To season, or not to season…
When we think about training for races, we always think in terms of seasons. These seasons are composed of distinct phases--base phase, competition phase, sharpening phase, or whatever--and the phases are ordered in a linear fashion that guides you toward peak fitness at a given time.
“If your goal race is three months from now, then, yes: the seasonal approach works. But what if, instead of three months, the race is a year from now? What about two years from now? Would the same strategy still be optimal?”
Why do we approach training in seasons?
There’s an established racing calendar in place
It’s easy to wrap our minds around
It works...sometimes
Races exist on certain days. Therefore, we structure our training such that we perform our best on those days. But this fact alone doesn’t compel one to train in a seasonal manner. We do it out of habit. And that habit has deep origins, dating back to when we first started training--in school. Our scholastic running pursuits were always arranged into seasons, each of which culminated in a championship event. These competitive seasons would be organized into various phases that moved toward a “peak”, and when one ended, the cycle would start over again for the next season.
Doing things this way made sense in light of the competition calendar. But we also found that it was just easier to devise a training plan when it was done a few months at a time. Writing a training program for, say, the whole year is not only an overwhelming task, but is also less practical; one’s training journey includes too many unknowns way down the road, from both a performance and injury standpoint. Thus, a three or four month training block was found to be long enough to provide for legitimate fitness gains, but short enough that it kept the unforeseeables to a minimum.
And we certainly can’t ignore perhaps the greatest reason why runners subscribe to this method. It works!
A traditionally periodized training season does succeed at developing a runner’s fitness, and bringing him or her to a desired “peak” in time for championship events. If it didn’t work, no one would do it. There’s no denying that.
But is this always the best way to structure your training?
This methodology is so ingrained in us that we never really question it. And why would we? Every single training program and training book out there breaks training schedules down into seasons. And now we know why--it’s familiar, it’s practical, and it produces positive results.
But let’s analyze this a little bit.
If your goal race is three months from now, then, yes: the seasonal approach works. But what if, instead of three months, the race is a year from now? What about two years from now? Would the same strategy still be optimal? Would you just repeat the same three- or four-month cycles over and over? The prevailing paradigm would say yes. Break up the long-term goal into multiple, shorter seasons, each laid out in the standard periodized tradition. Keep doing this until you achieve your goal. But is this really the best way to do it? For a lot of runners, it is not.
Progressive Undulation. What is it, and why should you do it?
“Progressive undulation strikes the ideal balance between intensity, injury-risk, and adaptability. It’s challenging enough that you’ll make progress and adaptations all the time, but not so hard that your risk of injury is a constant threat.”
There’s an episode of The Office where Ryan asks Pam “would you guys rather have a hundred dollars now, or five-thousand dollars a year from now?”
If you’re a runner who has big goals, but you are injury-prone (forced to miss several weeks every year due to injury) and/or not a freakish natural talent, you’re going to want to take the five-thousand dollar option on this one—even though Ryan is a known conman.
Progressive undulation is a training method that
Emphasizes slightly lower-intensity sessions than traditional seasonal block training
Includes less interruption from quality work than traditional seasonal block training
Uses tempo work (as defined here) and aerobic development as its foundation
Modulates in workout-specificity as race goals change
Progressive undulation strikes the ideal balance between intensity, injury-risk, and adaptability. It’s challenging enough that you’ll make progress and adaptations all the time, but not so hard that your risk of injury is a constant threat. Because it doesn’t include crazy-hard sections of unrelenting intervals, it doesn’t demand extended periods of lower-quality “base” phases that the body must undergo, lest injury or exhaustion set in. It, instead, incorporates more frequent, but much shorter, individual rest weeks, thrown in strategically as needed, while also allowing you to increase mileage year-round, because--again--the intensity level allows for it. The term “undulation” is used because the relative intensity and/or volume of training will move up and down over time as you prepare for specific races, but never drastically so--no enormous and extended spikes in intensity in either the higher or lower register. Think of it more as a stair-step progression that’s always climbing higher.
Now, the thing you have to understand about PU is this: in the short-term, it won’t yield results as quickly as a traditional season. This is because it operates on a less aggressive intensity model than the traditional approach. And that’s okay! It’s not designed to be a quick fix. It’s about superior long-term development. Let’s check out some visuals to see how PU stacks up against seasonal block training. I’ve used standard scholastic-style seasons as the time-frame in the following charts, as it’s one we’re all familiar with.
The figure above illustrates an estimation of how 5k race pace would be affected by implementing the two different training paradigms. As you can see, the PU approach (black) starts off at a slight advantage, as it includes tempo work from the start, whereas the seasonal approach demands only easy running during this time. But as the runner progresses into cross country season, a sharp performance increase occurs for the seasonal trainer, as the high-intensity interval sessions take hold. This is where the fitness of the seasonal trainer eclipses that of the PU practitioner. As you move into indoor track, and outdoor as well, we see there’s a distinct advantage to the seasonal method, and PU lags slightly behind.
At this point, it’s clear that seasonal block training is superior—assuming no injuries are incurred, of course. But let’s see what happens when we extend out the timeline another year.
