If you have followed the program outlined in part I: Improving Your Athleticism, and have graduated through the phase III exercises, you are now ready to utilize the strength gains you have achieved. During this time period you may have experienced an occasional slower-than-normal run, and perhaps even ran on fatigued legs for what seemed like unknown reasons.  This is normal as you attempted to find the ideal work/rest ratio that takes into consideration this new stimulus.  At this point, however, the exercises of all phases should be quite manageable and these can now drop in priority to a maintanence-only status.  For most this will mean doing one phase once per week and rotating through the phases, so over three weeks you have done all three phases once. 

As the focus on muscular power and full fiber-recruitment is now reduced, the gains from this work will more safely enable increases in training load (weekly mileage) or intensity (speed work).  An important rule to follow is not to increase both of these elements at the same time - thus the universally accepted importance of building base miles (a gradual increase in weekly runs built mainly on the increased frequency and duration of easy runs and long runs) before speed work.  Before including true speed work, however, there should be a transition period of your training that gradually elevates tempo runs, hill workouts, and long interval workouts to be highly challenging and strenuous workouts in your week.  This period should last 4-6 weeks. 

So ideally a full season should resemble the following: