• FINAL WEEK: This is the final week for the Basecamp program. I will record an additional episode next  week (Week 13) that will cover transitioning from Basecamp to any other training program you wish. I go over all the details of the 6 Week Build At Peak Mileage schedule that is provided. & finally, send you off with a few words of encouragement & inspiration.
• I hope you enjoyed this program. It was an experiment for me & I would love to get your feedback on the program. If you would take a few minutes to FILL OUT THIS SHORT SURVEY, I would really be appreciative. 
• You can also send any personalized feedback to me directly at sisson@telosrunning.com. 

WEEKLY TRAINING DETAILS

QUALITY 

5/3/1 Fartlek for a timed 3 miles

In Week 3 we did a timed fartlek so that we would have the opportunity to see a clear representation of improved fitness. If you did that session, then you can pull up your time & compare this week’s effort. Hopefully you got faster. If you did not do that session, I stand by this session being one of the very best sessions you can add to your repertoire.   If you want to use it as a time trial, you do the workout EXACTLY THE SAME WAY. You just keep a record of the overall time it takes to do 3M of fartlek. 

Here is a description: 

So this session is half workout/half time trial. I have learned over the years that time trials are absolutely dreaded & frequently skipped in a program. I hope you will be open to this session but if you aren’t that is OK. While there is not a real need for knowing your specific paces in this program, since so much of the work is based on efforts & feel, I find that many people want to test their beginning & ending fitness in a program. This workout is designed to allow you to do so. Or you can disregard getting a 3M total time & just do the session. I am cool with it either way. Our final workout of this Basecamp will be the same session, so you can test your improved fitness (or improved ability to know HOW to do the session). 

Fartlek is a Swedish word for “speed play”. In the history of distance running, the Swedes & Finnish marked a huge transition in the training theory. Prior to the use of fartlek, most runners either ran easy, or walked even, to develop fitness. The Scandanavians upended this continuous running at one speed with fluctuations & pace changes in the context of a single run. In this way they made varying paces a part of training theory. Eventually, this led to breaking up training runs into intervals (shorter faster running balanced with rest periods). There are two basic types of fartleks: traditional, free fartlek & structured fartlek. The traditional version is a kid of play, where acceprations of varying paces & distances are included in a run. Typically, runners choose natural landmarks (trees, hills, telephone poles, etc) as they run to accelerate to & then run easy after. Individual fartleks are truly free-form & completely up to the runner to implement. When run in groups, they are still free-form but one runner decides where they are running to & at what pace. This can be alternated between runners in the pack or one runner can be the determiner throughout. Also, if done in a park or the like, a coach can blow a whistle to control the distance run & the athletes can choose the pace. These are examples of traditional fartlek. A structured farle is what we are doing. A predetermined time is designated to run at a faster pace & slower pace & the athlete still determines the pace they choose to run for both the faster & slower sections. 

In our case, we are alternating 5 min of faster running with 3 min of easier running; 3 min of faster running with 3 min of easier running; 1 min of faster running with 3 min of easier running. This iwrittent 5/3/1 w/ 3 min easy jog. Once you complete one set of 5/3/1 you continue until you reach 3 miles of running. You can vary the intention, difficulty & benefits from a fartlek in a wide array to encourage different training stimulus. For our purposes, we want to pick a pace for the faster sections that we feel we can sustain for that timeframe at a hard effort. Hard is not all out. It is a challenging pace or effort that you feel you can sustain for 5, 3 & 1 minutes with the rest being 3 min.  Don’t worry so much about the pace of the faster running...this is “speed play”! Have fun with it. If you go too fast, adjust & run easier on the rests or the faster section to ensure you can run the whole 3 miles with the changing paces. I appreciate it will feel a little willy nilly. That is understood & expected. This is about learning to determine you efforts & paces & how to sustain them in a structured time/distance framework but with a very loose pace or effort framework. Relax! You cannot do this wrong. No matter what you will be getting a good stimulus from this workout. This is the training session.

SPEED ECONOMY

8-10 x 200m w/ 200m jog

You have now done this sessions a number of times & hopefully have a good feel for it. I end with this Speed Economy session because it is the most important for you to continue to keep in your training program. If you balance this workout with the strides workout, you’ll be pretty well set on keeping your quickness & speed. 

The 200m interval distance is a classic distance & is ubiquitous nearly all training programs. 200m reps are really excellent because they require a bit of endurance but do not overtax the system & when combined with a 200m easy jog, are an excellent way to extend the speed element of your training without developing the anaerobic system & inducing lactate accumulation. In most programs I would give my athletes 5K paces for these intervals. Since you are not using paces in this program I recommend that you start these out a little slower than your strides pace to be sure you don’t overextend yourself. If after 2 reps you feel the pace is manageable, you can go a little faster. Keep track of the pace you run on these. We’ll be doing this session again in a few weeks & you can compare your results. Again, a reminder that the recovery is  a VERY EASY pitterpat jog. You can do this on the track, where on a standard track 200mis half a lap, or on the roads. 

LONG RUN

• 30-40 mpw: 12M EASY w/  final 20 min CLOSE
• 40-50 mpw: 14M EASY w/ final 20 min CLOSE
• 50-60 mpw: 16M EASY w/ final 20 min CLOSE

CLOSE = A CLOSE is a finish in the final minutes of a long run. Other programs might call this a “fast finish”. These are designed to allow you an opportunity to start pushing a little bit on the long runs. By controlling the amount of time you push the effort or pace faster, we allow you to dip your toe into the water of a Quality Long Run (QLR). The QLR is a fundamental aspect of the Telos program. These are long runs with workouts built into them. These are used for athletes training for all races but play a huge part of the half marathon & marathon programs I devise. Another reason that I began including CLOSES in my programs is because my athletes began running too hard on their long runs, whether by pushing early in the runs & making an effort too fast or by racing others & making the effort too hard. It is critical to remember that the “hard” part of ...

• LAST TWO WEEKS: Next week is the final week for the Basecamp program. I will record an additional episode the week after (Week 13) that will cover transitioning from Basecamp to any other training program you wish. I go over all the details of the 6 Week Build At Peak Mileage schedule that is provided. & finally, send you off with a few words of encouragement & inspiration.
• Hopefully, you are into your “new” or current normal & that running has stuck for you. I cannot encourage you enough to stay the course, keep running as a movement practice. Keep running. If you feel up to it, keep training. If you don’t feel up to training, just run. Keep moving through space. Trust the future to take care of its own damn self. You take care of yourself for now. The way you do that is to ask yourself each day if you are working to be your very best self.  Some days that will mean running hard, some days running easy, some days not running at all. But you have to ask that question each & every day. Otherwise, you give inot the fear of uncertainty & are not resilient. Be resilient by staying in the running arena. You do not have to be training hard, but you do need to be running through this pandemic. It is an essential activity for yourself, for your family, for your neighbors, for your community for the nation & for the planet.

