the subjects through a six-week programme of base training, involving long runs at relatively slow speeds. For the next 10 weeks, the runners added two hard days a week: interval training, fast-paced running, or a combination. At the end of the 16-week period

training schedules and his philosophy, but mostly I peppered him with questions. He answered many by reaching for the bulging folders in a nearby filing cabinet. “I studied that back in the 1960s [or 1970s or 1980s], and I’ve got the answer right here,” he

miles 10 miles 5 10 x 400m 5 miles 14 miles 6 5 x 1200m 5 miles 15 miles 7 7 x 800m 8 miles 17 miles 8 3 x 1600m 10 miles 13 miles 9 12 x 400m 3 miles 18 miles

:2846 6:50 7:48 9:3947 6:58 7:58 9:5148 7:07 8:07 10:0249 7:15 8:16 10:1450 7:24 8:26 10:2551 7:32 8:35 10:3652 7:41 8:45 10:4853 7:49 8:54 10:5954 7:57 9:04 11:1055 8:06 9:13 11:2156 8:14 9:22 11:3257 8:22 9:32 11:4358 8:31 9:41 11:5459 8:39 9:50 12:0560

toward home. Two hours, nothing to it. When I want to increase my training prior to a marathon, I just add another 9/1 segment on the outbound trip. Now the session lasts two hours and 20 minutes, and I hardly notice the difference. Two weeks later, I do

therapist and biomechanist Irene Davis from the University of Delaware's Running Injury Clinic. "Your threshold could be at 10 miles a week, or 100, but once you exceed it, you get injured." Various studies have identified injury thresholds at 11, 25, and 40

this first-hand on a 1998 trip to Kenya. One morning, I joined a handful of marathon runners who were being coached by Dr Gabriella Rosa as they tackled the infamous Fluorspar Hill that rises nearly 4000ft in 13 miles.I managed to hang on for only 10 minutes

was already a marathon runner, and most of my runs were long and slow. My cross-country conqueror took a different tack. He focused on hard 1,200m intervals, subjecting his muscles to the kind of stress he’d face in competition. At times he also ran 400m

the result.“I covered 18-23 miles in my long training runs,” says Strand, “and I did the last 9-14 miles at marathon pace or faster. That was much faster than my previous long-run efforts of 17-22 miles at whatever pace I felt like running.”This kind

training for their first marathon, the long run might start in the 10- or 12-mile range and gradually progress over several months to distances approaching 20 miles.Also, some race experience at the 10-mile and half-marathon distances can serve as dress