Elite Training

[h oclite]

Dids

What level of this should a male be doing at 17?Presumably the whole lot but scaled down. What distances should you do for endurance and how often?

[neil m37]

Setting yourself targets when training seems an obvious thing to do – you start with a plan (whether it is weekly/monthly/phased or whatever) and then want to be able to see yourself achieving what you have planned. Without the targets your training won’t be focused, but with the targets it can end up being focused on the wrong thing. It is very easy to get hung up on doing enough hours or enough miles or never missing a particular session when it may not be the best thing to do (due to tiredness or injury or whatever). On the other hand if you don’t do the sessions you don’t get anywhere. It’s a dilemma.

I wouldn’t have a clue what the best approach is – I vary between trying to keep the hours up (in which case the training tend towards the steady run) and trying to do all my planned core sessions (in which case the non-core sessions disappear and the hours go down). I also tend to think in weekly cycles – I agree that it can be a bad idea but everything else goes in weekly cycles and I have to fit round that. All of which is very unsatisfactory and what I would really like is all the time in the world to plan, execute and analyse my training. pah.

Surely some clever sports psychologist has written something on setting and measuring training goals?

[bendover]

Dids

What level of this should a male be doing at 17?Presumably the whole lot but scaled down. What distances should you do for endurance and how often?

looking back at my training diaries when from when i was 17 (broke into the gb squad in april of that year after the JK - i was averaging just over 4 hours running per week. moving into top year 18's, this had probably gone up to an average of 5. but again it depends upon what you're comfortable with.

[FatBoy]

Biggest mistake I ever made was doing too much running at 15/16 - did way too much damage to growing feet and now my feet damage my legs, hips back etc. At 17 how much you should be doing really depends on how developed you are. If you're still growing lots then don't train too hard otherwise you'll have a very short 21E career. Also if you are still growing more cross training particularly bike and swim are good because they bear much less weight on growing limbs.

[Mrs H.]

thank you for that Fatboy We did not allow young Neville to do anything out side school stuff and compettion until he was nearly 16 (and 6ft tall) and then it was light training. He's just beginning to crank it up - but he tells me many of his contemporaries having been putting in big miles and hours for years

What I wuld really like for young Neville is to still be enjoying his orienteering when he's a really old Neville

[Kitch]

Elite runners don't just go out and start doing 10 or 12 hours of training a week.

They build up to it gradually over years

Planning and commitment to years of effort.

Build up is not only volume but quality. A steady run for a top athlete is a killer session for a punter. Everything is relative.

It is right that you can only do a few quality sessions a week, but they are relative too.

[H ocolite]

Thanks Guys any more guidance. I'd be interested in the sort of distances for endurance and how it varies between road and terrain for 17 year old. Like Mrs H I know of youngsters who overtrained and by M20 have had enough,one was at the top all through junior days and told me he'd done too much, had a year or so out and of course put the weight on. Now it's doubly hard for him to get back if he wants to.

[DesignatedDriver]

yeah - i can relate to that.
my dad made us go orienteering when we were younger, so of course we rebelled against it.
then i went to university and started to go cause i enjoyed it. trained harder then than i ever had. (although drink meant i didn't have many noticeable results!)
Moved over to Scotland after that, and took to work. 14 hour days 6 days a week, put a slight pause to my fitness. weight went on, and i approached that age when it becomes alot harder to take off!
started running again a short while ago. finding it difficult to restrain myself. cause i can remember running for an hour at a time, i want to do that. but i would just end up injuring myself.
-have to take it easy and build it up gradually.

[bendover]

endurance run - expected winning time for age class course plus 50% was what i worked towards - so for expected winning time of 60mins my winter long runs would be 90 minutes.

[Kitch]

Oh and given that Ambler says that regular structred training is new to him/her then it is hardly surprising she/he doesn't see how you can do all that training.

keep the regular structured training going for a few years and you will see what happens.

[FatBoy]

Agree with Kitch - it's taken me about 2 years to get back up to coping with training every day.

It's difficult to put a distance on a run at 17 - going with Ben's theory (which sounds textbox to me) if you're reasonable fit already you could well be doing 20km+ in 90 mins on reasonably flat terrain. If you train in steep grotty forest then a lot less! You want a balance between steep and flat and fast and grotty in general training but the long stamina runs should be flatish to focus on stamina rather than hillclimbing. Best stay off the tarmac though.

[bendover]

yeah, it probably is a textbook method of calculating a good distance for a long run bit i don't think it's a bad one. if you go into a race knowing that you have the endurance to keep on going for 50% longer than the EWT then there's no reason to be scared! even if you make some navigational errors you should be able to keep running right till the end.

the best way to be assured psychologically going into a big race is to have the knowledge in your head that you have done everything possible, physically and mentally, to prepare. if there's an EWT of 90 minutes and you've only trained up to 75 then you're at a disadvantage from the word go...

[Dids co]

Hclite > I think you've got some good advice already but if I can say anything to help you from my experience the most important thing is to plan your build up in training very carefully. I did far too much training when I was young, trying to succeed too quickly, especially the first years as a senior, as a result I don't orienteer anymore, my body simply broke down.

As a 17 year old I would be very careful with the amount of distance work you do. Don't feel you need to train twice a day, certainly don't run twice a day. If you want to build up your hours a little, use low impact training like cycling and swimming in addition to running. Focus on tempo runs and fast training, and allow plenty of rest in between for your body to recover. I cannot directly comment on your training cos I dont know what you've done previously. All 17 years are different - both in development and experience - and this must be taken into account when planning your training. At 17 it is also the perfect time to learn how to orienteer 'perfectly', this will gain you alot more time than you realise in the junior classes. I was top 1 or 2 junior in Britain about 8 years ago but I wasn't a perfect orienteer, and neither was the other top guy. I learnt to orienteer 'perfectly' when i was 21-22 - I just hadn't realised how much better my technique could be, and how much faster i could race as a result.

[Lil' God'rs]

I was top 1 or 2 junior in Britain about 8 years ago

Oi - stop making me feel old Dids

[FatBoy]

yeah, it probably is a textbook method

It wasn't a criticism! I was agreeing it's a good formula!

I need to emphasise again though you need to build up to that level, without destroying your body in the process. Even though I'm up to training every day with the odd day off I still can only just comfortably run 150% of EWT, and not yet 150% of my normal times

Echo what Dids says - it's really worth learning to orienteer before absolutely beasting yourself training. Much the same as him I didn't really get the navigation to really click until 19/20 - after my peak in fitness which makes all that physical training pointless.