Expert Perspective: Exploring Brad Hudson’s Race-Pace Training Philosophy
20 July 2008
Do you wonder how to focus your training runs so that when you race you can hit your pace goals? Rather than leaving the guesswork up to you, expert coaches such as Brad Hudson have done the testing and now provide advice on what works for their elite level athletes. Author and runner Matt Fitzgerald takes a close look in the following article at some of Brad Hudson’s training philosophies.
Brad Hudson is a former world-class runner who now coaches a new generation of world-class runners, including two-time Olympian Dathan Ritzenhein, in Eugene, Oregon. He is also the author of Run Faster from the 5K to the Marathon: How to Be Your Own Best Coach, which shares the secrets of his training philosophy, called “adaptive running.”
One of the core tenets of this philosophy is that runners should train from generality toward specificity. “At the beginning of the training process, you need to focus on building a foundation,” says Hudson. That foundation has two components: aerobic fitness, which is developed through a high volume of moderate-intensity running, and neuromuscular fitness (speed, strength, and power), which is developed through a small volume of very high-intensity running. “As you get closer to racing, you shift from building a foundation to maintaining it while adding a layer of specific endurance on top of it,” Hudson says.
"You can think of the whole process as one
of zeroing in on race pace from opposite sides".
“Specific endurance” is Hudson’s term for the capacity to resist fatigue at race pace. As such, it incorporates both the aerobic and neuromuscular components of your fitness foundation. To develop specific endurance, you go faster and faster in some of your aerobic workouts and go longer and longer in some of your neuromuscular workouts, while also doing more and more training within the race-pace range itself. You can think of the whole process as one of zeroing in on race pace from opposite sides. In the beginning you do some very fast running and a lot of very slow running and not much in between. Then your slow running gets faster and faster and your fast running gets slower and slower until there is no distinction between your fast and your slow running. That’s an oversimplification, of course, but it conveys the general idea.
"Such workouts are much easier to do with a speed
and distance device such as a Garmin Forerunner 405".
Hudson’s approach to marathon-specific long runs provides a concrete example of this process. Try using the following workout progression in training for your next marathon: Warm up by running two miles at an easy pace. Then run a mile at your marathon pace minus 10 seconds followed by a mile at your marathon pace plus 45 seconds. (For example, if your goal marathon pace is 8:00/mile, run a mile in 7:50 followed by a mile in 8:45.) Repeat this pattern six times (for 14 total miles, including the warm-up). The next time you do the workout, warm up with two easy miles and then run 1.5 miles at your marathon pace minus 5 seconds per mile followed by a mile at your marathon pace plus 30 seconds. Repeat this pattern six times (for 17 total miles). Do the workout one last time two to three weeks before your marathon. Warm up with two easy miles and then run 2 miles at your marathon pace followed by 1 mile at your marathon pace plus 15 seconds. Again, repeat the pattern six times (for 20 total miles).
Such workouts are much easier to do with a speed and distance device such as a Garmin Forerunner 405 than without, because you can run on roads that simulate the course of your upcoming marathon without sacrificing accurate pace measurements. A growing number of Hudson’s athletes, including 2008 U.S. half-marathon champion James Carney, use these devices. “They’re not quite as accurate as a track,” says Hudson, “but they’re pretty close, and the ability they give runners to do race-specific training on courses that simulate the courses they race on more than makes up for their small degree of inaccuracy.”
About Matt Fitzgerald
Matt Fitzgerald is a journalist, author, coach and runner specializing in the topics of health, fitness, nutrition, and endurance sports training. (read more about Matt on his blog) Matt uses TrainingPeaks to train, coach and deliver pre-built training plans for runners including training plans built specifically to be used with a Garmin Forerunner.
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