One-Hour Workout: 2K Run Repeats
The goals of this session are to improve strength and be aware of pace judgment.
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Every Tuesday we’ll feature a different coach’s workout you can complete in 60 minutes (or less!).
This week’s run workout comes from top UK coaches Dan Bullock and Steve Trew, the authors of 100 Essential Triathlon Sessions. The goal of the workout is to improve strength and be aware of pace judgment, ideally done in the off or pre-season. “This session involves a 2k distance repeated five times,” they write. “Mentally it is very tough to do repeats on longer distances, however for middle/long-distance running and triathlon, it is essential.”
Trew says this tough session—which “hurts like hell” but gets great results—is one he used with his athletes pre-Olympic Games in 2000. “With my junior athletes, we’d build up to this session over a long time,” he says. “We’d maybe start at something like 3x1000m and gradually extend; 4x1000m, 3x1500m, 4x1500m, etc. This could well take two years (plus) before getting into the 2x5K.”
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One-Hour Workout: 2K Repeats
They recommend doing the repeats on trails rather than the track, if possible. The repeats should be done at faster than 10K race pace.
Main Set
5x2K with 2 min recovery
Variation
For sprint-distance triathletes, use repetitions of 1K, though keep recovery as 2 min. Beginners over the Olympic distance should also start here. For experienced Olympic-distance triathletes, the 5x1K session can be a useful speed-training session.