Although this book was written more than 10 years ago in 1997, I easily recognize many features and programs that are still being advocated today by more recent books and publications such as the RW magazine. There's something to be said for time-proven strategies and programs.
I was particularly interested in two chapters - George Parrott's Ultramarathon program and Ben Moore's Repeat and Threepeat program. But the very first chapter dealt with a topic that I have been mulling over for some time - PACE.
In Hal's words:
"Actually, training schedules ... are anything but precise. They can't be. Our marathon training class was attended by more than 550 runners. ... Individuals attempting to follow an training schedule aimed at the masses have varying talent and levels of physical fitness."
Hal went on to note that pace is relative. What is medium speed to one person can be very different to another person. Interestingly, he preferred to define training paces with reference to maximum heart rates (MHR). Hal took great care to attribute the development on pace definition to various people such as Roy Benson and Gunnar Berg. But he developed what he calls the universal pace chart:
Base: <50% MHR - very light
Jog: 50 - 65% MHR - fairly light, slow pace
Easy: 65 - 75% MHR - conversational, not a jog
Medium: 75 - 80% - hard, out of comfort zone
Crisp: 80 - 85% - harder, submax effort
Hard: 95 - 90% MHR - very hard, near max effort
Sprint: 90 - 100% MHR - very very hard, full speed
I think this way is a much better way to define pace, rather than attaching a figure value (such as 6 min/km). It is also age and talent/fitness-appropriate. An older runner may not be able to run as fast due to a lower MHR. Likewise, a less fit person may find a 6 min/km pace to be hard effort, while an experienced runner will consider this pace to be a jog.
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