QUALITY

Broken Threshold (1M)
3-4 x 1M at Steady effort w/ 90 sec to 2 min walking rest

In Week 7 we did 4-5 x 1K or 6 x 800m w/ 90 seconds walking rest between each rep

This week we are extending the length of the repetitions to 1M. We will keep the rest at 90 sec to 2 min of walking rest between each rep. 

By this point in the program, you should be reasonably comfortable with the concept of steady & how to implement it in your training. You have done continuous steady runs & one broken steady run & therefore have experience with working at this effort. You can see the worksheet & episode for the foundations of the steady concept. 
Use this session to really dial in the steady effort to a current pace for you. Because 1M is easier than 30 minutes, you will probably naturally run a little faster pace for steady effort. This is natural. Remember to go out a little more conservatively as you can always pick the pace up in any given rep & even as you progress through the reps. Just be sure you don’t cook yourself in the first 1M rep. You will likely have gotten fitter during this program & should be feeling like you can hold a faster pace than you might have in Week 7. However, we are working on extension here...this means running further at the same steady pace. I would start the first rep at the pace you averaged for the 1K to 800m reps in Week 7 & see how the session progresses. 

The short rest keeps you honest. You should be ready to go with 90 sec rest if you are really at steady, or comfortably hard, pace. If not, you are going too fast. Adjust. We are working on dialing this effort & by changing up the distances, it helps you hone in on what is right for you. 

SPEED ECONOMY

6 x 100m BUILDS w/ easy 300m jog

This is the same SE session as in Weeks 6 & 8. You should be getting a really good idea of how to implement these. Be sure you are keeping that recovery easy enough & long enough to ensure you are fully recovered aerobically before you start the next BUILD rep. 
A “build” is just another way to run a stride. The focus on this kind of stride is getting fast throughout the whole 100m distance. So you start off easy & quickly begin to ratchet up the speed as you progress through the stride. Building...building...building...building...until you get to about 90% of full/all-out effort. Keep your face, neck & shoulders relaxed. 
Take a full 300m easy jog. This is a great session to do on the track but it can be done on the roads. Again, if you are stuck on a treadmill, skip the Speed Economy this week. 

LONG RUN

The difficulty or challenge to the EASY long run should NOT be in the paces you are running, it should be the fact that you are running the distance at an easy pace t& it is hard because it is a long run. Keep the pace on these easy!  I cannot recommend that enough. 

30-40 MPW - 12M EASY

40-50 MPW - 14M EASY

50-60 MPW -  16M EASY

FUNDAMENTAL: THE 1% 

GENERAL NOTES:

• Do what you can with intent & focus. If you can’t do more without stress, don’t do it. 
• Move in ways that are different than running. Challenge different muscle groups in different ways. 
• Have FUN! These extras should not be a drag, or they won’t get done. 
• Find a class or community. It's easier to stay committed with accountability.
• Movement is better than static, standing is better than sitting or lying down. 
• Breathe through your nose & not your mouth. & hum. 

SPECIFIC NOTES:

• Dance, skip, jump, slide, climb. 
• Long holds
• Self-Massage or Massage
• Weights/Resistance Training (band work, body weight work, single-leg transverse movements)

Nutrition - Eat whole, nourishing, unprocessed foods, raw & cooked. Lots of color on your plate. Especially stay away from processed, refined sugars (inflamation). Research the microbiome. Listen to Dr Zach Bush on the Rich Roll podcast HERE & HERE. 

QUALITY - HILL SERIES Part II

1-2 miles warm-up/cool-down; 2-3 miles of hills run in a series. 

This is a continuation of our hill training. Please refer to Weeks, 4, 6 & 8 for a basic primer on hills & Week 6 specifically for addressing a Hill Series. In this session we are going to run a series of hills. The reason for this is to begin to get a better ability to manage & control your efforts on both the uphill & the downhill portions of a series of hills. When you run hill repeats, the hill gets broken up into two different portions: up & down, obviously. When you run a series of hills, the hill becomes one entity, both the up & the down sections & the way you approach each will play a part in how difficult the hills are in effort. For this first hill series, we’ll be adopting the same approach we took with the hill reps: just run up & down the hills...do not focus on running hard or fast, or easy or slow. You do not need to run at any specific pace or effort. Try to run the uphill & downhills as smoothly & relaxed as possible. 
What is a hill series? You have room for creativity here. You can just use a series of hills in your neighborhood or around your workplace. You can run out & back on a series of hills or make a loop that has a few hills on it that you can link together. You can add as much order as you want or allow a little chaos to reign & just run what shows up! A reminder that we are NOT looking for very steep hills that will require you to walk up them. Of course, if you do have to walk, that’s okay. But you shouldn’t try to add difficulty to this session by making an extremely challenging route. We are trying to learn how to modulate or effort, pace & body mechanics based on running up or down hill. We do not want to add additional stress into the situation. 

If you need to use a treadmill see if you have a series programmed option in your treadmill’s software. Alot of them have this feature already available, if not, you can create a random assortment of hills of varying lengths & inclines. If your treadmill does not have a series option then set up hills by varying the length & incline on your own. Keep your hill lengths between 100-400 meters & vary the incline between 2-6%. Remember to leave the speed alone. Choose a pace you can easily sustain on the flats that becomes more challenging as the grade/incline increases. 

We are increasing the total hill series run volume from 1-2 miles to 2-3 miles, but you can extend this if you want to do more, especially the 50-60 mpw group.

SPEED ECONOMY

In this SE session I am bringing back the hills & builds from Week 7 Find a shorter hill (maybe 50-100m long, if using the treadmill I suggest 75 meters at 4% grade) to use for this session that has a flat road or track adjacent to the hill. The hill can be a little steeper than the hill reps/series hills but it does not have to be. We are working on strong, beautiful running mechanics as we run up a hill. You want to focus on pushing off the ground, driving your knees up & your elbows back as you stay tall. Do NOT run hard. Just run with beautiful form. Walk back down the hill. Do four of these & then take a 5 min rest.

Then, on the road or the track, do four (4) 400m BUILD reps where you accelerate each 100m getting faster throughout the long rep. Start at a medium hard effort for 100m, build a little fast the next 100m, build again to hard effort on the 3rd 100m & by the final 100m you should be running really fast & relaxed. Take a full 400m easy jog after each BUILD. 

