Tuesday Track Sessions at New River Stadium

Coach David Chalfen offers weekly sessions on Tuesday evenings at New River Stadium in Wood Green.

Note: you ideally need to run around 41 minutes for 10k or better to attend these sessions.

David will be at the track from 7.00pm. The reps will start at 7.20pm prompt and runners are expected to do their own warm up to be ready for this. David can advise on warm up structure/duration.

What to expect

The sessions are mostly at 3k to 5k pace, occasionally at 1500m pace with some longer stints at about 10k pace. Expect to run between 6k and 8.5k of hard efforts, with a fairly short recovery, in the region of about 40 secs per 400m of effort. This 3k/5k pace is applicable for most of the year for endurance distances from 800m/1500m to marathon - and it's what you do on the other 6 days per week season by season that adds to the event-specificity. "That's why I rarely use quicker than 3k pace - that can be done at a different session when appropriate", says David.

David splits the group to ensure that the less speedy get a short recovery rather than veering towards zero recovery if they are working to the timetable of the front of the first group. Slower than about 41 minutes for 10k it's hard to accommodate a meaningful session as this then requires a 3rd sub-group which is too much for 1 coach to manage. Sometimes sessions are done by time rather than distance so everyone can run as one group eg 6 x 4 mins at 5k pace, 90 sec jog/regroup.

Runners are encouraged to run the reps at even pace and David will sometimes task runners with a last lap pick up to guard against the trend of slowing down during each rep. Runners are also discouraged from opting in and out of reps to maintain a higher speed, partly as this is unhelpful to those who are doing the full session and partly because it just makes it a different session for them compared to what it's meant to be.

The reps are usually done in 35 to 40 minutes followed by a warm down either at the track, or by jogging home or to the tube.

David strongly advises against coming to the Tuesday session if you have raced further than about 10k on the Sunday (i.e. two days before) as this will just delay recovery and increase injury/illness risk. In such cases, and subject to individual plans etc., it is advised to wait until Thursday or Friday and do the session elsewhere.

New River sessions Spring 2010

Sessions up to 13 April are suitable for people doing XC; Road races and VLM.

After this date I wouldn’t expect to see VLM runners back until about 4th week of May. The sessions for this period will instead focus on some running at 1500m speed, +/- for athletes who are looking to race 1500 to 5k type events over the early part of the summer. The sessions would also be suitable for 10k road runners subject to what training is going on on the other days.

  • As always, it'll be what you do in the other running sessions each week/month/quarter that will contribute to the overall thrust of your training, these reps are just one component.
  • These sessions are pretty hard so whatever volume of running you plan on the preceding and following days, it should be easy or steady paced
  • You are unlikely to get the most benefit by doing more than one of these sessions per week so if you come along on a Tuesday,ensure that your other harder running challenges different levels of intensity.
  • As always, the sessions can be adapted for runners with different levels of fitness so that the 32 minute 10k runner is challenged in the same way as a 42 minute 10k runner.
  • Please don't come on Tuesday if you've raced further than 10k on the Sunday - instead try the session on the Weds/Thurs/Fri when more fully recovered.
  • After a marathon I'd recommend about 4 weeks before you should get back into this sort of session, having had about two weeks back into some easy/steady running. 

The reps themselves will start at 7.20 prompt and everyone should be warmed up along the lines of:

  • 10-15 minutes easy running starting with a very slow 5 minutes jog
  • 3 or 4 x 15-20 second strides at about the fastest pace that the reps will be carried out at
  • A few short technical drills through the speed ladder that can over time help to improve your running efficiency (it's not intended just as a piece of track furniture)

Please don't use spikes for these sessions - normal trainers will be fine, I'd recommend the extra protection in favour of the slight extra speed. The only exception will be during winter when the track surface may freeze up slightly - an annoying quirk is that water on a Mondo track seems to freeze at about + 3 Celsius.

At the risk of becoming a nagging mother hen, recovery from these sessions will be quicker if you bring along some sort of snack, carbo/protein mix, about 300/400 calories worth, for after the warm down, as I know some of the regulars have a long journey home.

 

Date Session
 2nd March  7 x 1200 at c 5k pace (100 sec recovery)
 9th March  3 x (6 mins at 10mile/10k pace (90 sec) 3 mins at 5k pace (75 secs) 90 secs at 3k pace(70 secs))
 16th March  10 x 800 at 5k pace (75 sec jog)
 23rd March  12 mins at LT/10mile pace (2 mins)- 6 x 1k at c 5k pace (90 sec recovery)
 30th March  8 x 1k at 5k pace (90/100 secs recovery)
 6th April  12 x 700 at c 5k pace (70 sec jog)
 13th April  Marathoners – 8 x 1500/1 mile at 10 mile pace (60 sec jog); others 6 x 1200 on same 6.5 minute cycle
 20th April  6 x 1k at 3k pace( 3 min/400m lap jog)
 27th April  6 x 800 at c 1500 pace (4-5 min jog)
 4th May  1200 (5 mins) 2 x 800 (3 mins)600 (3 mins) 2 x 400 (2 mins) – 3k pace down to c notional 1k race pace
 11th May  6 x 600 at c 1500 pace ( 3 mins lap jog)