Earlier this week I talked about VO2 sessions for the bike. In this piece I’m going to give a couple examples for incorporating some of this work on the run. While you need to be careful when adding this type of work to your cycling, it is even more important to be extra careful when you add these sessions to your run training. Like I mentioned before, it truly is the icing on the cake and very little of this type of work is needed for the long course triathlete. Often only very fit, very mechanically sound and very experienced athlete’s should add VO2 work to their run training.

Depending on how far out your event is and what you are training for may determine the type of session you do. Are you trying to increase fitness? Trying to neuromuscularly teach your body to run fast? Trying to increase your power?

Answering those questions will help you decide if you will do a VO2 session on the flat, uphill or on the treadmill or even slightly downhill.

For all terrain types, the reps should be short with equal to double the rest. The total work can vary, but keep the total work between 8-20 minutes.

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Warm Up
Always do a good warm up. Start off with 15-30 minutes of easy running with some strides and drills.

Uphill Sets
Pick a hill that is 4-8% in grade. These two session options are between 45-90 seconds uphill intense, fast running (not bounding — quick cadence, good form is your aim). Jog back to the bottom for recovery.

• Session 1: 12-24 x 45 seconds uphill hard with jog back to bottom easy for recovery.
• Session 2: 8-15 x 90 seconds uphill hard with job back to bottom easy for recovery.

Track Sets

• Session 1: (200m fast, 15 seconds rest) x 4, then take 1 minute jog rest between sets, repeat 2-6 times through.
• Session 2: 6-10 x 400m fast on 200 jog very easy for rest.

Road Set
Monegetti intervals:

1. :15 fast / :15 easy
2. :30 fast / :30 easy
3. :45 fast / :45 easy
4. 1:00 fast / 1:00 easy
5. 1:30 fast / 1:30 easy
6. 1:00 fast / 1:00 easy
7. :45 fast / :45 easy
8. :30 fast / :30 easy
9. :15 fast / :15 easy

Cool Down
Finish with 10-15 minutes easy running after all interval workouts.

These are high quality, intense run sets. Always be careful to hold good form and start each rep with caution and build into it. Always warm up well and cool down well.

Get fit, be fast and have fun