Discussion: Off season speed work - yes or no?

This week's dumb question: is there a point to maintaining speedwork in the off-season?

I've recently got into the good habit of including a short hard session in my weekly training (intervals or just plain going for it) but there's no races that I'm focusing on until October. (There'll still be orienteering, clubs in NZ don't shut down for winter, just nothing that I'll be "training for"). So, as a general rule, is there a point to continuing, say, intervals, and building the interval length and or number, or is this the time to concentrate on long, 'slow', conditioning. And if so, when would the speedwork come back in?

Now, I'm interested in hearing the general rules, but I've also got a little quirk that could bend them a bit. The "competition" season here pretty much coincides with my field season. While every project I work on is a little different, it's not unusual for me to be anywhere from October to April in the backcountry somewhere. Great for base fitness, not so good for running speed, and the time and energy required for a predictable training regime is hard to find. So part 2 of my question is, whatever the general rule for when to do speed work is, is it useful for someone with unusual circumstances to carry on with it "off-season"?

You should have elements of speed, endurance, hills etc in your training all year round. What should change is the emphasis depending on what time of year it is and what your major goals are.

So in essence - Yes

What Candyman says. In your 'field season' you can still indulge in fartlek style training, some hill reps etc which are all "speed" when compared with long slow conditioning. Which although has a place, if it's all you do you'll be conditioned to be long and slow. You get what you train for.

If you want to be a fast orienteer, you should do your speed training in terrain! Too many do long slow running in the field and speed training on track. Consequently you become slow in terrain.

mh, as far as i know from running one should use periodization to plan the training year. eg. over the winter you start with a preparation phase, where you do basically endurance training, no hard sessions to prevent injuries (i think this point is important, if you do hard trainings the whole year over you will run into injuries sooner or later). In this phase you do long jogs once a week with increasing length and strength training 2 or 3 times per week. You can also do alternative training once a week, to biuld up endurance.
then follows a preparation phase 2, were you start to build up tempo by using fartlek or extensive intervals, but keep the longjogs and strength training and alternative training.
The third phase is the pre-competition phase, where you skip alternative training and reduce strength training to once a week, keep the longjogs and build up speed by intensive training like fartlek, intensive intervals, tempo runs.
fourth phase is the competition phase, where you reduce the extent, leave out strength training and do mostly short intensive trainings to maximise your speed.
two weeks before your competition you start the tapering phase, were you regenerate and collect energy for your competition.
and after the competition there is the regeneration phase, where you basically do nothing but rest.

But this is valid for running track, eg. half-marathon and so on. Nevertheless, it is logic to me and sounds reasonable not to stress your musculoskeletal system the whole time through but give it time to build up and strengthen in the time, when speed work is not necessary.

Overtraining and injuries should always be kept in mind, because through these you risk more then you can gain by speed training.

That's a bit of an overly simplistic template. Fine in broad theory and defintely used by most people - but fails to take into account individual variation, training status, physiological make-up etc - which may mean you come across an athlete who thrives on LSD (long slow distance) all season, or someone else who performs best with judicious speed work throughout. A good coach or experienced athlete recognises the best mix for each individual.

Personally, I do quite allright with intervals all year around. My biggest risk of injuries seems to be running into trees and getting hit by cars. Then again I only train 5-7 hours per week.

seelenfliege, your basic ideas of periodisation are fine but Tooms is right it is overly simplified, think of the different phases as describing an emphasis of training. During the base period the focus should be on building up your indurance with long runs taking precedence and less of a focus on speedwork.

Since orienteering is generally a 'slow' sport compared to say track and field I find that doing a phase of fast speed work during preparation phase builds up all the speed I need for the season and allows my to concentrate more on terrain running and technical sessions in the competition season while I just maintain rather than build the speed I have already developed.

Risk of injury and just a change of pace, and some mental downtime are reasons not doing speedwork. Also remember that speed can be gotten back over a relatively short time (1-2 months).

An interesting discussion. Injury risk is an important factor to consider, but it can be modulated by increasing or decreasing training load. And it requires less work to maintain fitness than to regain it. I think periodization is widely used because it's easier to get it right (because of forced rests when training emphasis shifts) than to properly incorporate speedwork year-round. I use periodization because it makes my training more mentally stimulating than if I just did essentially the same types of training all the time.

I used to think there was some global optimal training regime--a formula that works for everyone--if only I could figure out what it was. Now I think that finding an athlete's optimum training regime requires, as Tooms says, "a good coach or experienced athlete."