LONG RUN

• 30-40 mpw: 10-12M EASY
• 40-50 mpw: 14M EASY
• 50-60 mpw: 16M EASY

FUNDAMENTAL 

COMMUNITY - Listen to the episode, as usual.

• I am hoping that all of you are well. As we settle into another week of lock down, I want to remind you of a few things:
  • Courage, hope & a resilient attitude are critical, beneficial & a DECISION.  DECIDE to be resilient. Think on what is necessary. What heals, what lifts, what brings us together. 
  • Even though you are secluded, you are not alone. Connect in the ways you can: neighbors, family, friends. Stay engaged with the things you know nourish you & those around you. 
  • Inventory. 
  • Run. 

WEEKLY TRAINING DETAILS

QUALITY

30 MIN STEADY RUN (& variations)

This is an extension of Week 5’s Steady run, moving from a 20 min comfortably hard run to a 30 min comfortably hard run. If you feel that extension is too much, you can stay with the 20 minutes. Another potential variation is 20+10 min Steady, breaking up the run into two sections & taking 3-5 min of easy running between the two portions. 

Steady is a flexible pace range, generally between hMGP & MGP. However, I feel it is really important to be using your bodily awareness to determine what paces you run rather than setting out with a specific pacing objective. Anytime I indicate “steady” I am indicating pacing flexibility & listening to your body for what feels “comfortably hard”. Hard enough to be doing work but comfortable enough to continue at that pace for a while. Everyone will have a different setting for this.

Why? A few reasons: 

• The overall training macro is looking for a specific kind of training adaptation but we do not want to be a slave to the watch. 
• I know that the training adaptation I am looking for is not necessarily exactly correlated to a specific pace & I want your body to determine what comfortably hard is. 
• You can play more & be more flexible when there is a range & you allow your body to go where it needs to go in terms of paces. This sense of play would be operative on these Steady runs. 

As I mentioned in Week 5, be positive. Stay relaxed. Try to find a flow. If the comfortably hard goes to just plain hard, slow down a little bit. Find the groove, find the rhythm & flow. 

Warm-up is just 10 min & cooldown can be 5-15 minutes, as you feel. The focus this week is on the 30 min Steady run. 

This session should be done on the roads. 

SPEED ECONOMY

6-8 x 200m w/ 200m jog, an extension of Week 6’s SE session.

The 200m interval distance is a classic distance & is ubiquitous amongst nearly all training programs. 200m reps are really excellent because they require a bit of endurance but do not overtax the system & when combined with a 200m easy jog, are an excellent way to extend the speed element of your training without developing the anaerobic system & inducing lactate accumulation. In most programs I would give my athletes 5K paces for these intervals. Since you are not using paces in this program I recommend that you start these out a little slower than your strides pace to be sure you don’t overextend yourself. If after 2 reps you feel the pace is manageable, you can go a little faster. Keep track of the pace you run on these. We’ll be doing this session again in a few weeks & you can compare your results. Again, a reminder that the recovery is  a VERY EASY pitterpat jog. You can do this on the track, where on a standard track 200mis half a lap, or on the roads. 

LONG RUN

• 30-40 mpw: 10M EASY w/  final 15 min CLOSE
• 40-50 mpw: 12-14M EASY w/ final 15 min CLOSE
• 50-60 mpw: 14M EASY w/ final 15 min CLOSE

CLOSE = A CLOSE is a fast finish in the final minutes of a long run. Other programs might call this a “fast finish”. These are designed to allow you an opportunity to start pushing a little bit on the long runs. By controlling the amount of time you push the effort or pace faster, we allow you to dip your toe into the water of a Quality Long Run (QLR). The QLR is a fundamental aspect of the Telos program. These are long runs with workouts built into them. These are used for athletes training for all races but play a huge part of the half marathon & marathon programs I devise. Another reason that I began including CLOSES in my programs is because my athletes began running too hard on their long runs, whether by pushing early in the runs & making an effort too fast or by racing others & making the effort too hard. It is critical to remember that the “hard” part of the long run is in the extension of the distance, not the pace of the run, especially in a base building program. This is a very common mistake made in building fitness. You cannot get fast & strong at the same time without really flirting with injury &/or overtraining. 

FUNDAMENTALS TOPIC: RECOVERY

Listen to the podcast episode. 

• FINDING YOUr GROUND - As of the publishing of this week we have seen our whole world get upended & impacted by COVID-19. I mention this because the impact of this on your life is unavoidable. This is a scary time in the world & it must be recognized. I hope everyone who is on Week 7 beginning March 23rd has held onto their training. Being consistent with your running in times of stress is the most important thing you can do. Of course, some of you are in places where you are on lockdown. I hope you have access to some form of physical exercise. If you have a treadmill, all these sessions are easily adapted. I am here to help make adjustments to the program for anyone who needs special instructions. Send me an email at sisson@telosrunning.com. 
• LET STRESS DICTATE YOUR TRAINING- I know for some of you the stress of the last two weeks has been really challenging. While I know you are safe to do these sessions from a health perspective, you are encouraged to just run easy for the coming weeks if doing quality workouts is untenable. Hills can easily just turn into an easy run. Or you can do them as described below or you can repeat any workout from the first 7 weeks of the program is that works better for you. JUST KEEP RUNNING IF YOU CAN!!! It is so important to use running as a stress release. 
• If there is enough interest, I would be happy to have a video call for this group in the coming week or two. If you are interested, post on the FB page & I’ll work on finding a day & time for that. 

WEEKLY TRAINING DETAILS

QUALITY
Hill Repeats - We did our first session of hill repeats in Week 4. HERE IS A LINK TO THE WORKSHEET & PODCAST EPISODE for your review. You can return to the same hill that you used in that session, or choose a new hill. You can also set up a hill on a treadmill. If anyone needs help in determining how to do this, post on the FB page & I’ll make recommendations. 
We are doing hill repeats. That means you are running to the top of the hill & then walking or jogging back down the hill to do a few repetitions. You simply run to the top of the hill & then walk or jog back down. Simple, but not easy! Do a warm-up up of 1-2 miles before you get to your hill & a 1-2 mile cool-down after. 
A reminder on how to run the hill: 

• Relax
• Keep running but slow down!
• If you can’t keep running, walk to the top. 
• Did I say, Relax ?!?!
• We are not trying to run fast up the hill. We are simply running up it. 
• Try to keep as loose & smooth as you can. Don't lean forward or back. Just try to keep you normal running mechanics.  