Here, we start to see a different story take form. Notice that, in the beginning of this figure, there’s a more drastic DROP in fitness for the seasonal camp, and only a mild one for PU. This is because a dramatic swing toward low-intensity running has been taken by the seasonal trainer as they’re coming off an intense outdoor track season, while the PU-er needs less of a back-off. A critical inflection point occurs at this stage, where it can be seen that the PU trainer overtakes the traditional season-ite. As time progresses, we again observe the familiar occurrence of the season-ite surpassing the PU-er once the interval phase takes place, but by this time, a crucial gap has been closed, and as we move through the track seasons, the PU-er is shown to be the superior athletic specimen.
And it’s important to note that, in both of the above figures, it has been assumed that NO INJURY SETBACKS took place. Since this style of training is particularly well-suited for the perennially injured, let’s take a look at a third figure that includes the all-too-likely injury-plagued season-ite, compared to the more aptly-trained PU-er.
This figure demonstrates what is, perhaps, the MOST COMPELLING argument in favor of PU training. For some runners who train under a traditional rubric, experiencing injury at least once a year—such that many weeks of training are missed—is a foregone conclusion. It always seems to happen. It is for those individuals in particular that PU is a magical training recipe. Just look at the figure above. We see the unsurprising injury stint in blue during cross country—a misfortune that requires several weeks of rehab and missed training. During this time, the still-healthy PU-er pulls away in flying colors, outpacing the season-ite to a degree that no number of hard intervals could ever make up for. This advantage carries the runner all the way through the track seasons, and will widen its advantage gap more and more over time.
So how do you do PU training?
Progressive undulation uses tempo work as its bedrock. I’ve provided an 8-week tempo “template” in this article, which serves as a great starting point for a runner wanting to get into PU. What’s cool about this tempo schedule is that you can safely INCREASE MILEAGE throughout it, with minimal injury risk (read that article for more on this). Once you feel like you want to start racing, that’s when the “undulation” comes in. Check out the schedule below for a “template” of how one might utilize PU for 5k race preparation (the first race occurs in week 4).
NOTE* Since this article is about the fundamental aspects of PU training, this schedule does NOT include every element that I would recommend in a COMPLETE training regimen. Notably absent are hill sessions, strides, specific long runs, and more—all of which I would incorporate depending on the circumstance.
Week 1
Wed: 3 mi straight at a pace that is about 1 minute per mile or 20% SLOWER than recent 5k speed. Go with whichever is slower. We’ll call this TEMPO pace. If you’re estimating this, err on the slower side.
Sat: 8 x 2 min ON, 1 min OFF. The ON sections are at PERCEIVED 10k effort (not a rigid pace; go by feel). The OFF sections are as easy as desired.
Week 2
Wed: 2 x 2 mi @ TEMPO pace w/ 90s stand/walk rest between each.
Sat: 6 x 800m @ a pace halfway between CURRENT 5k and 10k pace w/ 60s JOG recovery. Take a few minutes rest after the last one, then do 4 x 200m @ 1500m race effort w/ 90s stand/walk rest.
Week 3
Wed: 5 mi straight at a pace that’s 10-20 seconds per mile slower than TEMPO pace. We’ll call this SUB-TEMPO, or ST pace.
Sat: 12 x 400m @ a pace halfway between CURRENT 5k and 3k pace w/ 75s stand/walk rest. Take a few minutes rest after the last one, then do 4 x 200m @ 1500m race effort w/ 90s stand/walk rest.
Week 4
Wed: 3.5 mi straight @ TEMPO pace.
Sat: 5k race
*NEW PACE CYCLE*
Adjust workout paces according to 5k result.
Week 5
Wed: 8 x 2 min ON, 1 min OFF. The ON sections are @ 10k effort. The OFF sections are as easy as desired.
Sat: 5 x 1000m @ a pace halfway between CURRENT 5k and 10k pace w/ 80s JOG recovery. Take a few minutes rest after the last one, then do 4 x 200m @ 1500m race effort w/ 90s stand/walk rest.
Week 6
Wed: 4 x 1 mi @ 5 seconds per mile FASTER than TEMPO pace. Let’s call this FAST TEMPO, or FT pace. Take 60s stand/walk rest between each.
Sat: 14 x 400m @ a pace halfway between CURRENT 5k and 3k pace w/ 75s stand/walk rest. Take a few minutes rest after the last one, then do 4 x 200m @ 1500m race effort w/ 90s stand/walk rest.
Week 7
Wed: 5.5 mi straight @ ST pace.
Sat: 7 x 800m @ a pace halfway between CURRENT 5k and 10k pace w/ 60s JOG recovery. Take a few minutes rest after the last one, then do 4 x 200m @ 1500m race effort w/ 90s stand/walk rest.
Week 8
Wed: 3.5 mi straight @ new TEMPO pace (whatever your FT pace was the previous FT session).
Sat: 5k race
This is just a snippet of what you might want to do when you’re getting into PU training. If you didn’t have another race lined up for awhile after this 8 week period, you could return to the usual progressive tempo schedule, and then start to include more race-specific work in the weeks leading up to the next race or races. Everyone will have different goals, and everyone’s schedules will differ, so this isn’t going to be gospel for every runner. But it provides a glimpse into the general structure and types of sessions that the PU approach might include. Although this is NOT a complete regimen, it provides you with some things worth implementing as you test the waters of PU training.
If you’re REALLY tired of all the injuries, setbacks, and frustrations—or if you just have a question—hit us up here and get on board with the FULL benefits of optimal PU training!
