Get Fit Fast 4 key workouts to unlock your potential

CRACK THE COMBINATION

Why mixing things up in your interval workouts can be just the stimulus your training needs

INTERVAL SESSIONS feature in many runners’ routines to build fitness or prepare for a race. Often, though, runners will work through a menu of standard interval sessions and repeat them across the year. Certain workouts – for example 10 to 12 x 400m repeats with 60 seconds’ rest – can be seen as ‘straight’ interval sessions, involving running blocks of hard effort at the same pace with rest intervals. But combination workouts mix two or more different intensities within a single session, offering the chance to mix things up in order to challenge your body differently. Here’s how they can benefit your running.

Why do combination workouts? Stimulus: Just like all interval sessions, combination workouts challenge your mind and body. We adapt to training after a period of doing the same thing and I’ve seen many runners get stuck repeating the same types of interval work for little return. Mixing different intensities within a session provides you with a new stressor, which can push your training forward and help you to break out of a rut. Efficiency: Many runners struggle to fit in all the different types of session and intensities they’re encouraged to do. Some runners will find one or two hard sessions every seven to 10 days is enough. If this is you, combination workouts allow you to touch on these intensities without cramming your week with hard sessions. You can mix hills and tempo work into the same session, for example. Interest: Combination workouts encourage you to plan your effort better through a session. A greater emphasis on pacing and psychology can make these types of workouts more interesting for runners who struggle with grinding out the same effort throughout a whole session. Progression: As you’ll see with the examples below, combination workouts can be used to progress your training towards a specific race goal, or to maintain fitness you’ve built in a previous training phase.

When to do them The classic use of combination sessions is as a bridge between different training phases. Let’s say that you’ve recently finished and recovered from a marathon or half marathon race and you’re looking to race a 5K in 10 to 12 weeks’ time. As you move closer to the 5K, your pace in training sessions should start to focus towards your goal race pace – for example, 15 to 20 minutes at onehour race pace, plus three to four lots of three minutes at 5K to 10K pace.

MIX AND MATCH Choose the areas you want to focus on and build them into a combined interval workout

Similar to this example, you can use combination sessions to test ‘current’ and ‘goal’ pace. If you’re building towards a 10K, you could mix longer efforts of current 10K pace with shorter blocks of goal pace in the same session. For example: four sets of six minutes at current 10K pace, a 60-second jog and two minutes at goal pace, with a longer recovery time between each of the four sets.

How to do them Try to not be confined by strict rules when building your training plan and individual training sessions. Get creative but ask yourself some key questions, which will help you decide how and when to set your combination sessions.

What are you trying to achieve? Is the session trying to move a particular pace forwards? Are you aiming to maintain fitness from a previous training cycle? Are you looking to transition between training plans? These questions will help guide you on the paces and volumes to include in your session.

Where are you in your

training cycle?

Is your goal race a long way off? Perhaps you’re looking to work on some foundations of fitness. If so, perhaps mixing some short, faster hills with longer efforts of controlled discomfort (six or seven out of 10 effort) could work well. Are you in the key four to six weeks before your goal race? If this is the case, perhaps you’ll want to include a greater percentage of race-pace running in the session.

MIXING INTENSITIES CAN HELP YOU TO BREAK OUT OF A RUT

What are your key areas

for development?

Think about race day and ask yourself where you feel strong and where you feel you struggle. If you find a finishing kick hard, perhaps consider including some faster 30- to 60-second efforts at the end of your sessions. If you know your race will include some hard hill climbs in the middle, this is something you can mimic in combination sessions leading up to the day.

Risks to bear in mind While mixing intensities and types of training into a single session can have some major benefits, there are also risks that you need to consider. Foundation: As with all harder sessions, combination workouts demand a good foundation of easy and steady running. Hard running sessions are not a replacement for easy volume – they lie on top of it, so get the fundamentals in place first. Pacing: As soon as you start mixing the effort in one session, pacing yourself becomes a challenge. Often, the changes in intensity can be quite subtle and it’s easy to overcook them. Consider starting with sessions that separate paces clearly: for example, ⅔ of a session at 10K pace, with the final ⅓ of the session at 3K to 5K pace. As you start to build more experience, you can blend and mix paces across the whole session. Load: One of the dangers is you end up with huge workouts that take a lot of recovery. It shouldn’t be a case of bolting extra ‘stuff’ on to existing sessions, so think carefully about the overall volume of hard effort. If you are mixing paces around 5K effort, you still probably only need about 18 to 25 minutes of work as a maximum. If you’re including more 10K to marathon intensity, you can include a bit more – but take care not to dig yourself into a big hole. Consistent training has more overall value than individual hard sessions.

Tom Craggs is road running manager for EnglandAthletics

4 COMBO WORKOUTS TO TRY

Warm up and cool down well around the main elements below

1/ SPICED-UP TEMPO

Why: Develop a kick by engaging fast-twitch muscle fibres when tired. How: After a good warm-up, run for 20-25 mins at an effort you feel you could hold for 1 hr in a race situation. Jog for 2-3 mins before doing 6 x 15-30-sec fast hill repeats with walkback recoveries.

2/ BLENDED SESSIONS

Why: Get your body used to managing fatigue and changes of pace during a race by mixing up your effort throughout a session. How: Run 5 sets of 4 mins at 5K-10K pace, 60-sec rest, 75 secs at 3K-5K pace. Jog for 2 mins between each of the sets.

3/ CUT DOWN BENEFITS

Why: Give yourself an aerobic boost and learn pacing control by progressing your paces within an endurance-focused session. How: Run efforts of 12, 10, 8 and 4 mins, all with 90-sec jog recoveries. Do the 12-min effort between half marathon and marathon pace and get progressively faster to run the final 4-min effort at 10K pace.

4/ 5K RACE SIMULATION

Why: Races often start fast, require consistent and settled pace in the middle and a strong finish. Try this in a session to mimic a 5K or parkrun. How: Run 4 × 70 secs fast at 3K-5K pace with 60-sec rest; 5 × 3 mins at 5K pace with 90-120-sec rest; 4 × 70 secs at 3K pace with 60-sec rest.