This week i started my anaerobic conditioning,once you move into anaerobic conditioning then you need to start doing interval training.
Arthur Lydiard recommends a total of 5K of effort, so you could chose 3 x 1 mile, 6 x 1/2 mile or 12 x 1/4 or even 24 x 200 m.
i always find it better to do this fast training with other people, training on my own i never seem to be able to run as fast, it seems to be much harder mentally, using up mental energy i think is better saved for race day and i think you learn more running in a fast pack of runners, learning to hang on to the pace of someone who is making you suffer, leading the pack or winding the pace up at the end of an effort, but most of all its just so much more FUN running with your team mates and thats what its all about! SO IF YOUR CLUB DOES NOT HOLD SPEED SESSIONS WHY NOT THINK ABOUT ORGANIZING SOME !
ARTHUR LYDIARD ON ANAEROBIC CONDITIONING;
"When developing the capacity to exercise anaerobically, it is important to realize what you are trying to do and what physiological development you are trying to achieve It is possible to develop an ability to incur about 15-liter oxygen debt and this is done by exercising anaerobically. Developing big oxygen debts in training stimulates the body's metabolism to create buffers against fatigue. If this is understood, it will be realized that it does not really matter what form of running it takes, as long as you are making yourself tired with the volume of anaerobic exercise: and finish the training session knowing that you could not do much more nor any better. Therefore, it doesn't matter whether you use repetitions or interval training, over different distances with different intervals, you don't even need to time them: as long as you come off the track or from your training quite fatigued. However, as a practical guide, it is advisable to get fast running into a total of about 3 miles, or 5000 meters, or thereabouts; i.e. 12 X 400 meters, 6 X 600 meters, 5 X 1000 meters or 3 X 1 mile, etc.: with a recovery jog of a equal distance in between. If one athlete takes longer intervals or more volume of fast repetitions than another to gain the same reaction physiologically, then he will just need to train for a longer time.
So in many ways, it is important to evaluate your training every day, so as to understand the effects of each day's training; and not to follow some or any schedule blindly".