You want to run a total of 2-3 miles of total up & down. So that will be about 1-1.5 miles of up & 1-1.5 miles of down total. 
In Week 4 we just ran up these hills, now you are ready to run harder up them. Be sure you relax your face, neck & shoulders, just as we do on the strides & speed economy sessions. You should be able to get adequately recovered on your easy walk or jog back down the hill. If not, then take 2-3 minutes of standing rest before you start another repetition.  

Please post your experience of doing this session for the 2nd time on the FB page so we can compare notes. 

SPEED ECONOMY

6 x 100m BUILDS w/ easy 300m jog

This is the same SE session as in Week 5 except we are extending the reps from 4 to 6. 

A “build” is just another way to run a stride. The focus on this kind of stride is getting fast throughout the whole 100m distance. So you start off easy & quickly begin to ratchet up the speed as you progress through the stride. Building...building...building...building...until you get to about 90% of full/all-out effort. Keep your face, neck & shoulders relaxed. 
Take a full 300m easy jog. This is a great session to do on the track but it can be done on the roads. If you are stuck on a treadmill, skip the Speed Economy this week. 

LONG RUN

Everyone is up to 10 miles!!! Congratulations! Getting into the double digits is a huge accomplishment. If you can run 10M, you are in a very elite club. 

FUNDAMENTAL TOPIC 

WEEKLY MILEAGE

Listen to the podcast episode.

• I POSTED A SPECIAL EPISODE, RECORDED FOR THE ETHOS GROUP, ON THE WAYS THAT WE NEED TO ADJUST TRAINING FOR THIS UNPRECEDENTED SITUATION. SINCE THIS PROGRAM IS NOT TARGETED TOWARDS A A SPECFIC RACE & IS SET UP AS A GENERAL FITNESS PLAN, THERE IS NO NEED TO ADJUST THE MACROCYCLES. HOWEVER, THERE IS GOOD INFORMATION THERE OTHERWISE. 
• KEEP RUNNING. IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME WHERE YOU MAY BE LIMITED IN YOUR ABILITY TO GO OUTSIDE. I KNOW THAT SOUNDS CRAZY BUT WE HAVE TWO MEMBERS OF OUR ETHOS GROUP WHO LIVE IN ZURICH SWITZERLAND & THEY ARE SAYING THEY MAY REQUIRED TO STAY INSIDE. & THEY HANDLED THE IMMEDIATE THREAT SIGNIFICANTLY MORE QUICKLY THAN WE DID. I THINK WE ARE IN FOR A VERY HAIRY NEXT FEW MONTHS. HOPEFULLY THIS PROGRAM HELPS YOU DEAL WITH STRESS MORE EFFECTIVELY. 
• I AM DOING A ZOOM CONFERENCE CALL FOR THE ETHOS GROUP ON WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18TH AT 8AM EASTERN. ALL THE INFO TO ACCESS THAT IS LOCATED ON THEAT SPECIAL EDITION WORKSHEET. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO JOIN US! WE LIKELY WILL NOT BE ADDRESSING SPECIFIC CONCERNS TO THIS PROGRAM BUT IT WILL GIVE YOU AN IDEA OF OUR TRIBE & HOW WE DEAL WITH THINGS & A FLAVOR OF THAT PROGRAM. 

WEEKLY TRAINING DETAILS

QUALITY

BROKEN THRESHOLD (1K or 800m VERSION)

4-5 x 1000m (aka 1K) or 6 x 800m w/ 90 seconds walking rest between each rep

This session is a way to get better acquainted with the concept of a tempo/threshold/steady run. I know it can be confusing to use different terms for what amounts to be nearly identical paces, but there is a subtle difference between all these moderately challenging runs. There is the belief that the physiological benefits of running at your aerobic threshold (the point at which lactate begins to accumulate & starts to affect the body’s functioning) pays huge dividends. My 25 years of anecdotal evidence agrees. However, I do not view it as a set point but rather a continuum that sits in a really wide range of paces. So I prefer to leave this window wide open & train at a variety of efforts & paces to get the greatest benefit possible. In this program I modulate the runs with continuous runs (like Week 5’s Steady run) & these Broken Threshold runs. This is the first session where I recommend you start thinking a little bit more about actual paces. You may have an idea of the pace per mile (ppm) you ran on your 20’ Steady run in Week 5. If you do, you can start these repetitions at that pace & get a little faster (maybe 2-5 seconds ppm) each rep. If you don’t have your paces from Week 5, that’s fine. Just start running these reps. We revisit the Steady run in Week 9 & this Broken Threshold in Week 11 so you’ll have plenty of time to start dialing in the paces to get a little more data. 

SPEED ECONOMY

In this SE session I am bringing hills back in…a little bit. Find a shorter hill (maybe 50-100m long) to use for this session that has a flat road or track adjacent to the hill. The hill can be a little steeper than the hill reps/series hills but it does not have to be. We are working on strong, beautiful running mechanics as we run up a hill. You want to focus on pushing off the ground, driving your knees up & your elbows back as you stay tall. Do NOT run hard. Just run with beautiful form. Walk back down the hill. Do two of these & then take a 5 min rest.

Then, on the road or the track, do two 400m BUILD reps where you accelerate each 100m getting faster throughout the long rep. Start at a medium hard effort for 100m, build a little fast the next 100m, build again to hard effort on the 3rd 100m & by the final 10m you should be running really fast & relaxed. Take a full 400m easy jog after each BUILD. 

LONG RUN

Loved hearing about your CLOSE this past weekend. I am telling you that that is an aspect of this program you are unlikely to find anywhere else but i feel it is critical to getting a feeling for what real training is. Also, in this program anytime you want to close a long run, feel free.  These have been built in on certain weeks but you are free to do one whenever the mood strikes you. 
We have another LR mileage bump this week. I hope things are moving smoothly. I know you should be feeling the benefits from these runs now & noticing a benefit to your fitness. 

• 30-40 mpw: 8-10M EASY
• 40-50 mpw: 10-12M EASY
• 50-60 mpw: 12-14M EASY 

FUNDAMENTAL: EFFORTS VS PACES

Listen to the episode.

Hill Series
1-2 miles warm-up/cool-down; 1-2 miles of hills run in a series. 

