Tuesday Track Sessions at Parliament Hill Track
Coach David Chalfen offers weekly sessions on Tuesday evenings at Parliament Hill Track.
Note: you ideally need to run at least 41 minutes for 10k or better to attend these sessions.
David will be at the track from 7.00pm. The reps will start at 7.20pm prompt and runners are expected to do their own warm up to be ready for this. David can advise on warm up structure/duration.
What to expect
The sessions at Parliament Hill Track will follow the annual cycle described below. Most of the sessions will be useful to most of the runners most of the time within this sort of framework. They are designed to get a balance between being optimum for the people that I coach individually; those who are regulars at the track but whom I don't coach beyond that; and the overarching annual calendar that many - but by no means all - Serpie runners, tend to follow. Triathletes are welcome if the sessions make sense within your training and racing plan.
The detail of the session uses the fastest runners - currently high 31 mins for 10k - as the ‘dafault' and rep distances are often scaled back pro rata so, eg, if the front guy is doing 1600m then a 36/37 minute runner would do 1400m.
- Late October to mid December - Threshold and intro to 10k pace sessions
- Late December to mid Feb - More specific 5k type sessions to add to 10k pace for specific XC races
- Mid Feb to early April - Combining some ‘add ons' for Marathoners plus continued 3k to 10k sessions
- Mid April to early July - Main focus on speed endurance and lactate tolerance for middle distance track - mostly using race paces between 800 and 3k
- Mid July to early October - Move towards 5k/10k/LT sessions with focus on early autumn road targets at 10k/10miles combining some ‘add ons' for Autumn marathoners
The reps, total volume usually between about 6k and up to 9k, are usually done in about 40 minutes followed by a warm down either at the track, or by jogging home or to the tube.
David strongly advises against coming to the Tuesday session if you have raced further than about 10k on the Sunday (i.e. two days before) as this will just delay recovery and increase injury/illness risk. In such cases, and subject to individual plans etc., it is advised to wait until Thursday or Friday and do the session elsewhere.
If you have done a marathon race, please have a month where you stay away from the track.
Please don't use spikes for these sessions - normal trainers will be fine, I'd recommend the extra protection in favour of the slight extra speed. The only exception will be during winter when the track surface may freeze up slightly - an annoying quirk is that water on a Mondo track seems to freeze at about + 3 Celsius.
At the risk of becoming a nagging mother hen, recovery from these sessions will be quicker if you bring along some sort of snack, carbo/protein mix, about 300/400 calories worth, for after the warm down, as I know some of the regulars have a long journey home.