With Coach Kelvin, offering Online Running Coaching for We Run and the We Run Virtual Running Club, and 1:1 Running Coach for Leeds and surrounding areas.
Standard vs. Confirmation Workouts: What’s the Difference?
In this little video, I’m going to talk about the difference between a regular workout – or a standard workout – and a confirmation workout, and why so many runners run standard workouts as confirmation workouts.
What Is a Confirmation Workout?
So let’s explain the difference.
A confirmation workout might be something where we’re just looking to benchmark a runner’s fitness. So, you know, we might give something like 10 or 12 times 1K at 10K pace to get an idea where that runner is, so that we can gauge pacing for an upcoming 10K race.
And we’ll use those splits, and we want the runner to run to pace.
What Is a Standard Workout?
Other times we might give 10 or 12 times 1K at 10K intensity, not pace.
And what that means – and that’s like a standard workout. So most workouts are run like this: they’re run to feel and intensity rather than exact pace. You know, because what we’ve got to do is we’ve got to account for fatiguing our legs and other things that might be going on.
The Mistake Runners Often Make
What we see a lot as coaches is people running a standard workout – 12 times 1K to 10K intensity – that’s not 10K goal pace, that’s just an intensity that you would run a 10K on that day.
And then they get really disheartened that they’ve not hit the paces.
But as a coach, we might look at TrainingPeaks, or whatever platform we use to schedule workouts, and go, “Oh, that was a great workout.”
With that amount of fatigue in your legs – maybe someone was up late with the kids or had a boozy work party the night before, or something else going on in life – even though the paces for that workout might not be as fast as what we’re thinking for the goal time for that runner, this training stimulus would have been absolutely spot on.
When and How Coaches Use Confirmation Workouts
Every now and then, we do what we call a confirmation workout, where we actually do write to pace, and we use those paces to gauge what we might do in an event, as I’ve mentioned previously.
Now, what’s interesting about confirmation workouts – as a coach, I don’t always tell runners that it’s a confirmation workout.
I might specify that I want them to do it to pace rather than a perceived effort. I might even keep it as perceived effort.
But what I will do is go into that workout and put that runner in a position where they’re not carrying too much fatigue.
So if you are one of my runners, and you see something like 10 or 12 times 1K on a weekend and you’re training for a 10K, and your midweek workout is something like 8 times 200 metres at hot 5K pace – so you know, that’s quite a soft workout – it might be that I’m looking to confirm where we are in terms of fitness, so I can gauge how well training has been working and how we’re going to progress.
Key Takeaway: Understand the Purpose of Each Session
I think the main thing here is: most runs, most workouts, are done as standard workouts, where they’re done to perceived effort. We’re trying to apply a certain amount of training stimulus, which doesn’t always reflect the pace.
And other times, we’re trying to do confirmation workouts to pace, where we’re looking to benchmark where a runner is.
Questions?
I hope that makes some sort of sense. And if you’ve got any questions, just please pop them in the comments below.
And for now, happy running.
