No matter sort of runner you might be, and no matter you’re coaching for, it’s all the time nice to make parkrun a part of your weekly routine should you can. It’s an excellent begin to the weekend and can high up your motivation for operating due to the always-excellent environment.
Nonetheless, becoming parkrun in isn’t all the time the best factor to do for me when marathon coaching, and never solely due to the million actions my youngsters have lined up each weekend. It’s additionally as a result of parkrun is 5K, and as soon as I’m deep into marathon coaching my pace classes are typically longer, and so they often happen on a Saturday.
Happily my coach Andy Hobdell additionally loves parkrun and has discovered a method to embody it in lengthy pace classes—he simply makes me run exhausting earlier than and after it. The parkrun sandwich throughout marathon coaching mainly entails operating two lengthy stints at marathon tempo, one earlier than and one after the parkrun itself, which you continue to run as exhausting as you possibly can.
Earlier on in my present coaching block for the London Marathon I did my longest parkrun sandwich session but, doing 10K at marathon tempo earlier than parkrun, adopted by 8km afterward, however you are able to do a lot shorter variations of the session—I’m doing 5K earlier than and 5K after this weekend, for instance.
It’s an excellent session for testing out how snug marathon tempo feels, particularly after the parkrun whenever you’ve put a quick 5K into your legs. The restoration time is often meant to be three to 4 minutes between every part of the exercise, however that is nearly unattainable to guage appropriately for the beginning of the parkrun as a result of they don’t often start at precisely 9am. Then afterward it will probably take a little bit longer to get your barcode scanned and say hi there to a few folks earlier than heading off to run once more.
The logistics of this session can be tough, relying on the parkrun—should you run a really hilly course, it’d truly be powerful to run at marathon tempo on it earlier than and after, so that you would possibly have to discover a completely different route regionally for these sections, or modify your tempo targets. It’s additionally typically good to get off the parkrun route for the exercise part after the run if doable, so that you’re not in the way in which of runners nonetheless ending their parkrun.
For those who don’t have a parkrun close to you or simply hate early mornings, then it’s straightforward to do that session and not using a parkrun. Simply do the center 5K exhausting, or discover one other race if you need the additional motivation of different folks to run with, which actually all the time helps whenever you’re pushing the tempo.
