Sub 5-Minute-Mile Training

http://www.yourrunning.com/forum-where_eagles_dare

Flexibility, coach Bobby McGee declares, will be perhaps the deciding factor in how fast we go. We don’t need the supra-normal range of motion of gymnasts and martial artists, but we do need enough freedom and suppleness to be able to move our legs at 4:40 per mile pace, and we have to have arms, shoulders, backs and hips that don’t slow us up by their stiffness and lack of mobility. This special type of speed and mobility training is also designed to allow us to train at target speed without getting injured.

That is a key element of Bobby’s comprehensive 45-week program. It’s his view that the reason more masters – or come to that, more athletes – never manage to beat 5 minutes for the mile is that even if they manage to work out what fast-mile-specific training to do, they break down as soon as they attempt it. Our program is designed to deliver us fit enough, strong enough and flexible enough to be able to handle the extremes of speedwork and plyos, plus Bobby’s "secret" sessions, without getting injured.

Basic warm-up achieved, Marci handed us target heart rates. These are not just percentages of max heart rate, but the result of a slightly more sophisticated equation; for today’s opening session, a fixed percentage -- 80% -- of our heart rate reserve.

Mine was 153. The next clever bit of the session then became clear...the object of the time trial was not to hit a certain speed, or beat a certain time, but to stay within a few beats of that heart rate. So…sprinting off to get it up to 153 and then playing some sort of slow-quick-slow dance to try to get it to stay there was not going to be an option. No, we had to keep warming up until we got the heart rate up and could maintain it there without any sprints, jumps, arm-waving or breath-holding antics – then signal to Bobby and Marci we were ready, then quickly strip off and start the time trial.

It was a difficult job, it turned out. For some of us, it felt just so slow. For others, notably our self-proclaimed “poster boy”, Larry – a Clydesdale who in some seven months time will be a racing thoroughbred – it was hard to keep the heart rate down. I think I ended up doing it at around 8:30 pace. Bobby also said that the majority of our base training for the next while will be even slower, at 70% of heart rate reserve. That's going to take some discipline.