This is a continuation of our hill training. Please refer to Week 4 for a basic primer on hills & the way to approach them generally. In this session we are going to run a series of hills. The reason for this is to begin to get a better ability to manage & control your efforts on both the uphill & the downhill portions of a series of hills. When you run hill repeats, the hill get broken up into two different portions: up & down, obviously. When you run a series of hills, the hill becomes one entity, both the up & the down sections & the way you approach each will play a part in how difficult the hills are in effort. For this first hill series, we’ll be adopting the same approach we took with the hill reps: just run up & down the hills...do not focus on running hard or fast, or easy or slow. You do not need to run at any specific pace or effort. Try to run the uphill & downhills as smoothly & relaxed as possible. 
What is a hill series? You have room for creativity here. You can just use a series of hills in your neighborhood or around your workplace. You can run out & back on a series of hills or make a loop that has a few hills on it that you can link together. You can add as much order as you want or allow a little chaos to reign & just run what shows up! A reminder that we are NOT looking for very steep hills that will require you to walk up them. Of course, if you do have to walk, that’s okay. But you shouldn’t try to add difficulty to this session by making an extremely challenging route. We are trying to learn how to modulate or effort, pace & body mechanics based on running up or down hill. We do not want to add additional stress into the situation. 

SPEED ECONOMY

4-6 x 200m w/ 200m jog

The 200m interval distance is a classic distance & is ubiquitous nearly all training programs. 200m reps are really excellent because they require a bit of endurance but do not overtax the system & when combined with a 200m easy jog, are an excellent way to extend the speed element of your training without developing the anaerobic system & inducing lactate accumulation. In most programs I would give my athletes 5K paces for these intervals. Since you are not using paces in this program I recommend that you start these out a little slower than your strides pace to be sure you don’t overextend yourself. If after 2 reps you feel the pace is manageable, you can go a little faster. Keep track of the pace you run on these. We’ll be doing this session again in a few weeks & you can compare your results. Again, a reminder that the recovery is  a VERY EASY pitterpat jog. You can do this on the track, where on a standard track 200mis half a lap, or on the roads. 

LONG RUN

• 30-40 mpw: 8M EASY w/  final 10 min CLOSE
• 40-50 mpw: 10M EASY w/ final 10 min CLOSE
• 50-60 mpw: 12-14M EASY w/ final 10 min CLOSE

CLOSE = A CLOSE is fast finish in the final minutes of a long run. Other programs might call this a “fast finish”. These are designed to allow you an opportunity to start pushing a little bit on the long runs. By controlling the amount of time you push the effort or pace faster, we allow you to dip your toe into the water of a Quality Long Run (QLR). The QLR is a fundamental aspect of the Telos program. These are long runs with workouts built into them. These are used for athletes training for all races but play a huge part of the half marathon & marathon programs I devise. Another reason that I began including CLOSES in my programs is because my athletes began running too hard on their long runs, whether by pushing early in the runs & making an effort too fast or by racing others & making the effort too hard. It is critical to remember that the “hard” part of the long run is in the extension of the distance, not the pace of the run, especially in a base building program. This is a very common mistake made in building fitness. You cannot get fast & strong at the same time without really flirting with injury &/or overtraining. 

FUNDAMENTAL: PAYING ATTENTION

Listen to the podcast episode. 

20 MIN STEADY RUN

Steady runs are a unique type of run. Typically called “threshold” runs or “tempo” runs in other training systems, I consider Steady runs to be in it’s on category. It is an extended run (20 minutes in this case) run at a “comfortably hard” pace: hard enough to feel like you are doing work & that you could not extend the effort indefinitely, yet easy enough to feel comfortable for the first 10-15 minutes. The challenge of the run is the final 5 minutes & staying concentrated throughout the entire 20 min time frame.  Or most of you, this will be a challenging session, not necessarily because it is a hard workout (you control the pace & the effort, after all) but because of the duration of the work & the need to stay concentrated & in the mental zone. 

Be positive. Stay relaxed. Try to find a flow. If the comfortably hard goes to just plain hard, slow down a little bit. Find the groove, find the rhythm & flow. 

Warm-up is just 10 min & cooldown can be 5-15 minutes, as you feel. The focus this week is on the 20 min Steady run. 

This session should be done on the roads. 

SPEED ECONOMY

4 x 100m BUILDS w/ easy 300m jog

A “build” is just another way to run a stride. The focus on this kind of stride is getting fast throughout the whole 100m distance. So you start off easy & quickly begin to ratchet up the speed as you progress through the stride. Building...building...building...building...until you get to about 90% of full/all-out effort. Keep your face, neck & shoulders relaxed. 
Take a full 300m easy jog. This is a great session to do on the track but it can be done on the roads. If you are stuck on a treadmill, skip the Speed Economy this week. 

LONG RUN

30-40 MPW: 8 MILES

40-50 MPW: 8-10 MILES

50-60 MPW: 10-12 MILES

FUNDAMENTAL TOPIC: HARD RUNNING

Listen to the episode. 

HILL REPEATS

So this is the session that most Base Building plans will not include in a training cycle because they will try to limit the hard running you do when you build your base. It is my opinion that hills are so critical & crucial in any running program that we can’t avoid getting acquainted with them in any plan. How we fold them into the program is all about understanding what hill running is trying to accomplish. 

Why we run hills: 

• Endurance (Aerobic)
• Speed
• Power
• Economy
• Overall Strength/Resilience
• Oh, & to be better at hills! 

The workout specifics: Find a hill. Not too short, not too long. Not too steep, but also not flat. Don’t worry too much about the hill you choose being a perfect hill. All hills have their special qualities & challenges so you will definitely get the work that you need for this session. In general, you want one that is 200-400 meters long, or that would take 1-3 minutes to get to the top of. It can be undulating or an even grade. It can be a little longer or a little shorter. One key thing is that you do not want the hill to be too steep. You want it to be pretty gradual. If you don’t have hills near you or you can’t get out on one for whatever reason, use a treadmill. 

We are doing hill repeats. That means you are running to the top of the hill & then walking or jogging back down the hill to do a few repetitions. You simply run to the top of the hill & then walk or jog back down. Simple, but not easy! Do a warm-up up of 1 mile before you get to your hill & a 1 mile cool-down after. 
How to run the hill: 

• Relax
• Keep running but slow down!
• If you can’t keep running, walk to the top. 
• Did I say, Relax ?!?!
• We are not trying to run fast up the hill. We are simply running up it. 
• Try to keep as loose & smooth as you can. Don't lean forward or back. Just try to keep you normal running mechanics.  

You want to run a total of 2 mile of total up & down. So that will be about 1 mile of up & 1 mile of down total. Again, you just want to run up the hill, not run up it hard. In Week 8 we’ll do some harder hill reps. For now, we just want to experience running up the hill. 

PAY ATTENTION: Pay special attention to your body’s signals when you run up hills. It is crucial to listen to your breathing, to know when you are pushing too hard, to know how your arms & legs operate differently when you run uphill. Also pay attention to how your body handles running easily downhill. Does it feel like a lot of pounding? Are you recovered by the time you reach the bottom of the hill from the exertion? All of these are very important to pay attention to in this workout. Share your experiences on the Facebook page. 

