Below is how Jay Johnson describes a typical week for the athletes he coaches. Johnson’s most notable runners are Brent Vaughn (13:18 5,000m/1:02:04 half marathon), Renee Metivier Baillie (15:15 5,000m) and Sara Vaughn (2:03 800m/4:11 1500m).

Sunday: With the long runs we do, Sunday’s a hard day. [On a 20-miler, Johnson’s runners start very easy, are moving well by 8 or 9 miles, then run from 14 to 19 at about marathon race pace effort, and use the last mile as a cool-down.] We don’t double on Sunday, but Brent goes to the pool after and gets a massage, so if he shows up at 8 a.m., he’s not done until 1 p.m. He’s not running that whole time but he is focused on getting better for five hours.

Monday: One run, easy, but we do strides Monday and Thursday, copying the [University of Colorado coach Mark] Wetmore system. If the runners feel like shit, they always have my permission to omit the strides. Now, [Mammoth Track Club coach] Terrence [Mahon] would say you’ve gotta set up the Tuesday workout to go really well by doing uphill strides or flat strides really hard on Monday. Brent hasn’t missed strides on Monday in forever, even when he’s tired, because he knows he’s going to feel better on Tuesday.

Tuesday: Hit it hard [a track workout or repeats on the road], including all the ancillary stuff. [After the hard running, Johnson’s runners do several non-running exercises, like medicine ball tosses and backward shot puts.]

You can’t use the term “easy” if you wait a day to do the power and strength stuff, and you can’t use the term “easy” [for the afternoon] if you wait to do the power and strength stuff. To me, the shot puts are power, but rather than go to the weight room, we’re doing the shot. And I would not put off the [ancillary] workout the way Mammoth does (waiting a few hours), because why wait? Now the power output’s going to be lower [right after a hard running workout], but a few hours later you’re not going to be recovered anyway. If Tuesday morning is really hard, Tuesday night is slow as hell. That’s the recovery workout before Wednesday.

Wednesday: This is the tricky day. We try to train hard, but also it’s a release valve. Ideally, there are two running parts and one of ancillary strength work. It’s not hard stuff but the volume of it is so high that it’s still significant. But we might skip the second component, which is you go out and do an 8- or 9-mile run, come back, do a bunch of skipping, some 200s, marathon pace 300s, then skip over hurdles in between. Or it can be just going for a 12- or 13-mile progression run where you fartlek from mile 9 to 12 and then a mile cool-down. But that is not a hard day. It’s harder than an easy day so we’ll call it medium. Then you double again Wednesday night; that’s an easy session.

Thursday: If you feel good, even though it’s an easy day, you still have an opportunity to do your strides or hill strides. And I should probably just say hill strides—I want to copy the Lydiard thing of putting more pressure on their hearts. I love the idea that, if you can run uphill at whatever pace you’re going to run the next day, that’s a great way to trick the nervous system into feeling better at that same rhythm the next day. And these aren’t long—100, 150m.

Periodized Training Can Help You Hit Your Goals: Workout on Friday, same approach to the ancillary work as Tuesday, and same shuffle-ly slow recovery run Friday afternoon. Then an easy day Saturday—just one run. I think the biggest thing that’s different in what we’re doing from Dennis Barker [coach of Team USA Minnesota] or Greg McMillan or Terrence is we’re not doubling six days a week. We’re getting more like 11 sessions a week.