Power and Grace Endurance programming is built on the foundation of the Gear pacing system. This is a system that provides relative pacing to individual athletes. This is a system I’ve used in my own training. In short, it’s an easy way to know how hard you should be working at a given time. This blog explains a simple workout and what the Gear system tells the athlete about the workout.
Here’s the workout:
Track Running 10:00 AMRAP: 300m @ Gear 2, 100 @ Gear 5…..
After getting loose, we find a timer and take one last look at our splits.
Gear 2 is your PR pace for a 10k. This is something you can do comfortably for 20 minutes or so before your breathing prevents you from carrying on a conversation. For the time domain of this workout (10 minutes) your perceived exertion should be between 75 – 80% (without considering the Gear 5 work).
Gear 5 is your 800m PR pace. This is nearly a sprint, for the distance of each 100m effort your perceived effort should be roughly 92%. This should be something you will feel your legs to build lactic acid and your breathing will get deeper at the end of the 100m. Over the course of the workout, this will become more difficult, but should never cause you to be totally spent at the end.
The athlete in our example has a 10k PR of 42:00. This breaks down to :25 seconds per 100m. Because we’re doing 300m at Gear 2, we multiply this 3 times to get 75 seconds (1:15) per 300m.
The athlete’s 800m PR is 2:40. This breaks down to :20 per 100m.
Therefore each round/lap will take a total of 1:35.
You should track your paces with a simple watch that can do lap splits. (Any sport timex will work.) When you start the work, you should check your Gear 2 pacing every 100m or so (sticking to :25 per 100m). Over the course of the workout, you’ll find that you don’t need to check as often because you recognize the feeling in your legs and lungs.
The focus of this workout is maintaining the Gear 2 pace AFTER the Gear 5 work. The purpose of sticking to a pace for the longer portion of each round is to slow down to a pace where you can recover, but not so slow you sacrifice your time. Over time, each round should become more difficult than the last.
This workout is also part of a progression that will help improve your recovery ability by adding time every other week, with the goal of stretching this to 20 minutes. After this progression, an athlete significantly improves their ability to flush lactic acid while moving at their Gear 2 pace. They will also look at their watch less inter-workout, and will help the athlete know the pace ‘feel’ better.
Mind blown? Interested in more? Sign up for the Power & Grace Endurance Programming on WodFollow.