How to use a marker session to improve your performance.

"Stay on track with your programming and boost your confidence with marker sessions."

What is a marker session? How to use them and why they are important.

Marker session can be called many different things but they refer to sessions that are used as a guide to establish a bench mark in your current training cycle.

Let’s look at an example. Let’s say you're in a speed endurance phase, and as part your program you a 3 x 300m or a particular time 6 months ago. You can use this as a bench mark in your training cycle to review your progress and adjust your program.

During our track season, we held test sessions to assess our progress. For 400m runners, one of the sessions we used was 3 x 200m at our 400m pace, with 6 and 8 minutes of rest between each run.

If an athlete achieved their target times during this session, they were on track to meet or exceed their 400m race times.

These session would allow us to adjust training over the coming cycles based on the results. If an athlete had the speed for the first and second 200m, but faded in the 3rd, we would work on speed endurance. If they couldn’t get close the target time on the first run we would work on speed.

These session can be invaluable tools for guiding you in making adjustments to your training program.

Marker sessions examples:

1. Strength (3 x X back squat)

2. Running (5km time or 10km time)

3. Speed (5 x 800m) with set rest periods

4. Speed endurance (3 x 2km with set rest periods)

5. Track Speed (3 x 3 x 300m)

Happy Running

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