Distance Group Training–January Plan

It is hard to believe but…we are only three weeks out from the official start of MVTF19!  Yes, on January 28 we will meet at the track after school and get started with our season.  I can’t wait to see you all!

Hopefully you have all had your annual physical and have been cleared to participate in track and field…if you have not, here is all the information you need to be cleared.

For the distance runners, I have a suggested training plan for the next three weeks below.  There are a few things I would like to highlight:

1. This is a suggested plan and may not be suitable for everyone.  I’m not around to modify for the people who might need something different, so please use your judgement.  If you have questions about whether the base plan is right for you, talk to one of the XC captains, or email me if you are not sure what to do.
2. This plan is for a 40 mile per week runner.  You may be targeting more or less miles than 40.  See the Note below the table on how many miles we suggest you run per week based upon how many years you have been running.
3. This time of year, weather can be a factor.  We often run in the rain!–a legendary Kiwi runner and no stranger to wet weather, Peter Snell would say that “When it’s pouring rain and you’re bowling along through the wet, there’s satisfaction in knowing you’re out there and the others aren’t.”  So embrace the rain!  However…you can also use your judgement to take advantage of the weather and forecasts.  If it is dumping rain today and projected to be nicer tomorrow, maybe delay the tempo run for a day.  If it’s been raining for three days solid, maybe it’s a better day to run on the roads rather than in Fremont Older.  Be flexible.
4. Don’t turn every training run into a race, but at the same time, off-season is a good time to try to make your conversational pace slightly faster.  Run with someone a bit faster than you, or agree with your usual running partners to try to run a bit faster, at least for part of your run.  Track an interval, say a mile or two coming back from Stevens Canyon or on Stelling or through McClellan, and see if you can get a touch faster without pushing too hard.  Ten or twenty seconds a mile might not seem like much, but if you are running 30 conversational miles a week 10 or 20 or 30 seconds faster, that increased workload will result in some big physiological improvements.
5. Please read the notes below the table!
6. It is time to get new shoes, team.  And maybe a roller if you do not have one yet (see next).
7. Don’t forget to make time for stretching, rolling, and core.  In the wet weather, you might want to this inside or at home.  Hopefully you have a roller at home by now!   You may have been neglecting your stretching, rolling and core with Finals and your holidays–PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE let’s get your habit back!  Stretching, rolling and regular core work help prevent injuries–and I get sad when I see you hurt.
8. If you have questions, or I made some egregious typo, or something is not clear, write to coach!

See you all soon!

January 2019 Distance Team Suggested Training Plan

Notes

Weekly Mileage Targets:  Here are the base weekly mileage targets we would like to average.  Please note that this is a broad set of goals and individuals may differ in what mileage they can tolerate.  If you are not sure how many miles you should be running, email coach and ask.  We want you to be safe, we would rather have you run a few less miles than be healthy than push too fast-too soon and be injured.  Five miles less per week is better than five miles more per week but missing a week of training every season.  Be patient!  Talk to coach and we can work out what makes sense for you.

The plan above is to average about 40 miles per week.  If you are going for more miles, add a mile or two here and there.  If you need less miles per week, shave a mile off here and there–but not on the quality portions (tempo and hills).  And a lot of time if you are trying to shave miles, I’d rather have you take a more from a day or two in the middle of the week–say cut Tuesday and Friday down by two/three miles each–and run all of the rest of the workouts with the more advanced runners so you push your pace (rather than take a mile off every day for example).  That way, four days a week the entire team runs together and only two days are you cutting something short for your mileage goals.  I think this is a good way to balance safety and team cohesiveness.

Athletes that have been running pain free in cross country and have had no major problems can add two or three miles a week to the table below.  This is especially true for some of the freshmen I think.  Check with me…we can find a balance between safe and motivated!

Tempo Runs:  I have added some tempo pace work once per week at the back end of a medium run.  Remember, a tempo pace should be comfortably fast or fast-but-comfortable.  One way to test your pace is the ‘talk test’; if you can say ‘is this pace OK?’ to your running partner, but a long conversation is not possible, that is probably the right pace.  Particularly in pre-season there is no need to turn this into a race.  It is preferred to stay at the low end of your tempo pace.  That said, you may be in better shape than you think so run by feel and go with what your body gives you–but be under control.  I don’t want you with your hands on your knees gasping at the end of the tempo interval, I want you to think ‘that was pretty good, I could do another mile at that pace if I had to (even if I don’t really want to run another mile, I’m glad to be done)’.  There is a table below that may be helpful for pacing.  

For your distance, for most athletes on this team, three miles is the right amount of volume.  I’d like you to have between 20 and 30 minutes at your tempo pace and feel like you are not having to dig down at the end.  If you end the first week gasping, try backing off a little the next week.  We do not want to be dreading tempo runs.  Tempo pace is the distance runner’s best friend, so embrace it!

Will’s Loop/Faster Last Mile:  One of my successful coaching friends told me years ago that something that he thought helped his team was that the team’s school was at the bottom of a long hill, so the team finished many runs coming back downhill–so their strides would stretch out, and they would get used to running fast and running fast while tired.   I thought this made a lot of sense; just like adding strides at the end of a medium to long run, doing something fast helps stretch out your hips and legs and also activates your fast twitch muscle fibers, which have been a bit neglected.  I kept thinking about this conversation.  When Will came up with his loop, I had an idea. 

If we run a slightly extending version of Will’s Loop, extending to Regnart, there is about a mile of gentle downhill.  From where Lindy hits Regnart, down to Bubb and then left, and straight on to McClellan that is a mile (I’m going to walk the wheel to mark an exact distance but I think this is pretty close).   A runner will get just over 100′ of elevation drop over that mile, or just a touch under 2%.  That 2% down grade should help an athlete feel really fast and strong at the end of a workout (without having the runner free-wheel down hill)!  I’d like to see if this works, and make this finish a habit for us; when we come down Regnart towards the end of a run, whether we are extending back from Linda Vista, coming home from a run from Fremont Older, or extending Will’s Loop, let’s pick up the pace a touch for this mile this mile.  

This is not a race…this is just a bit of a pick up in pace at the end of your run.  Tempo-ish.

Finishing a run strong is always a good idea, both for the physiological training benefit as well as the psychological benefit of feeling strong and tough and fast and gritty at the end of a workout.  Let’s embed this fast-finish habit into the MVXC/MVTF culture!

Will’s (Extended) Loop Route Map and Elevation Chart

Hill Blast Repeats:  Pre-season and early-season, I’d like to get a few short hill repeats into our rotation.  Early in a new training cycle, it is hard to maintain good running form over the longer hill repeats we run.  And our legs need to remember how to run fast.  Also, some short and steep hills will stimulate the development of increased muscle strength.  So–I’d like you to get in some 10-15 second hard charges of hills.  Really blast into these hills with solid effort.  Make sure you are completely warmed up and have done your drills.  I do not want you to start from a standing start (we are not sprinters, we are not worried so much about the start, and we don’t want to pull a muscle in early season and cold weather).  I want you to be jogging and roll into the repeat with a gradual but powerful increase in speed.  Focus on maintaining perfect form–you can maintain good form over this shorter interval, even if you are not in super shape.  You want to be the model for a Nike advertisement!  Walk back and get your breath back under control and repeat.  Six is a good number but eight is fine too.

Linda Vista is a good place for these, if the trails are muddy.  Both Matt’s Hill and Coach’s Hill have some nice steep sections you can use.  But you can pick any hill you want and add some hill blasts into another run in Fremont Older or road hills like the sidewalk on Stevens Creek near the McClellan path exit.  You can be creative about where get your pre-season hills!