SPEED ECONOMY

2 x 1M of Straights & Curves (S&C)

Straights & Curves are a bread & butter workout for Telos. These are very similar to strides but are implemented differently. Run an easy 15-20 min warm-up to a track. This workout is best implemented on a track but it can be accommodated to a flat road by setting your smart watch to beep every 100m. On a track you start off on a curve & jog very, very easily the whole turn. I call this a pitter-pat jog. The as the track straightens out, you stride on the straight. Take your foot off the gas pedal as you approach the curve & return to a very easy, pitter-pat jog. The stride the next straight. Repeat this for 4 laps or 1M/1600m. As a reminder: A stride is a fast run of very short duration. You want to be quick & sprightly but still very relaxed in the face, neck, shoulders & arms. THIS IS NOT A SPRINT. If a sprint were 100% effort (all out), a stride would be 85-90% effort. Fast but relaxed. Concentrate on beautiful form. How will you know what beautiful form is? Just picture a galloping horse & hold that in your mind. Strong, fast & relaxed. 

LONG RUN
30-40 mpw: 6-8M Easy LR

40-50 mpw: 8M Easy LR

50-60 mpw: 10M Easy LR

FUNDAMENTAL TOPIC: EASY RUNNING

It may seem that we don't need to discuss easy running as a topic. It is pretty self-evident, right? Not necessarily. I already mentioned how you tell if you are running easy enough with your breath but I want to reiterate & ensure that you are paying close attention to your efforts when running & continuing to keep the majority of your running at easy, relaxed paces. Most of the problems that occur in building mileage comes from running too fast & too far. While it is hard to say exactly what “too fast” is at this point in this format, too far is going further than you. 

This discussion covers:

• Pay Attention
• Rate Of Perceived Exertion (RPE)
• What is your effort level in percentage? 
• Intend to Pay Attention
• Co-Create

• Changes to the Macro: Occasionally, I make minor adjustments to the program based on what is going on in the context of the program & how athletes are responding to the current work, how I am feeling about the workouts I wrote now, as opposed to when I wrote them originally. For you long term planners who may already have printed out the macro, I may make changes so be sure to check the website. 

QUALITY 

5/3/1 Fartlek for a timed 3 miles (vs initially indicated 4M)

So this session is half workout/half time trial. I have learned over the years that time trials are absolutely dreaded & frequently skipped in a program. I hope you will be open to this session but if you aren’t that is OK. While there is not a real need for knowing your specific paces in this program, since so much of the work is based on efforts & feel, I find that many people want to test their beginning & ending fitness in a program. This workout is designed to allow you to do so. Or you can disregard getting a 3M total time & just do the session. I am cool with it either way. Our final workout of this Basecamp wil be the same session, so you can test your improved fitness (or improved ability to know HOW to do the session). 

Fartlek is a Swedish word for “speed play”. In the history of distance running, the Swedes & Finnish marked a huge transition in the training theory. Prior to the use of fartlek, most runner either ran easy, or walked even, to develop fitness. The Scandanavians upended this continuous running at one speed with fluctuations & pace changes in the context of a single run. In this way they made varying paces a part of training theory. Eventually, this led to breaking up training runs into intervals (shorter faster running balanced with rest periods. There are two basic types of fartleks traditional, free-form fartlek & structured fartlek. The traditional version is a kid of play, where accelerations of varying paces & distances are included in a run. Typically, runners choose natural landmarks (trees, hills, telephone poles, etc) as they run to accelerate to & then run easy after. Individual fartleks are truly free-form & completely up to the runner to implement. When run in groups, they are still free-form but one runner decides where they are running to & at what pace. This can be alternated between runners in the pack or one runner can be the determiner throughout. Also, if done in a park or the like, a coach can blow a whistle to control the distance run & the athletes can choose the pace. These are examples of traditional fartlek. A structured farle is what we are doing. A predetermined time is designated to run at a faster pace & slower pace & the athlete still determines the pace they choose to run for both the faster & slower sections. 

In our case, we are alternating 5 min of faster running with 3 min of easier running; 3 min of faster running with 3 min of easier running; 1 min of faster running with 3 min of easier running. This is written as 5/3/1 w/ 3 min easy jog. Once you complete one set of 5/3/1 you continue until you reach 3 miles of running. You can vary the intention, difficulty & benefits from a fartlek in a wide array to encourage different training stimulus. For our purposes, we want to pick a pace for the faster sections that we feel we can sustain for that timeframe at a hard effort. Hard is not all out. It is a challenging pace or effort that you feel you can sustain for 5, 3 & 1 minutes with the rest being 3 min.  Don’t worry so much about the pace of the faster running...this is “speed play”! Have fun with it. If you go too fast, adjust & run easier on the rests or the faster section to ensure you can run the whole 3 miles with the changing paces. I appreciate it will feel a little willy nilly. That is understood & expected. This is about learning to determine you efforts & paces & how to sustain them in a structured time/distance framework but with a very loose pace or effort framework. Relax! You cannot do this wrong. No matter what you will be getting a good stimulus from this workout. This is the training session. If you want to use it as a time trial, you do the workout EXACTLY THE SAME WAY. You just keep a record of the overall time it takes to do 3M of fartlek. When we do this again in Week 12 you can compare your result. 

SPEED ECONOMY

4-6 x FLAT STRIDES. This is the same session as Week 1’s SE workout, with the  option to go 6 strides.  Now that you have done it once, you should have a better idea of how to modulate your paces/efforts on the strides. Again, see below for the basics:
Strides are similar to pickups but are implemented in this program differently. After you finish your easy 4M run, you want to find a flat, even surface (track or road) that is approximately 60-80 meters long. You can also jusde these on time & it will be about 10-12 seconds long. A stride is a fast run of very short duration. You want to be quick & sprightly but still very relaxed in the face, neck, shoulders & arms. THIS IS NOT A SPRINT. If a sprint were 100% effort (all out), a stride would be 85-90% effort. Fast but relaxed. Concentrate on beautiful form. How will you know what beautiful form is? Just picture a galloping horse & hold that in your mind. Strong, fast & relaxed. The  walk back after you 80 meters or 10-12 seconds to start the next stride. 

