With three months worth of training suggestions from Torbjorn, and three months of training plans reviewed by Torbjorn, I'm starting to see several patterns.

Progressive difficulty during sessions
In nearly all the "quality" sessions recommended by Torbjorn, the difficulty of the session increases during the session. This increase is manifested as an increase in heart rate. A bunch of examples should illustrate this:

• Pace sessions on bike. After warm-up, we start the pace workout: riding the first five minutes at one heart rate, the second five minutes 10 beats higher , and the third five minutes another 10 beats higher.

• Running time trial. Another pace workout. We run the first lap at one heart range and the second at 5 to 10 beats higher. The goal in this particular case is to finish the second lap faster than the first lap. (In my case, my second lap was a little slower, even at the higher heart range - I think I picked laps that were too long).

• Hill intervals. Another session was 4 x 3:00 intervals up hills. Each interval was at a heart rate that was 5-10 beats higher than the previous heart rate.

So why increase the difficulty instead of maintaining the same heart rate during pace and interval sessions? I think there are a couple reasons. One is simply that many racers are jackrabbits out of the starting gate, and then die partway into the race. Learning to pace yourself allows you to finish strong at the end. Suppose I had taken it a little easier on the first lap of the 2002 Michigan Marathon. When it came time to pass Bob Smith toward the end of the race, I might have been able to get by fast enough that so he wouldn't have been able to catch my draft and ride my coattails to the finish. (P.S. Bob, watch out in 2003 Michigan Marathon!)

A second reason is to not over train. It's still pretty early in the training season and you don't want to burn out or peak too soon.

Increase in quality sessions per month
The number of "quality" sessions has increased each month. Quality sessions are sessions that are not long slow distance sessions. Distance sessions tend to be a relatively low heart rate; quality sessions increase the heart rate to higher stress levels.

In May, the plan consisted mostly of distance sessions, with four "quality" sessions. In June, the number of quality sessions increased to six. My July training plan has eight quality sessions. 

Overall, the plan so far has been a controlled, progressive buildup of a hardness within session, and number of "hard" sessions per month. I put quotes around hard for a reason: so far our hard session have not been that hard. We spend very little time in within 10-15 beats of max. Only one or two intervals in an interval session are actually at a high heart rate. And pace workouts tend to be a medium hard effort.

May, June, July. Four, six, eight...want to guess at how many quality sessions will be in August's plan? I really don't know. Will there be ten quality session or will the number of sessions remain at eight but be harder? Or will Torbjorn recommend something different? Stay tuned!