BASE WEEK 4: Rene's Sessions

Week 3 was completed last week for myself and was the heaviest volume week. The fourth week of any cycle, should then take a step down again and allow you to recover strength for the next 4-week cycle.

Key Workouts of Week 4
The key workouts in week 4 are the same as in week 1-3, with one exception:

• Replace Fartlek session with a 1-mile time trial this is called a break-through workout
• Warmup/Cooldown: Do Dynamics stretches before, at least 15 minutes of base running, a few strides, and some technical drills. I recommend 2x20sec high knees and 2x20sec running with no arms this week. Do 5-15minutes base running when you're done as cooldown and then static stretches.
  

If you wonder what time you should be aiming for, send me your latest 5k, 10k, half-marathon, or marathon time and I will give you a range to shoot for.

Do this as your first key workout of the week so you are as fresh as possible.

Breakthrough Workout (explained)
Format: Race or time-trail
Suggestion: 1 Mile distance (Week 1-4)
When to do: Every 4 weeks in your periodisation week (easy week)
Purpose: Test your current fitness level and see if you're ready to move on to faster Target Pace Levels in your workouts. The result will tell you how you're progressing, especially if you monitor it every 4 months consistently.

Other Key Workouts
Follow it up with the two other standard workouts:

1. Uphill sprints (30 second sprints, 1:30 recovery). I do only 4 in this week, combined with a short hill run as warmup/cooldown
2. Marathon-pace run: A good session for the weekend. This week I would do only 25min marathon-pace with 15 minute easy running around (for example, 10 min warmup, 5 cooldown).

In addition, if you have time, ensure you get at least 3 slow runs in on the other 4 days of the week.

As an example, I would do:

1. 45-minute road run (morning)
2. 14-minute road run
3. 40-minute hill run

These are not recovery runs but base runs, so go comfortable but not ultra-slow.

I also recommend:

• 3 strength sessions (e.g. weights, resistance, core, plyometrics, Paul Kelly's circuits, etc.)