26/11/2025
Let us reintroduce the cake method of building your training programme… because well - we all like cake let’s be honest.
The cake analogy 👇
The icing and the decor is the sexy bit, the bit that everyone sees - the races or even the speedy track workouts on Strava
BUT like a cake - they don’t exist or just look & taste a bit s**t if you don’t actually have the rest of the cake baked properly.
So here’s our recipe for baking a great cake:
🍰 Your mixture - this is ‘the programme’ - it should include a little bit of everything - 90% necessary ingredients and then 10% a little bit of something you like. Easy miles, tempo, long efforts, hills, short efforts etc etc… Make sure your programme is varied and not just 5mile runs at your easy pace everyday.
🍰 The Bake - This is where it can all go sideways - The ex*****on. Actually doing the work.
Make sure the oven is set at the right temperature - don’t be going all guns blazing on week 1 and then realise you’ve burnt around the edges. Start sensibly and give yourself something to build from!
Most of your mixture should be Easy/Steady running. Conversational pace running.
Every 2-3 days add a little flavouring or filling- a little bit of tempo at marathon pace, maybe some reps at HM pace, some Fartlek or hills (good solid hard running to build strength up to race distance (or just below) - but nothing extra spicy that it detracts from the base 🌶️
🍰 The icing - This is where it gets fancy. Add a bit of decoration or ‘speedwork’ whether it be track workouts or just a bit of race pace or faster work. This shouldn’t be done every week especially at the beginning of a training programme (when you have no sponge!) bake some sponge and then sort your decoration out.
🕯️Lighting the candles - the race !
