Track Tuesday

Tuesday nights usually mean one thing for me - about 2 hours of training on the track, and a session of pure pain. But it is well worth it because you know it will benefit you and make you quicker. That's why we do it, and why we keep going back for more!

Until I began training under the influence of coach Affleck, I had never set foot on an athletics track in my life - but 18 months or so on from it being introduced to my regime, it is now probably the single most important aspect of my weekly training plan.

I have come on quite a way since in those last 18 months, and I strongly believe that this has much to do with the Tuesday night pain game I put myself through most weeks! The actual hard part of the session only probably lasts for about half an hour, but with a stringent warm up and cool down being an essential part of the process (in order to avoid silly injuries) the session as a whole can take well in excess of three times that long.

When I first started out on the track sessions, I struggled to get my head around how such short reps could really make such a difference to the performance of a long distance road runner. But results don't lie and having taken chunks out of everything from 5k through to marathon distance, there can be no doubt of the influence the pace work has had on me.

Usually my session will consist of a 20 minute jog to warm up (2 - 2.5 miles), stretches of all the major muscle groups in the legs, a series of 50 metre sprints, and heel flicks. When the muscles are nice and supple we get into the hard part.

Each week I look to get through anything from 3-5 miles worth of pace work, depending on whether or not I have had/do have a race in the few days before or after.

In the last few sessions I have been doing slightly shorter reps as I am focussing on increasing my top end speed. Prior to that I had been doing longer reps, as I wanted to increase my endurance as well as my pace. Last weeks session saw us doing 5 lots of 1200 metres, and 1 x 400 metres at an average pace of 4:48 per mile. The shortest reps I have done so far are 400 metres, and the longest 2 miles.

On completion of the session, I do another 20 minute jog to cool down, before stretching again to complete.

I train at the UCLAN Arena athletics track at Cottam, the same one used by Helen Clitheroe, Stuart Robinson, David Rigby, Chris Livesey and Chris Tulley (and more!) and hopefully in the near future I will be looking to jump on with their sessions to try and eak out a bit more pace.

Considering how much I used to dread it, I now look forward to #tracktuesday each week!