Wednesday Workouts: 2 Mile Trial?!

As many of you read the title of this you are probably thinking "but coach that's a race and not a workout ???" And you are correct a time trial is a race but there is an added benefit to racing this particular distance as a workout as well. So let's cover the basics first. First of all racing too often can lead to burnout and poor performances in the end of the season or post season when it really matters so we have to keep this in mind to not race too often and too early. That being said there is a benefit we get from every race we run. Each time you race you you learn to pace better and learn to adjust many aspects of your racing. How fast can you start and not die out? How early can you start to sprint to get the best possible time? And more! Learning to race is key to those big races in the future.​

​So all that being said why should we do a 2 mile time trial as a workout? The key factor here is that at this distance most runners will run at the exact pace to work one of our systems we are always taking about. In previous articles we spoke about VO2Max and how doing 1K or 800 meter reps are a great way to work that system and improve your running overall. What occurs at the 2 mile distance is that racing all out will produce the same effect. When you race 2 miles you are running at Vo2Max and getting an additional training benefit added on to the other benefits we discussed. Now word of caution is don't over use this as a workout but know that its an alternative to through in to break up the routine. The benefit I should mention is that doing this early in the season will give you a gauge for how preseason work is going and allow you to make any adjustments. This gives you a baseline as well to measure your season improvement. So how do you put this all together? Here is how:

2 Mile Easy pace warm-up
2 Mile Time Trial
3-4 mile Easy Run afterwards

Finals notes is that I like to add some mileage afterwards as this is still a workout day and one item you can add as well is some short 200 meter strides after the to work on speed on tired legs. More on that in a future article.