Paddington Track

Our Endurance track session on Tuesdays is delivered by the following qualified England Athletics coaches: Gavin Edmonds – Athletics Coach Endurance; Ewan Maynard – Assistant Athletics Coach.

The sessions are for Endurance Athletes and Triathletes with a leaning toward Marathoners.

You should have a specific time based goal to attend this session and know your current paces and lap times, ie 3k, 5k, 10k pace, etc.

There is no minimum standard for this session but you should be regularly running at least 30 miles per week over 4-7 runs to be able to finish the session comfortably. For Triathletes this may be 3 runs a week and not necessarily 30 miles but you would ideally be around sub 2:45 for an Olympic distance triathlon.

Times: Meet punctually at 7pm by the sprint lanes/ main start line for a dynamic warmup and drills, having already jogged 1km. The session finishes around 8 pm.

Contact: If you have any questions about your training please feel welcome to contact Gavin gavinedmonds@yahoo.co.uk

Location: Paddington Rec Track, Maida Vale. There is no fee for the track. Bags can be left by the sprint lanes or there are lockers which require a returnable £1 coin. Showers and changing rooms cost £3.15 payable at reception.

If you are a runner or triathlete who is considering joining the club, you are welcome to join one of these sessions to try out the club.

 

2026 Road to Spring Marathons, 10k and Halves!

As always feel free to ask Gavin for advice on racing, physiology, strength, nutrition, etc.

Date	Main Set	Pace	Description
January 13th	3 x 400m at 5k pace with 60″ / 60″ / 90″ static recovery / 1600m at 5k pace / 60″ static recovery / 3 x 400m at 5k pace with 60″ / 60″ / 90″ static recovery / 1600m at 5k pace / 60″ static recovery / 3 x 400m at 5k pace with 60″ / 60″ static recovery	5k	Mixture of short and long reps to get the flavour of 5k racing! The recoveries do look like a bit of a dogs dinner but to simplify: you have 60 seconds rest before any 400m rep and 90 seconds rest before the 1600m reps
January 20th	BIG Pyramid of: 1200m / 1600m / 2400m / 1600m / 1200m all at 10k pace and 75 seconds static recovery throughout	10k	Not a hugely interesting session but this stage of January marks when people are back to the swing of things and it pays to favour endurance over speed with a further 10-14 weeks left until our Spring targets
January 27th	4 x 1200m at 5k pace 75 seconds static recovery / 6 x 300m at 5k pace with 100m rolling recovery no longer than 45 seconds	5k	4800m at 5k pace broken into 3 lap reps to work on the endurance and the final part of the session is an opportunity to run fast but with our (very) fast twitch muscles fibres pre fatigued so that the speedwork is targeted to the Type 1 and 2a (not 2b!) fibres
February 3rd	10-12 x (2 minutes 15 seconds at 10k pace into 45 seconds at 5k pace) 1 minute recovery to walk back to the start line	10k/5k	Following the chronology of a 12 round boxing match, this session is slightly easier than previous runnings. In each 3 minute rep we ‘cruise’ at 10 pace to recover from the previous rep then attack for the last 45 seconds of the rep with a 4 second per lap pickup
February 10th	4 x 1000m at 5k pace 200m jog recovery / 6 x 400m at 5k pace 60 seconds static recovery	5k	Slightly shorter 5k reps than previous weeks to allow us to work near to VO2Max and single laps in the second half of the session to help leg power and lactate tolerance
February 17th	1600m at 10k pace / 75″ static recovery / 8 x 600m at 10k pace with 30” static recovery between 600s / 75 seconds static recovery / 1600m at 10k pace	10k	Long and short reps at 10k pace
February 24th	2 x (11 x 400m alternating between Marathon and 5k pace each lap) 90” static recovery between sets	MP/5k	4400m sets where we alternate between 400m reps at target Marathon pace and then 400m reps at 5k pace until the 4400m is reached. There should be 12″ a lap difference between MP and 5k. This is taken from Frank Horwills workout that alternates 400s for a full 10km
March 3rd	6 x 6′ 10k pace / 75 seconds static recovery	10k	Building up the volume of longer reps. In this session we will run together off the whistle
March 10th	6-7 x 1000m at 5k pace / 200m jog recovery	5k	Classic endurance with rolling recoveries that should be between 0:55-1:25
March 17th	1600m at 10k pace / 2 x 1200m as (800m at 10k pace into 400m at 5k pace) / 3 x 800 at 5k / 75 seconds static recovery throughout	10k/5k	Blending from 10k to 5k pace as the reps get shorter
March 24th	2 x 1600m 90 seconds static recovery / 3 x 800m 75 seconds static recovery / 3 x 400m 60 seconds static recovery / 5k pace throughout	5k	Stepped Ladder: Building stamina with the long mile reps and keeping our speedwork up as the reps get shorter
March 31st	1k, 2k, 3k, 2k, 1k all at 10k pace with 75 seconds static recovery throughout	10k	A large Pyramid (again) clearly pointing at our Half and Full Marathons. Note we’d usually run 7-8k at 10k pace and the total volume of this session is 9k. The last 2 reps can be omitted.
April 7th	Yahoo 800 Reps (8-10 x 800m at 5k pace with 400m jog recovery between each rep)	5k	Very similar to Yasso 800s where you run 800m in the same minutes and seconds of your intended marathon goal time in hours and minutes. This translates to 5k pace. In Yahoo you jog the recovery at a normal pace (as opposed to Yasso who would have you practically walking!)
April 14th	6-8 x 6′ at 10k pace 75 seconds recovery throughout	10k	12 days out from the London Marathon, last chance for a big threshold effort.
April 21st
April 28th