Progressions (1500m)

A dull fact for those of you who were fans of 80's TV's more esoteric sports. Geoff Capes, Olympic shot putter, World's Strongest Man and voted locally as the most miserable special guest at the St. Neots Mini Rugby Festival is a budgerigar breeder. Rhino racer, valkyrie breeder or bear wrestler I could imagine - but budgerigars? It reminds me of Hightower's first forays into florist-hood.

Had a good track workout today and it leads nicely into the topic of the day - 1500m progressions. The goal of 1500m pace progression sessions is to slowly acclimatise to racing pace whilst nudging the sessions towards workouts that increasingly resemble the race, so when your peak finally arrives you aren't thinking "oh, bollocks" after 2 laps. There are two components to this: session structure and session pace.

So, for example, my 1500m sessions are sequenced as follows (today's session in red):

2 * (4 * 300m) w / same stand. recovery; 400 jog between sets.
2 * (3 * 400m) w / same stand. recovery; 400 jog between sets.
4 * (2 * 300m) w / 100 jog; 400 jog between sets.
3 * (2 * 400m) w / 100 jog; 400 jog between sets.
6 * 400m w / same stand. recovery;
4 * 600m w / 2 * stand. recovery;
3 * 800m w / 2 * stand. recovery;
2 * 1000m w / 2 weeks in Corfu recovery.

This is not all - there are other race simulation and change of pace sessions at 1500m pace, but this effectively serves as the road map from current to goal fitness. Starting back in January one of these sessions is scheduled every fortnight and a seperate pace progression is used to determine how fast they are run:

- Feb: 67 secs / 400m (4:11 pace)
- Mar: 66 secs / 400m (4:07 pace)
- Apr: 65 secs / 400m (4:03 pace)
- May: 64 secs / 400m (3:59 pace)
- Jun: 63.5 secs / 400m (3:57 pace)
- Jul: 63 secs / 400m (3:55 pace)

If at any point the speed / session combination becomes unmanageable I will stay at the last achievable pace until there are signs I can complete a session at a faster pace. Alternatively it may mean 2010's ceiling pace has been established. In which case I train at that pace within a more searching array of sessions.

Easy, right? Now all I have to do is turn up.