Running more often, and skip the walk?

by Rolf Walderhaug
(Norway)

Running more often and skip walk / runs :

"Hi Marius.
Have been through the plan once and finished my first in 3:54. Got cramps at 35k so had to take it easy.Food advise worked 100%. Stomach worked perfectly so thank You!
I am preparing for Copenhagen the 22. and have used the 3:15 plan about 90% to the letter :-) even if my 10 K is 41:39...
The thing is, I often feel that zone 3 is a bit easy, and I want to go harder in these sessions. Will this hurt the overall training? Following the plan gives app. 70-75 K in weeks 11-14. I often feel that I want to run more than this. Is it OK to run all the long-runs instead of walk/run?
And last, can I run the long runs in zone 2 instead of zone 1 as Grete Waitz often talked about?
Thanks, Rolf Walderhaug, Askøy."

Answer:Hi Rolf, yes you can certainly add in more runs in there (and run the walk/runs if you really feel like it) but stay away from zone 2 as much as you can. Grete Waitz was much more in zone 3 on those runs, (very low zone 3) and not that much in zone 2.

As for the zone 3 feeling too easy - this is subjective. You want to focus on this zone as it is more effective than most other zones to boost the anaerobic threshold. So I would strongly suggest you keep a bit back when running those sessions, and stick to the schedule.

I wish you all the best,

regards,
Marius