This split threshold workout is for everyone

There are a lot of running terms, acronyms and styles of workouts that runners toss around, and a “threshold pace session” can sound (and feel) daunting—but it doesn’t have to be. Steve Magness, performance coach and author of Do Hard Things, recently shared a favourite training session that makes running at a threshold pace doable for everyone. Here’s how to get started.

What is threshold pace?

The muscles produce lactate during exercise. When you run at a challenging pace, your body reaches a point where it produces more lactate than it can quickly remove, leading to fatigue and discomfort. Lactate threshold is the point where the body produces more lactate than it can clear, causing fatigue; practising running at a threshold pace helps improve your endurance and delay this fatigue, making you a stronger runner.

Legendary coach Jack Daniels, author of The Daniels Running Formula, suggests that the proper pace for threshold running is about 83 to 88 per cent of VO2 max—for most of us, this simply means a pace that feels hard but is sustainable for about an hour.

The workout

Magness suggests splitting a threshold workout into intervals, with the recovery sections inserted as you feel yourself arrive at the threshold.  This “takes some pressure off the workout, makes it more manageable, and teaches you how to listen to your body,” he says, while it still allows you to hit the stimulus for the workout. He says this session will be divided differently depending on how you’re feeling that day; it will also change depending on how much time you have and how experienced a runner you are.

Before you begin, decide the total time at threshold pace for your workout (for example, you hope to run a total of 25 minutes at threshold pace).

Warm up with 10 minutes of easy running.

Begin running at your threshold effort (or pace). Whenever you feel like you’re going over the edge, or can’t speak due to shortness of breath, stop and recover with easy running for several minutes. Repeat until you hit your total time goal.

Cool down with 10 minutes of easy running.

Remember to follow a hard training day with a very easy running day or rest.