Elite Marathon Training Series: Hendrik Pfeiffer Training Part 3 – More Key Workouts
In Part 2, Hendrik shares his training program and some key workouts.
Are you doing these long runs on your own? There can’t be too many people that can do that?
Normally I do have to do them on my own but I do have a strong training group, but a lot of really good middle-distance runners, 3:39 guy on the 1500m and 14 flat guy on 5km, that’s why I often have someone who runs with me to 12, 15, 20km. I can’t remember how it was this week as it was long time ago but I cannot complain about my training group.
For American and Australian standards it’s probably weak but for German standards it’s very well to have 3-4 guys that can go sub 14min for 5km or go 30 flat on 10km.
Did you ever consider going to college in the US?
Yes I did, I had a lot of offers from American universities, they contact you via Facebook. I never expected something like that – it was a great honour, and I already had contacted a university in North Carolina. Maybe if there wasn’t an injury that year at that time, I would have gone there. People always say that in America the culture let you do too many things, that the risk of new injury is way higher than in Germany and that was the main argument for staying in Germany. But I was very close to doing it. I think for me it was a good decision – it would be very interesting to do it but I think as I am a runner in the top level, I am lucky to have good support in Germany. But if I was like number 10 in Germany, going to the US would be the best thing you can do.
Because you ran the junior German half marathon record?
That’s right. 63:40. That was in 2015, when I was 21. A month after that I have another training week to share. There was even an Australian pro runner, James Nipperess. He visited a friend of mine in Germany and accidentally we met each other and he joined a workout with me – that was very good.
This is a week in August – unfortunately on Monday I had to work so I couldn’t train, but in the afternoon I did a 15km progressive run. I started at 3:55/km pace and in the end I ran 3:20/km pace. I did a core workout afterwards and some gymnastics. Usually Monday is a mileage day with two long/medium runs,
Tuesday is a workout day for a tough workout, Wednesday a long run day, Thursday has an easy one and one progressive fast long one. Fridays I usually do a core workout in the morning and a 15-20km medium-long run in the afternoon. Saturday is usually a very tough workout day in the morning and in the evening there is a 8-10K easy run. Sunday is a long run day.
On Tuesdays and Saturdays, you have very tough workout days, could you share some examples of them? You’ve give me a couple already, the 300s and the 6/4/3/2/1Ks – is there any other ones that you repeat often, or that you enjoy or think are important?
As I said the 6/4/3/2/1 is a key workout for half marathon, another key workout is 12 x 1000m + 1 x 3K, with 400m rest -that workout I did with James together on road. We ran 3:03, 3:05, 2:58, 2:59, 3:00, 2:59… in the range of 3:05 to 2:58. The 3K was a progressive 3K, we started at 3:47, 3:26 and the last km was 2:57. So it was a solid workout for on my way to 10km national championship and the half marathon where I broke the national record. The same week on a Saturday I did an important workout – 4 x 500m, 400m, 300m. Recovery was 200m, after the set it was a rest of 600m. Pace was solid, 500m in 1:25-1:28, 400m in 1:08-1:05, 300m in 48s-43s.
43 seconds for 300m for a marathoner is fast!
That’s fast for a marathon runner. But when I do workouts with my mate who is that top middle-distance runner, he finishes them in 36s, and that’s insane.
This week I also did the first 30km of my life I think, 30km in 3:37 pace, progressively. First 10km was 36:50, second 10km was 35:55 and the last 10km was 35:30. The same week in August. The half marathon was in October. Now we approach the marathon. Another key workout was 6/4/3/2/1, and you can see I improved compared to July – now we are in middle of August. The times were 6K at 3:28, 4K at3:21, 3K at 3:07, 2K at 3:03 and the 1K at 2:51, so I was way faster than in July.
So you see I usually do similar stuff but I improve my time. The closer the event comes, the faster I do my workouts.The recoveries of 200m are usually done in around 50 seconds, so still at a decent pace. My strength is to keep a high pace for a long time, and as I’m good at that, I do it in my workouts.
