Workout of the Week: DIY Threshold Session

No matter what you’re training for, there’s a place in your program for a threshold run. This workout, for simplicity’s sake, can be boiled down to maintaining a steady effort (think: half-marathon pace) for a prolonged period of time, usually between 20-40 minutes. It’s effective at helping to strengthen your aerobic base, dialing in race pace if you’re training for longer distances, and improving focus and confidence in general. But it’s not easy! That’s why early in a training cycle, or if an athlete just isn’t that fit and/or motivated yet, I’ll let them “make their own” threshold run, i.e. breaking up the 20-40 minutes of work however they’d like with a short break to reset between repetitions. Here are the details:

What: 20-40 minutes of total work at roughly half-marathon effort (n.b. it’s OK to be a little faster or a little slower) with 30 seconds to 2 minutes of easy jogging to recovery and reset between repetitions. Effort-wise, you should be able to talk in short sentences during this workout but not hold a full-on conversation. The permutations and combinations for putting this session together are essentially endless, but here are some options to help make it work for you: 7-12 x 3:00 on/1:00 off; 4-8 x 5:00 on/1:30 off, 2-4 x 10:00 on/2:00 off; 2-3 sets of 4:00/3:00/2:00/1:00 on w/1:00 off between reps, 2:00 off between sets.

Warmup/Cooldown: Warm up before the workout with 15-30 minutes of easy running followed by a set of drills and 4-6 x 20-second strides (i.e., accelerate for 5 seconds, spend the next 10 seconds at near-top speed, and then gradually decelerate to a jog over the final 5 seconds. Catch your breath for 40-60 seconds and then repeat 3-5 more times). Cool down after the workout with 5-15 minutes of easy running.

Why: The short answer is that this workout is more palatable than a straight threshold run. It will allow you to accumulate more work at the right effort level without falling apart/slowing down. Ideally after completing this workout a few times you’ll gain the fitness and confidence to run at threshold effort for longer periods of time.

Where: This workout is best done on the roads or trails, but it can also be done on the treadmill if that’s necessary or more preferable to you.

When: Generally we’ll do this workout a few times earlier in a training block when the athlete just isn’t that fit or confident yet, but I’ll also pull it out if an athlete is struggling with longer threshold workouts for whatever reason.