BASE WEEK 5-8: General Guidelines

While I am at my week 4, you may be at a different place in your program. However, I'd like to give some general guidance on how to proceed next week if you're at a similar stage as me.

Basic Guidelines Stay
Yes, it's that simple, you can keep the basic format of Base Week 1-4, meaning 3 key workouts and preferably (if you have time) 1-3 base runs. Remember you can replace 1 base run with another cardiovascular exercise form (skating, biking etc.).

Key workouts

• 30/30 Session: This session now replaces hill sprints. See below for details.
  
• Fartlek: Same format as week 1-4, but increase your number of repetitions by 2 (I would do 10 at this stage)
• Marathon-pace run: Exactly like week 1-4, but if you've gotten faster then run this session faster as well (basically, the intensity should feel the same as in week 1-4, but the speed may be higher). Still run the first 10min and last 5min at base pace

Example of marathon-session week 5-8: Weeks - 1, 32 min; 2, 36 min; 3 42 min; 4, 30 min. This doesn't include the 15min warmup and cooldown.

30/30 Session
The 30/30 session, first introduced to me by Emma Cutts from the PeakCentre (a brilliant exercise physiologist), is one of the simplest most effective workouts around.

Purpose: Increase VO2 max, increase leg-turnover, increase mental strength, increase max HR (the hill sprints primarily focused on leg strength, we are moving on from that now).
How to: Find a grassy field, preferably undulating, and do 30 seconds max speed and 30 sec jogging in between. Stop once you can no longer maintain proper sprinting form.
Guidelines: This workout should feel quite unpleasant as you should try and stress your heart as much as you can. Don't do it if you have heart problems!
How many: As above, until failure.
Alternative: If you are extremely fit, the 30 seconds jog will allow you to recover too much. Change the session to 40/20 instead (40 seconds max intensity, 20 seconds rest). Try 30/30 first, however.

Do not use the 60/60 session. This is a very different workout with a different purpose and is for later use.

Base Runs
Keep doing 3 base runs per week if you can. If you're so tired you're running them at recovery pace, you're doing your key workouts too hard. Scale back on time or intensity, so you can get a bit more quality from these longer slower runs.

It's all about quality!

Strength Training
3 strength sessions per week is still recommended but if you don't have time, do some light plyometrics 3 times per week (squat jumps, frog hops, single leg squat jumps and similar exercises). Do 2x12-20 reps and this is enough to reap significant benefits in terms of muscular endurance (e.g. "speed increase").