QOTD: How do you determine which day you will do your speed work run of the week? Do you plan a activity recovery run the day after or a complete rest day? What other factors do you consider?
It depends on the availability during the week and the weekend. For me personally, I've done schedules with a classic Hansons design of:
R- M or HM Tempo
F- Easy
Sa- Long Easy
Su- Long Run (or Hybrid LR)
M- Easy
Tu- Speed (5k or GP - 10 sec)
W- OFF
R- M or HM Tempo
But then my wife moved her late night day to Monday's. So I had to move the off day from Wed to Mon.
R- M or HM Tempo
F- Easy
Sa- Long Easy
Su- Long Run (or Hybrid LR)
M- OFF
Tu- Speed (5k or GP - 10 sec)
W- Easy
R- M or HM Tempo
It kind of changed the concept of the week. In the first set, it was more like M Tempo (early stage of race). Then build fatigue into the LR (late stage of race). Then hold on for the speed work at the end of the "week" on the 6th day (kick of race). But then the change to a Monday off made it more like a Speed day to start, then build fatigue into a M Tempo, and then build even more fatigue into the Long Run being the 6th workout. When the change occurred, my speed days got significantly easier and my LRs got significantly harder. Interestingly, the M Tempo seemed easier with the day proceeding it and was a concept I was sure to carry forward when race day approached (having the easy day prior to a race day instead of an off day).
When I started incorporating Daniels concepts the idea mostly stayed the same. He does present a reasonable argument for stacking two speed days back to back. The key being that his speed days are mile/3k pacing. From memory, the concept is based around the idea that DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) occurs later for those speed days (like after 48 hours) and thus challenging yourself with a second speed day immediately proceeding the first (thus being within 12-36 hours) was actually beneficial because he felt you could get two really hard workouts in. In practice, I never found this to be true. I never actually went forward with these stacked speed days primarily because early in the plan per schedule they are separated by that easy day. When I did it with the separated easy day, I never felt like on that actual easy day I could have pushed it to another speed day. But the concept seems plausible on the surface.
For me right now, I'm using a 6 day run with only 2 hard days. Those hard days occur on Wednesday and Sunday. I'm off on Mondays. Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday are almost always 60 min easy days. Saturday is either a 60 min easy or 90 min longer fatigue inducing easy.
For my purpose of writing for others, I don't put two speed or hard of any kind on consecutive days. Either a 60 min or less easy, or an off day. But it usually goes back to the person's schedule. The variety of available days and how much time on those days truly dictates how I write the schedule. And even beyond the weekly availability, I've been known to stagger the "speed" or hard day on a week to week basis with the idea of allowing more or less recovery from the LR on the weekend. And on some occasions, I've switched out the LRs for a speed day. That usually occurs when the person has almost no availability during the week and only massive time on the weekend. I like to have that speed workout longer in duration than 60 min (with plenty of easy WU/CD or RI making up that duration). But when a person doesn't have more than 60 min on any single weekday, then I've placed that speed day on some sort of 2:1 or 3:1 or 4:1 rotating schedule with the Long Runs. Lots of ways to accomplish a similar goal.
