This will hopefully be the first in a series of articles/pieces to open up on training ideas. They are intended to be simple and clear in the explanation and thus something you can take and learn from. After all, there is no master plan to be the perfect runner, if there was, we would all be doing it.
Since we have been back at the track, the coaching team have used ‘RPE’ – Relative Perceived Exertion as the way of setting session effort. This is a simple to understand way of running and links very well to a key part of training in listening to the body. It ignores all the measures (pace/speed/HR etc) and it means when we say an easy run – it means easy for all members, regardless of the pace they are running at. Below is a summary:
| RPE Level | Description | Guide Notes |
| 1-2 | Walking | Proactive recovery, walking |
| 3-4 | Easy | Long Run, recovery, chatty pace |
| 5-6 | Medium | Tempo – a pace you can run AND maintain for about an hour, can say a few words |
| 7-8 | Hard | Threshold – 5k, or there abouts, talk with difficulty |
| 9-10 | Very Hard | Flat out, cant talk |
What I would like to do is to explain how one can adapt the above, along with the session information to make a little more relevant to your own individual goals. After all, you could be training for 5ks, a 10k, a half or full marathon. For this, one needs to look at what is referred to as ‘race pace’ or the pace/speed you are aiming for.
As race pace is the central idea – training pace moves up and down around the effort. So a simple way to say this:
RPE4/Easy – slower than race pace
RPE6/Medium – Race Pace
RPE8/Hard – Faster than race pace
Once again, it is a simple explanation to offer you. It does keep within the session idea/goal but allowing you to train for your goals.
Please remember, the club sessions that are planned are generic and set up for all to attempt. They are not for Runner A, Member B, for marathon runners or for 5k runners – they are for all. So hopefully what we explained here will offer some insight into how to adapt a training session.
If you do have any questions, please do ask a member of the coaching team.
Alan