Hello my Feetlings, I hope you had a good weekend. For those facing extreme weather conditions at the moment, hang in there. You will soon be able to train without fear of hitting the deck soon!

I am going to continue from last Friday's blog which focussed on your general training program and what it is trying to achieve. If you missed it maybe read it before this one click here.

Last week I mentioned that your training program is broken up into various training periods called 'Mesocycles'. Each mesocycle having a specific aim for a calculated period of time that is often counted in weeks rather than days. A mescocycle is divided into several 'microcycles' that are a series of days that make a shorter block of training.

A microcycle can be anywhere from 4 days to 2 weeks long and research has shown that for an elite athlete a 8- 10 day microcycle pattern is most effective. Enough about the elites what does a microcycle have to do with you!

Well, it is important for you too know about microcycles because whether you are an elite runner or a fun runner if you follow a training program you train in microcycles!

I would take a guess that almost 100% of people reading this blog use a training program that works in a weekly format and trains your body in a 7 day cycle. For example, if you look at your training schedule you will see similarities between this week and the following with the occasional change on certain training days. I would bet my house that 99% of marathon programs encourage you to do a longer run on the weekend compared to midweek runs. I know this because the majority of training programs work on this 7 day cycle because most of it's users are not elite runners and have a real life to work their training around.

Depending on your ability and fitness an endurance 7-day microcycle will typically consist of three hard sessions (sometimes 4). This is generally the maximum number of hard sessions that most runners can respond to efficiently (aka. Improve without getting injured!).

Lesson of the day!

The lesson I want you to take away from the last two posts is that your training week (mesocycle) is calculated to stress and rest your body in an efficient way. When you go through your training program you will most likely come across disruptions, whether it be a social issue or pysical issue (ie. injury or fatigue), that will effect your training week. The natural instinct in this 'get rich quick' world is to make up for lost time. In running terms this often means completing a hard session the day after a missed day and then comtinuing with the schedule as if nothing happened. You might get away with this sometimes but trust me when I say many injuries occur from this type of training miss management.

A perfect example for this is the current bad weather in the UK. Snow has meant that people training for a spring marathon who wanted to start a program in the new year have not been able to complete training as statedin their program. Please do not jump into week 3 of a training program because you were unable to complete weeks 1 and 2. I suggest you start off with week 1 and review your training in 4 weeks time.

Remember these training programs are there to gradually train your body in macrocycles, mesocycles and microcycles. Be sensible and calculated with your training and when in doubt please take the easier option. Endurance training is not a sprint but a marathon. Or in this case “Marathon training is not a mesocycle but, a macrocycle!”

Have a good week and please let me know any funny incidents or stories you have had from running in snow and ice!

Tags: Microcycle and you, 7 day microcycle

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