This plan is a follow-on to my 'Your Athletic Profile - Test your capabilities' plan and should only be purchased and completed after completion of that plan and once you have received your Athletic Profile.

The Work Capacity Training plan tests your current capacity to absorb and recover from

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO?

Make a note of how much total volume (in minutes) you achieved during each of the open-ended interval workouts included here. This will give you a starting point for how much volume you can safely put into workouts at that intensity going forward.

Example: if you complete the AnT1 workout with 3 repetitions of 3 minutes and 1 repetition of 2 minutes then your total volume was 11 minutes at that intensity. You can also note down the speed and actual heart rate for later reference as well as how much recovery you took in between.

You can then start the first workout of the new plan with 12 minutes of this intensity or a bit less. If you wanted to do more (say 15 minutes), then you would know to include more recovery than you had during your test.

Finally, you must make a note of how you feel after 24, 48 and 72 hours after each of the workouts. This will tell you something about how much recovery you require to be completely rested after such volume. You may notice, for instance, that after the MAC test, your legs are very sore and tired for 3 days. Then you know that in the beginning you cannot plan such a workout and have another key workout within 3 days.

If during testing you feel you are not recovered for the next test you should do this:

1. Move the scheduled test to the next week where you have no other scheduled run
2. Do an easy recovery run instead

HOW MANY DAYS TRAINING?

There are four workouts included per week in this plan, if you currently run more than 4 days per week, you can simply add in easy runs between each of these to arrive at your normal weekly mileage. Don't run so much in between that it tires you out completely for the tests.

If you struggle with recovery after intensive work, you can also spread the tests out over 3 or 4 weeks and add more easy runs in between.

If you run less than 4 days per week, simply spread the 8 running workouts over 3 or 4 weeks instead of 2 weeks. You can do this any way you want - such as moving the Saturday workouts from week 1 and week 2 into Tuesday and Thursday of week 3. Just ensure you have at least 48-72 hours recovery between all runs except the medium and long run tests (which can be completed after the current Saturday workouts but should not be done the day after the faster interval tests).