UMD Long Distance Training Plan Spring 22

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1	The following training plan has been curated by club member Eamon Plante based on resources created by UMD grad student and veteran member of the club Bill Evans. He is a doctoral student in the department of kinesiology, a member of local elite/sub-elite running club GRC, and has helped to write successful training plans in the past. Huge thanks to Bill, this plan would not have been possible without him.
2			About the paces
3			A majority of the workouts in the plan have paces specified as T (tempo/threshold) or R (repetition). These designations come from Jack Daniels' well renowned VDOT training style. The workouts are not necessarily Jack Daniels style, but these paces offer an easy way for everyone on the club to figure out how fast they should be doing these workouts. Our plan is to use Happy Valley as a baseline but if you do not run the Mile, 3k, or 1600 leg of the DMR at that meet, a 1600m trial will take place to allow you to get a baseline. For everyone who competes, we will then use their 1600 time to create benchmark T and R paces. As with the training plan as a whole, these paces are purely suggestions and you should feel free to update them throughout the season as you see fit. If you'd like to learn more about the Jack Daniels paces this link has some good info, and there is plenty more a google search away
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5	A note on meets	About the mileage
6	Meets are subject to change. Friday workouts may get canceled as meets get added which might lead to changes to Tuesday workouts depending on the focus for the week. Same goes for if meets get added in which case a Friday workout may be added and the Tuesday workout changed to spread out the work over the week.	This plan has a very heavy workout focus, there is no total mileage listed for any one day. There are mileage targets listed before each week. These targets have no meaning in isolation, but rather should be used as a target going from week to week; they will let you know when to be running maximum mileage and when to ease up. My recommendation is to look at the first week of targets and compare them to how many miles you are running per week in August, see where you fall on the spectrum and then try to stay in that zone for the rest of the season. For example, if you have been running ~45 mile weeks in August try to stay between the high and mid markers for the whole season. If you have not been running over the summer, then start very easy, build up to a comfortable mileage for you, and then see where you fall amongst the targets. Finally, I do recommend that you come into the season prepared; run what you can for the rest of the summer, and if you have been building up all summer long and are comfortable doing so, begin mixing in an easy workout like a progression run or fartlek once a week as well as some strides at least one other time per week.
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14	About the workouts
15	These workouts are intense. However, they have varied mileage, number of reps, and rest to in theory be accesible to someone running only 25-30 miles per week and still be effective for those doing 60. If you are unsure how much of the workout to do, use this rule of thumb: Your weekly tempo mileage should only be 10% of your total weekly mileage. Interval mileage should only be 7.5% of your total weekly mileage. Finally R pace should only be 5% of your total weekly mileage. That being said, LISTEN TO YOUR BODY.
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21			Notes from Bill:
22			A few minor notes when you look at this plan or are trying to determine if you should modify something. Training abides by a few simple principles: progressive overload, specificity, reversibility, individuality and variation. If you abide by these principles, you will stay healthy and improve. Progressive overload means you need to make each workout physiologically more challenging. This can be done in various ways e.g., running 1-2 seconds faster for each rep, cutting your rest by 30-60s, or by adding an additional rep. You'll notice there are repeat workouts. This is by design! It allows you to determine what exactly how you can improve from the previous time you did this workout. The key here is to keep this in mind for every workout. Ask yourself: Could I do this same workout faster in a week? With less rest? What about a month from now? This might mean being conservative to start the season and really getting aggressive as you get 3-4 weeks out from the goal race. Specificity means that you need to run the pace that you want to race. Obviously, there are limitations because if you do this too early, you won't be able to abide by progressive overload. Specificity explains why running a lot of miles is beneficial (it increasese running economy). With regard to variability and reversibility, you don't need to worry much. The training plan takes care of these, but they hypothesize that you need to change the type of workout over time, and whatever adaptation you make can be reversed with training or detraining. Finally, individuality states that you are your own person who responds to training and different workouts in your own way. Don't compare yourself to someone else and try to race workouts to keep up with them. Trust your body, trust the plan, and realize that this is 1 season in series of many to come. It is a stepping stone, so don't try to jump to the end or you'll miss the incremental benefits along the way.
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