Frank Horwill

In this weeks edition of Athletics Weekly there is an article on interval training by Frank Horwill. Frank is the founder of the British Milers Club (BMC) and quite possibly one of the most charismatic coaches you will come across. I personally have learnt much from Frank Horwill and many of my key training sessions for 1500m are Horwill sessions.

However, this most recent article from Horwill has sparked much online debate on athletics forums.

In Horwills article he discusses an approach to interval training that he describes as incremental training.

Basically, the athlete starts fast and runs a fraction of the ultimate target and when that distance can be handled with ease in the targeted time, the distance increases at that same pace with the original recovery. This is in contrast to starting with longer repetitions and quickening up. With incremental training, the athlete is getting accustomed to the target pace from the outset.

(Horwill, 2010)

Most of the forum comments have not specifically taken issue with the principle outlined by Horwill in the quote above. Instead, there has been much debate about one of the example sessions that was provided.

The session in question was:

4x400m (at target 800m pace) with 30 second recoveries.

Now I have to agree with the general consensus on the message forums. That is, ones current 800m race pace will be faster than what can be maintained with the suggested recovery periods above.

Horwill is famous for creating a training system known as the Five Pace System. For a 1500m runner this system would require the athlete to train at race pace as well as the estimated race paces for the two distance above and below the 1500m event (ie. 400m, 800m, 1500m, 3000m, and 5000m pace). I believe that the recovery periods that Horwill originally suggested for each of these training paces work very well.

Horwills original recovery suggestions were:

Training pace (distance of the jog recovery)
400m pace (jog double the distance of the repetition)
800m pace (jog the same distance as the repetition distance)
1500m pace (jog half of the repetition distance)
3000m pace (jog a quarter of the repetition distance)

Horwill also stated that the pace of the recovery jog was to be at 45 seconds per 100metres. The distance of the repetitions was to be double the distance of the race pace.

Using this system, a typical training session at 800m race pace would be 4x400m with 3 minute recoveries. In my experience, the pace that can be maintained for such a session does indeed very closely match the pace that can be achieved in an 800m race.

So yes, it does seem that 30 second recoveries between 400m repetitions is rather harsh if one is expected to maintain their current 800m race pace. When you consider that it was being suggested that the pace being trained at should be a target pace (ie. faster than ones current ability over the distance) than this particular session appears to be even more unachievable.

However, rather than looking at it as a single isolated training session, lets examine the sequence of progressions that Horwill provided:

Progression 1 - 8x200m with 30 second recoveries
Progression 2 - 6x300m with 30 second recoveries
Progression 3 - 4x400m with 30 second recoveries
Progression 4 - 3x500m with 30 second recoveries

From this it now seems clear what Horwill is trying to achieve. The total distance covered with each progression remains roughly the same (approximately double the 800metre race distance). The recovery periods remain exactly the same, but the total distance is achieved with fewer repetitions (due to the increasing distance of the repetitions). This results in the total recovery for the entire workout decreasing with each progression.

This now appears, to me, like a good sequence of progressions. It will certainly develop work capacity by increasing the density of the training sessions. The only real problem seems to be the actual recovery duration, which can easily be adressed.

If you decide to use this approach to 800m training then I would suggest using the above progressions with 3 minute recoveries instead of 30 second recoveries. Your only problem now is deciding what time you want to achieve this summer - as this will determine the pace of the sessions!

Stay tuned for future articles on this topic. I will be taking a step back from analysing the specific sessions and progressions, and instead will critique the incremental interval training approach itself.

Tim Egerton
sprintstrong.com

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