Training for the right distance

at the moment i'm trying closely to follow this training regime from Moraghan (forummer in runnersworld)

hopefully it work!!! i'll be focusing on the 10 km...

It seems that, in this country at least, many years ago the club running scene fell in with the dogma that longer is better.  As soon as you've completed a 5k it's time to tackle a 10k, then continue on to the holy grail of the marathon.  Then you can call yourself a runner.  Which is fine of course, but what of the runners whose ultimate goal is to fulfill their potential and not just cross off items on their bucket list?

Well I suggest you focus primarily on the distance at which your training effectively supports.  Take your time moving up the distances and do so when your training enables you to do so whilst maintaining sensible training principles.  I'm a believer that enjoyment is closely linked to accomplishment, proficiency and staying injury free.  You'll accomplish more if you are training effectively for the distance you focus on, you'll only really become proficient if you've given yourself time focusing on the distance allowing you to adjust your training to see what works for you and, of course, you'll have more chance of staying injury free sticking to the principles and not being forced into in appropriate training forced upon you by your distance (a 20m long run as part of a 30m training week for example).

So, some generally sound training principles to start - I'm not including marathon training here as it's a different beast):

1)  A long run that is longer than your race distance and at least 6 miles. 
2)  A long run that is 20 - 30% of total mileage.
3)  Running at least 4 times a week.
4)  Quality mileage of between 15-20% of total mileage, not more.
5)  Quality work should be preceeded by at least 15:00 of warm up.  Let's say 2 miles.
6)  A quality work warm-down of at least 0.5m.
7)  For most runners 2 quality workouts every 7 days is sufficient.

8)  For distances beyond 10m you'll also want a midweek long run of about 66% of the long run mileage (and it's also a good idea for 10k downwards as well).

We can argue the toss over the details of these in certain circumstances but they are used to illustrate a general principle rather than being the point of this post.  These of course are minimums - it's desirable to use a progressive approach to mileage over time even if your chosen distance doesn't change.

So, for someone to start training effectively for the 5k would require an absolute bare minimum of about 20 miles per week minimum, for example:

Long:  6m easy
Q1:  2m easy + 2m quality + 0.5m easy
Q2: 2m easy + 2m quality + 0.5m easy
Easy:  5m

For 10k, 28 miles:

Long:  8m easy
Q1:  2m easy + 2m quality + 0.5m easy
Q2:  2m easy + 3m quality + 0.5m easy
Easy:  6m
Easy: 4m

For HM, 40 miles:

Long:  14m easy
Q1:  2m easy + 3m quality + 0.5m easy
Q2:  2m easy + 5m quality + 0.5m easy
Midweek long:  9m
Easy:  4m

another addition to that....

I say bare minimum because how many people would expect to truly perform well and really "master" their distance off such low quality a week and which, for those mileages, is really the most quality that can be supported by the easy miles.

If you look at how these very conservative guidelines apply to most runners you know you can see they blow them out of the water.  They are running half marathons off 20 miles per week and seem to be in total denial that by doing so they are completely utterly unprepared for the distance they are tackling.  Get a pen and paper and come up with the calculations showing that anyone can train effectively for a marathon on 40 miles per week (you won't be able to) - but this is what this damaging marathon as soon as possible fetish will have you doing!  Is it any wonder so many people are injured in this sport?

How To Get There

If your end goal is to run a marathon that's great, admirable and worthy.  But be patient.  Build mileage slowly - graduate through the distances.  Who knows you may even find a distance that you'll enjoy racing for a while suppressing this uncontrollable urge to conform to society's belief that says you must go long to be a runner.  At the very least I'd suggest you spend a year each focusing on the 5k, 10k and HM.  If you are in a hurry then at least get to the mileage required before diving in headfirst.  Initial mileage increase guidelines are pretty simple:

1)  Get to your goal mileage through easy running and strides alone.
2)  Hold for 4 weeks.
3)  Drop mileage very slightly and introduce 1 quality session a week for 4 weeks.
4)  Increase mileage with 1 quality session a week for 4 weeks.
5)  Repeat until you have your mileage and quality sessions in synch and at your target and have done so for 4 weeks with no problems.

From them on it's easy.  Keep adding easy mileage, get used to it and increase your quality when the increase in easy mileage supports it.  DON'T RUSH - or you'll get injured.

Under / Over Distance Racing

When I say focus on a race distance I don't mean you can't race any other distance.  I mean try and specialise (a word rarely used by road runners but second nature to those on the track) with your training and race schedule.  The odd longer or shorter distance race will help but I encourage you to spend some time developing some mastery of a shorter distance before moving up or at least weight until your mileage will support the training required to be accomplished at a given distance.