Simon Vroemen

2004

After a nice holiday / training camp (not sure which of the two is more applicable!) in Portugal, I (Simon Vroemen) have returned to The Netherlands, where it was freezing and foggy when we arrived. Tomorrow I will run my first race, a cross country in Tilburg, on the course where the European Championships will be staged next year. It will also be the qualification for this years EC, but I will not run these even if I qualify. I just don’t feel the shape is there to do well. I have attached a few pictures of Portugal below.

I got many questions lately on how I train, some people suggesting that this might be secret “as I am a world class athlete”. I find secracy around training rather stupid – even if someone trains exactly like I do, it will not lead to the same performances. The training might not fit the person – or the person does not have the same didication in the rest of his life that I have. It is not easy to dedicate oneself mentally so much to a few top races a year! My mileage in winter is about 120-160 a week (avg 130), and many of those miles I run rather slowly around 4.00 min per km. I might accelerate up to 3.40, but only fartleks and speedier workouts go faster than that. I think many athletes wear themselves out too much with hard temporuns every day.

A typical week in November (where I just start training) and one in May is shown below.

November

• Monday: a.m. 1 hour easy running, pm 1 hour stability / weight training
  
• Tuesday a.m. track 10x1000m p:1min t: 3.10 p.m. 30 min jog + 5x100m
  
• Wednesday a.m. 50 min easy run with last bit faster p.m. 1 hour flexibility / hurdling
  
• Thursday a.m. tempo change run 16 km 2km 4.10 2 km 3.30 … p.m. 35 min jog + 5x100m
  
• Friday a.m 80 min easy run p.m. massage / rest
  
• Saturday a.m. Forest hill/fartlek training p.m. rest
  
• Sunday rest.
  

May

• Monday a.m. 15km tempo change 1km-1km-… 4.05-3.20 p.m. 1 hour stab/weights
  
• Tuesday: a.m. 10km run at 3.50 + 10x100m p.m. 6x1000m + 5x300m with 2 hurdles per lap P1:2min P2:8min t: 2.47min, 42sec
  
• Wednesday: a.m. 18km easy with last 3km fast p.m. 1 hour flex / hurdles technique
  
• Thursday: a.m. 4×400, 4×300, 4x200m P1:90sec P2:8min t: 64-44-26sec p.m. 10km + 10x100m easy
  
• Friday: a.m. 20km easy run p.m. 20min stability exercises + massage 45min
  
• Saturday: rest
  
• Sunday: a.m. 1 hour hill workout training p.m. 20′stability

Note that there is also many weeks where I do substantially less than the above, especially towards races!!! This is always the danger of people quoting there training weeks, they always search for ‘a nice solid week of training’…….. Cheers!! (-Simon Vroemen)