RECENTLY, I RECEIVED THE FOLLOWING QUESTION addressed to the "Ask The Expert" column I write for Runner's World on America Online:

I am four months from turning 40. My best 5-K time almost three years ago was right at 16:00. I laid off running for two years, but now I want to be competitive as a master. I just completed a 5-K in 17:45 with six weeks training Any suggestions on how to get my time back down to the low 16:00's?

The answer to that question is one that might interest a lot of runners. For the benefit of those of you who missed the Q&A; on America Online, here is my response:

I told my questioner that I had just returned from New Zealand, where one of my races was 5,000 meters in that country's national veterans (masters) championships in Dunedin on the South Island. Coming off a winter where I gave as much of my attention to skiing as to running, I was somewhat "out of shape." Certainly, I was not as focused on performance as I will be this summer when I plan to attend the World Veterans Championships in Durban, South Africa. I enjoyed racing on the track in Dunedin, but I didn't win any prizes.

It's a 12-hour flight from New Zealand back to the U.S., so I had ample time to consider what training might help me peak in Durban. Planning campaigns is something I've done before while cooped up in an airline cabin on the way home from major running events. I consider my next goals. I plot my next training. I get out paper and pen and draw rows of boxes and fill them with numbers like 8 x 400, or 5 x 1-K.

PLANNING MY NEXT CAMPAIGN

In the air over the South Pacific, I did just that. I sketched out a training plan for the coming 18 weeks, climaxing with the World Vets, where I planned to run cross-country, the 5,000 and perhaps the 2,000 meter steeplechase (if my old legs would take me over the barriers).

Planning far ahead is important in trying to peak for major races. You need to progressively increase your level of stress from week to week, reaching peak stress two to four weeks before your goal race. For maximum results at distances such as the 5-K, you need to include speedwork to teach your legs to go fast. You need lactate threshold training to improve your ability to tolerate stress. You need distance work for cardiovascular conditioning. You need flexibility drills to stay loose. You need strength training to get strong. You need rest. You also need a few races to fine-tune your competitive skills.

Flying home, I sketched a graph with seven boxes across (one for each day of the week, Monday through Sunday) and 18 boxes down (one for each week between then and the World Vets). Then it became a matter of filling in the boxes.

I decided that Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I would do Grass Drills in the mornings, adding cross-training in the afternoons with Friday also a possible rest day (particularly if I scheduled a race on Saturday). Tuesdays would be for speedwork: first hill repeats on the road outside my home, later moving to a track for classic interval training. Thursdays, I would alternate long repeats (5 x 1-K) one week with Tempo Runs (30-45 minutes) the next, shifting to the track as the important races drew near for very fast repetitions with maximum rest between (3 x 300).

Saturdays and Sundays would feature long runs at varying tempos. Saturday, if not racing, I would do an easy long run for an hour or two. Our club meets Sunday mornings at the Indiana Dunes State Park for runs of 60-90 minutes up and down the dunes, and I like to run with them for what can be either the toughest or easiest workout of the week. Every third or fourth week, I would run a race from 1500 meters to 5,000 meters to test my conditioning. If I needed an extra day's rest, I would take it on Monday.

Sound complicated? It is. Here is the schedule in more detail:

TRAINING TO EXCEL

Monday (AM): Grass Drills (4-8 x 100, bounding, stretching)

Monday (PM): Cross-Training (walking, biking, lifting)

Tuesday (Weeks 1-5): 3-7 hill repeats (400 up @ 1500-pace, jog down)

Tuesday (Weeks 6-15): 8 x 400 @ 5-K race pace, 200 jog between. Begin with current race pace (my pace in New Zealand); progress 1 second a week to goal pace (what I hope to run this summer)

Wednesday (AM & PM): Same as Monday

Thursday (odd weeks): 5 x 1-K @ 10-K race pace, 5:00 walk between

Thursday (even weeks): 30-45 minute Tempo Run, building to near 10-K pace in the middle

Thursday (weeks 12-15): 3 x 300 @ 800 race pace, 5:00 walk between

Friday (AM): Same as Monday and Wednesday, or rest

Friday (PM): Cross-Training, or rest

Saturday: 60-120 minutes at marathon pace, or slower

Sunday: 60 minutes at marathon pace, or faster

PAYING DIVIDENDS

I planned to run as many of these workouts as possible on soft surfaces to limit muscle stress and prevent injuries. The Grass Drills, for instance, were to be run on a golf course a half mile from my house. I would do the Tempo Runs and long repeats on trails, the short repeats on a rubberized track. Only the hill repeats and long runs on Saturdays would be on the road. Sunday's workouts are totally on soft surfaces in the Dunes.

Week 15 would be the peak of my training. Weeks 16-18 would be a combination of resting and racing, including several short road races in Ireland en route to South Africa. Since I hoped to run the steeplechase in Durban, I knew I would need to include some hurdle and barrier work as well. There are some benches on the golf course where I do Grass Drills. I have already begun to leap a half dozen of them cooling down on the way home. Once I move to the track, I can work on hurdles.

Would such a schedule work for the newly-turned master who wrote me on America Online? Would it work also for young high school runners, many of whom have already begun to write my "Ask The Expert" column asking about their summer training? Maybe not exactly as I've outlined it, but the general principles of mixing quality speed works with easy recovery workouts and increasing the stress level over a period of weeks applies to all runners training for distances around 5,000 meters. The above is not a schedule for beginning athletes; it is more for experienced athletes trying to excel and set Personal Records.

The training has already begun to pay dividends for me. Three weeks into my program, I ran a test race in Lansing, Illinois. The distance was 4 miles, not 5-K as I might have preferred, but I came past the shorter distance an estimated 20 seconds faster than my time in Dunedin. I have a long, long way to go before I can hope to be competitive in Durban--or win a medal--but that's not the point. Most important is to have goals and strive toward them, and also have purpose in your training. Because I enjoy varied forms of training, and consider being able to get out for each day's run a form of victory, I have already won my gold medal.

Copyright © 1997 by Hal Higdon. All rights reserved. Requests to reprint will be considered.