitness on a soccer pitch, sprinting one side, jogging another until he covered 5000m. In 1972 he did 5k in 13:51. In 1976, he went 13:32 in same workout. In both cases, he won the 10,000m and then, 5,000m. In 1976, he also took fifth in the marathon in 2:13.11. In Moscow 1980, Viren was fighting for a medal in the 10,000m until the last lap! He finished fifth.
Lasse Viren, photo by italeht.fi
Thursday, 4 June 2020: warm up, hill workout, 50 minute run, eight two minute hill charges, keep good pace, cooldown
2020 RunBlogRun Spring Track & Field Training program, in the time of the coronavirus, Week 23, day 4
Monday: warm up, an easy 50 minutes, 6 x 150 m stride outs, cooldown
Tuesday: warm up, 15 minutes easy, tempo run, 20 minutes, at pace 30 seconds above your ave mile pace for 5k now. So, if you ran 18 minutes for 5k, you can run 20 minutes at 6:20 mile pace, this is not to exhaust you, but to build you, 20 minute cooldown,
Wednesday: warm up, an easy 45 minutes, 6 x 150 m stride outs, cooldown
Thursday: warm up, hill workout, 50 minute run, eight two minute hill charges, keep good pace, cooldown
Friday: warm up, an easy 45 minutes, 6 x 150 m stride outs, cooldown
Saturday: warm up, Fartlek: 50 minutes, 10 minutes good pace, 15 x 1 minute hard, 1 minute easy, 10 minutes good pace, cooldown.
Sunday: Long runs, 70-75 minutes
Author
Larry Eder has had a 52-year involvement in the sport of athletics. Larry has experienced the sport as an athlete, coach, magazine publisher, and now, journalist and blogger. His first article, on Don Bowden, America's first sub-4 minute miler, was published in RW in 1983. Larry has published several magazines on athletics, from American Athletics to the U.S. version of Spikes magazine. He currently manages the content and marketing development of the RunningNetwork, The Shoe Addicts, and RunBlogRun. Of RunBlogRun, his daily pilgrimage with the sport, Larry says: "I have to admit, I love traveling to far away meets, writing about the sport I love, and the athletes I respect, for my readers at runblogrun.com, the most of anything I have ever done, except, maybe running itself." Also does some updates for BBC Sports at key events, which he truly enjoys. Theme song: Greg Allman, " I'm no Angel."
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