Like everything running comes with a whole load of words and phrases that can make you feel like you know absolutely nothing and you stare at them with a “what does that even mean” look on your face.
Let’s go through a whole stack of them….
Heart Rate Training –
This is where you are going to execute your speed/effort in sessions based on your heart rate. Most sport watches now have wrist based heart rate monitors attached to them and the training is usually based on “zones.” The zones are usually divided into 5.
Zone 1 – usually 50-60% of your max heart rate (very light)
Zone 2 – 60-70% (light)
Zone 3 – 70-80% (moderate)
Zone 4 – 80-90% (hard)
Zone 5 – 90 – 100% (max)
Now, a word of warning – wrist based heart rate monitors are quite inaccurate and hugely vary. I find that not only things like caffeine, sleep, alcohol, stress etc can impact my heart rate hugely but also if it’s cold, hot (anything other than ambient). I’ve ran a flat out 10K PB at 137 bpm and a steady run at 160 bpm – I know which one was hard and which was was light to moderate.
If you are going to base your training on heart rate then I’d say you deffo need a chest strap to get any accuracy and being mindful of the factors that can create an impact so that you don’t feel disillusioned quickly.
Speeds – Easy, Steasy, Moderate, Steady, Tempo, Race Pace, Threshold, To Feel, Strides –
Definition of easy – a does what it says on the tin kinda one. This is an easy/conversational pace where you are within yourself and happily just shimmying along. It’s not taxing or stretching you
Now I want to jump to the definition of steady – this one is one that confuses lots of people. Steady always feels like it should be easy. You’d say things like “steady on” meaning to slow down but steady when it comes to running is a little more efforty than that. I kinda think about it as a run where I’m switched on and more engaged in the process of running. I would also pop moderate into the same bracket. Think being present on the run, switched on and trying rather than easy where you are just trotting along.
What does steasy mean – it’s somewhere between a steady and an easy run. Perhaps you’re not truly “running honest” but you’re not bimbling.
Tempo is where you’re now chugging along. You’re efforting and pushing the pace along.
Race Pace is the pace you want to run in the event that you are training for. There’s lots of websites that will help you take the time that you want to finish your event in and work out how fast each mile or km would need to be
Threshold is one that feels technical and confusing. It’s the pace where you are faster than your easy pace, a pace that doesn’t create the lactate burn in your legs but it is slower than 5-10k pace. It’s a similar one to your tempo pace. Sustainable but reasonably hard.
Running to feel mean that you are running, not to pace/speed, not to heart rate but purely based on how you feel at a given time. So you can have a run that feels easy or a run that feels efforty but you’re not giving it any external points to hit.
Strides – little 20 sec fast. You’re accelerating up to your fast/sprinty kinda pace and then backing back out, focusing on form.
Drills
These are activation and mobility movements that people use before doing any training session that has some structured efforting within it (most people call it “a session”). You can find some good videos on YouTube to follow along that go through drills routines.
Farlek
Yup, it’s totally ok to snigger like a pre-teen at that one. It’s apparently Swedish for “speed play” and it’s a run that you go out and do, without the structure of an interval session (see the next one) and you just mix up the speed. You might go from lamp post to lamp post or road end to road end or just as and when you fancy it.
Intervals
This is a more structured speed session. You can use these sessions in so many different ways and for so many different purposes. It’s where you go a little (or a lot) faster for certain periods of time or certain distances and have structured recovery between each repetition (rep).
Progression Run
Where you are going slightly faster throughout the run. This might be each 1/2 mile, km or mile or might be every 5 minutes or 10 minutes.
Royal Flush
This is when you nail a progression run and each bit (mile or km) of your run is faster than the last one meaning your slowest miles are at the beginning and your fastest at the end.
Negative Split
A Royal Flush/Progression Run can results in a negative split. A negative split is completing the first half of a run/race slower than the second half – therefore finishing quicker than you started.
Hill Reps
Running up a hill with engagement & effort and then recovering on the down hills. Hill training is often referred to as speed work in disguise AND it’s very good for working on your form as you tend to run with good form when you’re running uphill effectively.
Jeffing
I bloody love jeffing and it’s one of the things I advocate to those who are starting their running journey although it works perfectly well at all times in your journey. Lots of people go on to jeff full marathons and ultras have an element of jeffing within them naturally. Nope, it’s got nothing to do with “effing & jeffing” but it’s the concept of run walking. You will run for a period of time and walk for a period of time. Couch to 5k is founded on the principles of jeffing. I know that lots of people find Couch to 5k starts beyond where they feel comfortable starting and as little as 10 secs jogging every minute or every 2 minutes can be the perfect way to start. IT IS NOT CHEATING. It’s a bloody epic way to get started or to even enhance your endurance later in your running journey. Give it a little google to find out more.
Cadence
This is about how many strides you take per minute. The holy grail always appears to be stated as 180 strides per minute. Lots of the fancy dan watches calculate your cadence for you. There’s a number of ways that you can improve cadence that will help you to cover the ground more quickly. Obviously taking more strides per minute (as long as you’re not interfering with your stride length) will mean that you are covering more distance in the same amount of time. You can use a metronome app which will give you a little noise to try to create your running rhythm to. You can get play lists that are designed to hit a certain number of strides per minute or just being mindful of turning over your feet a little quicker can all help.
Stride Length
The amount of ground covered with each stride you take.
Recovery
Recovery is the time where you body physically recovers and is kinda getting it’s opportunity to uplevel. Recovery can be an all out rest day, it can be a cross training day (where you do some other form of movement/exercise to keep the body moving but perhaps without the same impact as running) or can be a recovery run (a really easy run, where you’re well and truly within your comfort zone and using that run to simply get the blood flowing through your leg muscles again).
Shout up in the comments if there’s any you found particularly helpful there, if there’s any you’d like me to dive a little deeper into or any I didn’t cover.