LONG RUN

• 30-40 mpw: 6 miles
• 40-50 mpw: 6-8 miles
• 50-60 mpw: 8 miles

With these Long Runs beginning to be extended, be sure to pay attention to your body’s signals. You want to keep the Long Runs. The training stimulus is coming from extending the distance run, not the paces you run. Expect there to be a variety of aches & pains crop up during & after the runs. These are natural & normal. As long as you are paying attention to these signals, & what your body signals is not sharp or drastic, you should run through it.  Your body is not sure what the hell is going on & it wants to predict what you are doing & control what it can control. We are evolutionarily designed to run. Your body knows what to do. But it wants to regulate the effort to ensure you are safe. We have to press the edge a little, get outside our comfort zone a bit, to get the benefits of our hard work. That is how the body responds: work hard, recover; work hard, recover. 

FUNDAMENTALS TOPIC: BALANCE

As I noted in the first two weeks, mindset & consistency are very important to any running program. When I speak of these two things folks tend to nod in agreement, understanding that this “makes sense”. This week’s topic tends to make folks furrow their brow or raise an eyebrow as to how balance could or should pay a role in a running program. Where is the main point: runners are people first. I know, shocker! But so little attention is paid to the idea of balance in a running program. When I work with intermediate & advanced runners, I find the balance is one of the hardest aspects of their training to fix & it plays a HUGE role in their improvement & enjoyment. So I am imploring you to begin to look at your running from the perspective of whole life balance. To that end I have some notes below:

• Healthy running is balanced running. While we see great benefits from training “to the edges” (see the fartlek session this week) it must be balanced. The pendulum needs to swing to encourage greater fitness & training benefits: hard days hard, easy days easy has the end result of balancing each other. 

HOUSEKEEPING

• For details on what I mean by Quality, Speed Economy, Long Run & Medium Long Run & many other topics please see the FAQ page HERE. 
• Please remember that this program is designed to be followed in order, from week to week. Each week builds on the one before it. 
• If you have specific questions you can ask it on the Facebook page or you can email me directly at sisson@telsorunning.com. 

WEEK 2 TRAINING DETAILS

QUALITY

EASY RUN W/ 6 x 1 MINUTE PICKUPS

So hopefully you are getting a grasp on easy running. It takes some getting used to. So many people want to run hard all the time. All the benefits of running easy significantly outweigh the benefits of running fast-unless you are being chased by a lion. 

• A note on breathing through your nose: if you tried this you get serious bonus points. I brought it up & continue to recommend it if only to show you how important breathing is to running easy. You do not need to continue to try to breathe only through your nose. Get oxygen from an orifice you can! But by occasionally checking your breathing through your nose you become more aware & conscious of how oxygen rules everything. Your breathing is crucial. 
• Keep your breathing rhythmic. Even at easy paces, you want to be sure your breathing is in a consistent rhythm. 
• Check in with your body: 
  • Relax
    • Face, neck shoulders
    • Hands at waistband, moving straight back & forth. Elbow pulls back. Hands are soft & relaxed. 
  • Pay Attention: Listen to Your Body
    • What signals are being sent?
    • What is your effort?
    • What is your breathing like?
    • How are your feet pushing off the ground?
    • Feel
    • See
    • Hear
    • Proprioception

For this workout you are running an easy 4 miles & interspersed in the 4 miles are 6 pickups of 1 min with a minimum of 3-4 minutes of very easy running between them. Be sure you are at least 1 mile into your easy run before you start your pickups so you are warmed up.  A pickup is run at a pace just faster than your easy pace. It should feel a little quick, a little sprightly. It should be relaxed & smooth, NOT a sprint or a hard effort. Just pickup the pace a bit so you feel like you are running faster than the easy pace you started running at the beginning of the run. You’ll do 4 of these. Be sure that you don’t get carried away & start getting faster & faster throughout the run! It can be very easy to get overly excited & carried away with an exciting new program. Be sure to go back to a very easy pace after each pickup. 

SPEED ECONOMY

2 x 1M of Straights & Curves (S&C)

Straights & Curves are a bread & butter workout for Telos. These are very similar to strides but are implemented differently. Run an easy 15-20 min warm-up to a track. This workout is best implemented on a track but it can be accomodated to a flat road by setting your smart watch to beep every 100m. On a track you start off on a curve & jog very, very easily the whole turn. I call this a pitter-pat jog. The as the track straightens out, you stride on the straight. Take your foot off the gas pedal as you approach the curve & return to a very easy, pitter-pat jog. The stride the next straight. Repeat this for 4 laps or 1M/1600m. As a reminder: A stride is a fast run of very short duration. You want to be quick & sprightly but still very relaxed in the face, neck, shoulders & arms. THIS IS NOT A SPRINT. If a sprint were 100% effort (all out), a stride would be 85-90% effort. Fast but relaxed. Concentrate on beautiful form. How will you know what beautiful form is? Just picture a galloping horse & hold that in your mind. Strong, fast & relaxed. 

LONG RUN
30-40 mpw: 4-6M Easy LR

40-50 mpw: 6M Easy LR

50-60 mpw: 8M Easy LR

FUNDAMENTALS
CONSISTENCY: The single most important aspect of training, both physically & mental is consistency. 

• Commitment to Excellence Requires a Long Game
  • Thinking LONG TERM. 
  • Day to day; week to week; month to month; race to race; season to season; year to year; decade to decade.
  • Plan or Decide. Different mindsets have different approaches.
    • Plan = order, schedule, tracking
    • Decide = chaos, commit to ANY & ALL things; free-flow
  • Every damn day. No days off. Blah. Don’t get sucked into this bullshit tough guy mentality. Stay the course. 
• Consistently is BELIEF:
  • Facing fear. You ARE enough. Just show up. Keep showing up. Demand it of yourself. 
  • Trust The Training. Belief in your training is absolutely crucial. You don’t have to believe in me. Believe in the results, in the years of trial & error, the love & respect I have for my athletes, for the program itself. I trust it. “If it's real it can take the pressure.”
  • Trust your body. It knows what to do. Just do the work & get the fuck out of the way. 
• Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGS) are only accomplished in the quiet lonely hours of getting in the runs & being committed to the long game. Qunetin Cassidy in Once A Runner:  “Miles of Trials; Trials of Miles”.

TRAINING WEEK DETAILS

For details on what I mean by Quality, Speed Economy, Long Run & Medium Long Run, please see the FAQ page HERE. 

