The Training Year: Middle Distance

Having started with some comments and recommendations for sprinters I have been asked about middle and long distance runners. I'll split them because although they are similar the specialists do training with differing emphases.

The middle distance is the obvious place to start. Everyone knows the ingredients for the training for these events: long steady runs, shorter sharper runs, repetition sessions, hill runs, circuit sessions, etc but the difficulty is in knowing how to mix them for optimum results. It is further complicated because there have been so many apparently opposed methods of tackling them. For instance Seb Coe started out running 3000 metres and cross country and worked his way down to the point where he was seleted to run for England at 400 metres; Steve Ovett started out as a Schools 400 metres champion and worked his way up to being an internatonal cross country runner with an excellent half marathon time to his name. Both ran almost identical times at 800 and 1500 off different types of training. There are many ways up the mountain. In any case the winter work is basically steady, longer running with two effort sessions a week - these can be reps on the track, on the road or on the grass, they can be a regular weekly timed run over a favourite trail or a hill session. 400/800/1500 metres runners could probably do with a circuit in there as well: running is the best training for running but the ciruits add variety, can be very specific in what groups they work and have the benefit of being in out of the rain! For younger runners, no more than two cross country races a month are usually recommended but given the Scottish winter fixture list, it is sometimes hard to keep strictly to that,

The year plan is basically the same as for sprinters in that the real conditioning work is done in the winter months with the difference that longer distance runners race more during the winter. If I were to recommend books for athlete or coach, two of the very best are maybe out of print but can be obtained through the library. These are "Running My Way" by Harry Wilson which is far and away the best manual for my money. He did not peddle a particular route to the top, his approach was to look at what the athlete was and what his strengths were and work with them. He also has some very good actual sessons in his book. Frank Horwill's "Obsession With Running" sets out his five pace system of training and even if you don't follow every twist and turn of it, and I don't know anyone who did, there is a lot of good stuff on training sessons and how to work them out. One that was heavily advertised and was more use to the coach or to the more experienced athlete was "Middle Distance Running" by Peter Coe and David Martin. The best overview of the subject is probably "Middle Distance Running" by Norman Brooke and published by the BAAB via Crowood Press. And for a wealth of knowledge in a big book to dip into from time to time or for information on a particuar topic, "The Lore of Running" by Tim Noakes is well worth the money. Finally of all the biographies on the market, "Ovett" by Steve Ovett is very good - I've had three copies stolen by grateful athletes, always a good indication of how useful a book is. For the girls/ladies, Kelly Holmes's book "Black, White and Gold" is worth a look and for the younger runners Bruce Tuloh's book "The Teenage Runner" is a good guide to type of training, frequecy of training and coaching habits for working with these athletes. Long Distance will be next