This week starts the fourth and final phase of Jack Daniel’s “Red” fitness plan.
Phase three included a 3,000m track race, which went well for me. Other than that, I ran my planned runs and continued with my strength training.
My 3,000m performance increased my VDOT from 41.2 to 43.3, but I increased my training paces by only one VDOT. I’ve previously found a too sudden increase in training paces can be overwhelming, so I increase by a maximum of one VDOT point if I’m already training near my fitness level. So these are my new training paces (min/mi):
- Easy (E)
- 9:36–10:34
- Marathon (M)
- 8:33
- Threshold (T)
- 8:00
- Interval (I)
- 7:22
- Repetition (R)
- 6:58
My next four weeks of running will look like this:
- Monday: 10 minutes E + 4 strides + 5 minutes I + 4 minutes jog + 3 minutes I + 2 minutes jog + 10 minutes easy
- Tuesday: 30 minutes E + 8 strides
- Wednesday: 10 minutes E + 6 strides + 1.5 miles T + 2 minutes rest + 10 minutes E
- Friday: 30 minutes E + 8 strides
- Saturday: 50 minutes easy + 4 strides
That’s a slight reduction in volume at I and T paces from last phase. No races during this phase, but I will be wrapping it up while on vacation in the US Southwest, so that will be fun.