QUALITY

EASY RUN W/ 4 x 1 MINUTE PICKUPS

Easy running is a hard concept for some people to grasp. There is a cultural tendency to think that things must be hard for them to be beneficial. The old saying, “No pain; no gain.” is more deeply ingrained in people than they realize. The greatest running benefits that you can gain come from easy running. All the key physiological adaptations that we encourage are coming from easy running. In a base building program, the most critical aspect of what we are trying to achieve: a strong foundation for future running success, comes from easy running. It is absolutely essential that you concentrate on easy running in this program. What is easy? Here are a few ways to ensure you are going easy:

• Is your breathing relaxed & controlled? Is it in a smooth, even rhythm?
• Can you carry on a conversation? If you can easily talk while you are running, then you are likely running easy.
• Can you breathe only through your nose? This is the highest test of running easy. If you want to be absolutely certain you are running very easy, you’ll be able to breath with our mouth closed. 

So getting into a space where you know what your easy feels like is very important. I would really like you to do this without focusing on your pace per mile. Are you using a Geekometer (smart watch) in your training? If so, you just need to realize that it is a very useful tool but it is not going to be used in this program to control your running. We will run on efforts & time, not on pace per mile. This will allow us to get out of the pace mindset. 

For this workout you are running an easy 4 miles & interspersed in the 4 miles are 4 pickups of 1 min with a minimum of 5 minutes of very easy running between them. Be sure you are alt least 1 mile into your easy run before you start your pickups so you are warmed up.  A pickup is run at a pace just faster than your easy pace. It should feel a little quick, a little sprightly. It should be relaxed & smooth, NOT a sprint or a hard effort. Just pickup the pace a bit so you feel like you are running faster than the easy pace you started running at the beginning of the run. You’ll do 4 of these. Be sure that you don’t get carried away & start getting faster & faster throughout the run! It can be very easy to get overly excited & carried away with an exciting new program. Be sure to go back to a very easy pace after each pickup. 

SPEED ECONOMY

4 x FLAT STRIDES

Strides are similar to pickups but are implemented in this program differently. After you finish your easy 4M run, you want to find a flat, even surface (track or road) that is approximately 60-80 meters long. You can also jusde these on time & it will be about 10-12 seconds long. A stride is a fast run of very short duration. You want to be quick & sprightly but still very relaxed in the face, neck, shoulders & arms. THIS IS NOT A SPRINT. If a sprint were 100% effort (all out), a stride would be 85-90% effort. Fast but relaxed. Concentrate on beautiful form. How will you know what beautiful form is? Just picture a galloping horse & hold that in your mind. Strong, fast & relaxed. The  walk back after you 80 meters or 12 seconds to start the next stride. 

MEDIUM LONG RUN

4 Miles

LONG RUN

4-6 miles

FUNDAMENTALS TOPIC

MINDSET

How you approach every day you train will impact your overall benefit of the program exponentially. You must have a positive, relaxed mental space for your training to give you it’s full benefit. You have heard this over & over in life. It has become a cliche. That is so unfortunate. Everything comes back to attitude. Sometimes it is helpful to look at the negative impacts of attitude to help us come to a positive mental outlook. 

GETTING STARTED

WHO AM I?

Steve Sisson

• 45 years of running experence
• 25 years of coaching experience
• Beginners to Olympians, coached at UT for 6 years, coached a professional team for 10 years. 

WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?

I highly encourage you to spend some time getting to the bottom of why you want to do this program. Stop this recording & come up with at least 3 reasons for why you want to do this Basecamp. If you do not have a good reason, a compelling reason for starting this, it is significantly less likely that you will complete it. I know that most of you will just bypass this part of the program, I get it, I really do. It seems silly at this juncture. You’ve signed up. You are listening to this episode: of course you are committed. But WHY are you committed. Taking a few minutes to write down why you want to start on this road will change the entire process for you. 

WHY AM I DOING THIS? 

Two reasons really. One is selfish the other is altruistic. Like much in life. 

I am being selfish because I want to coach you in one of my paid programs. If I do a good job & you like the format of this program, you might consider joining Telos. Of course there is no expectation of that or any hardsell. I just know there is a barrier to entry for my programs due to their unconventional delivery & my reputation for being a more “advanced” coach. So, here is a way to help folks give my program a test run & see if they like it. Also, I have folks who want to join my Telos groups but they are not ready for the volume or the commitment. This Basecamp is a way in.  If you can do this program, you can absolutely handle my other programs. & if you want to join some other more focused, goal oriented progra, please do. I just want more people moving the needle on bettering themselves through running. 

& this leads to my giveaway: I believe that if you are pushing to better yourself, you are bettering our world. You are raising human consciousness. Running is a path with heart & those who learn to suffer, learn to transcend their own small place in the world. This process will show our deeper connection & connectedness with the earth, with those who are not in our tribes & with the entire cosmos. We will have a better understanding of ourselves & all those around us.

 I want to get the whole entire world moving through space. I believe running is our birthright. 

WHAT TO EXPECT

• A balanced, effective program designed to get you fit enough to train.
• A 12 week Build To program that gradually increases mileage to the mileage sweet spot you want to hit. 
• A 6 week Base Build program that can be repeated as desired. 
• A thorough description of the weekly training sessions, their purpose & desired effect & what to expect out on the road as you implement the session.
• A grounding in the core fundamentals of running. Each week I take a few minutes to go into a core Fundamental to help you gain the long term grounding in the sport that will allow you to go into any other program. These Fundamentals are core concepts that can be game changers for your running. 
• I am adding a private Facebook group to this program. My other program has a very vibrant community sharing their experiences of training & workouts, as well as their overall running journey. I have no idea if this group will have a similar experience. It will depend on you. I will moderate the group with 2 or 3 experienced athletes of mine to help answer questions & to seed interesting topics that might be beneficial to your training experience. Please be respectful & understanding.

WHAT NOT TO EXPECT

• A personalized, individual program designed just for you. No handholding. This is a free program that is focused on helping you become the best runner you can be, don’t ask it to be what it cannot & will not be. 
• Analysis of your training results. I will be moderating the FB page to see how you are doing & to provide insights & answer questions. But I won’t be checking anyone’s Strava. I coach a program where I do work with both groups & individuals & if that is what you are looking for, reach out to me.
• To get immediate personal records or instantaneous results. Getting stronger as a runner is a long road. 

PROGRAM SET UP

• Intro email with details on logging in, what you’ll find on the Basecamp Private page, etc. 
• All program info is provided through a weekly podcast & a corresponding worksheet accessed through the private page. 
  • Podcast
  • Worksheet
• Macrocycles
  • Setups: Use this sheet to help you plan your week & the days you do the training sessions. 
  • 30-40 miles per week
  • 40-50 miles per week
  • 50-60 miles per week
  • Scratch: A basic beginner program for those not yet at 20 miles per week. 
• Frequently Asked Questions: An ongoing resource for questions that are fundamental & need answering. I’ll update the FAQ with questions from the Facebook group.