We restart conditioning this week–which is super exciting! As I update this post on Sunday evening, 18 athletes have said they are going to join the training cohorts. I can’t wait to see all of you on Tuesday! I will still be posting these suggested runs so that athletes are not able to join the cohorts right now can follow along with our running.
This is a good week for restarting our training…this is our sixth week of ‘season’ training so I’d been planning a ‘down’ week already. A ‘down’ week is a week where we back off on our mileage a little bit after a challenging cycle. This gives our bodies a chance to recover and catch up so that we stay fresh and able to approach our training with a spring in our step. As I said, this is good timing for the cohorts as we can use this week to get ourselves organized and back into the habits of how to train safely as groups under our pandemic safety restrictions.
For those of you not joining a cohort, try not to be tempted to add on extra miles…this is a planned week for lower mileage. Enjoy it! Based on everything I know about the plans for a competitive season, this is a good time for a break.
Monday, January 18: Shake out and strides. Sunset is around 5:15pm, but this is also a holiday, so you can run whenever you want–I’d bang my miles out early in the day so I have that assignment in the bag early. We want a 10 minute warm up, drills, then six good 15 second strides wherever you drill (Linda Vista grass is nice, say hi to the old blind dog if he is there) and then add on another 20-30 minutes or so of running so you end up with total mileage between four and five miles. At least ten-fifteen minutes of core–this is a good week to do some extra, especially on a vacation day–with some emphasis on the legs (lunges of many flavors, runners’ touch, body-weight squats) including two minutes of plank (good form!). Stretch, especially hamstrings and calves, and foam roll!
Tuesday: Maintenance day. Most of this week is maintenance! We are looking for between four and five miles today for most of you. Warm up for about 10 minutes, drill, then run another 30-40 minutes or so at conversational pace to get your target mileage. A conversational pace means going at as rapid a pace as you can while holding a conversation–so you should try speeding up a bit and see if that pace is still comfortable. As you get closer to varsity, we’d like to target the boys’ conversational pace to be under seven minutes a mile and girls’ under eight. For core today, let’s focus on lateral abs (leg lifts, side planks, elbow to knee touch from a side plank, bananas) and lower abs (rockets, criss-cross). And, of course, planks.
Wednesday: Maintenance day. Most of this week is maintenance! We are looking for between five and six miles today for most of you. Warm up for about 10 minutes, drill, then run another 30-40 minutes or so at conversational pace to get your target mileage. Then let’s get a good core session in–15 to 20 minutes, maybe it’s time to dial up some on-line program you like. Here is an on-line session that Coach Becca likes–give it a try!
Thursday: Maintenance day. Most of this week is maintenance! We are looking for between five and six miles today for most of you. Warm up for about 10 minutes, drill, then run another 30-40 minutes or so at conversational pace to get your target mileage. Then let’s get a good core session in–15 to 20 minutes, maybe it’s time to dial up some on-line program you like. Here is another on-line session recommended by Coach Becca–give it a try! If you are new runner with lower mileage, Thursday could be a cross training day–do a 30 minute or longer workout on-line with Sydney Cummings instead of running, or you could spin or bike; but if you cross train, make this workout really count aerobically!
Friday: Maintenance day. Most of this week is maintenance! We are looking for between three and four miles today for most of you. Warm up for about 10 minutes, drill, then run another 30 minutes or so at conversational pace to get your target mileage. Afterwards, a good stretching session. Here is an on-line flexibility session that Coach Becca recommends–follow along!
Saturday: Threshold Day. In a threshold workout, our goal is to maintain a level of effort where our body can process as much lactic acid as we are producing–the ‘threshold’ where that process is at equilibrium. Many of the USATF instructors and the coaches that I admire this correlates with racing ability better than any other physiological marker–the faster your pace for lactic threshold, the faster you can race. So…these workouts are important! The trick is that most of us don’t know our specific lactic threshold pace, so we have to feel around a little bit. Don’t stress too much, even if your coach is not around to give you feedback–you don’t have to be perfect to get a lot of benefit out of this workout!
We are going to run this workout in a steady push between 18 and 28 minutes. We want to run so that it feels fast-but-comfortable…if you are running with a partner, you can choke out comments like ‘this feels about right’ or ‘you look good’ but you are not going to feel like a conversation about Taylor Swift’s newest album (save that conversation for the warm down). If you have to put your hands on your knees after your run, you ran too hard! This is NOT supposed to be a death defying, nausea inducing workout…remember, fast but comfortable or comfortably fast.
Remember that I said that it’s hard to know exactly what pace to target. As usual, I believe it is better to be slightly slower than perfect and pick it up at the end rather than be fading at the end of the run. In this workout, more time with an elevated heart rate and stressing your ability to process lactic acid is better than less time with a higher stress level. So start out under control and if you feel good after an mile or two, speed up. If you recorded your splits from your repeat K workouts or repeat mile run earlier, then you can use that pace as a starting point (remember how I have said that logging your workouts is a good idea???).
After you are done with your run, then one to two miles of warm down. I think that legs-up-the-wall near enough to a friend or two to chat would be nice, and some stretching. Send your times to coach.
For the week, most of you should have between 24 and 32 miles. This should be less than you usually run–for high mileage people, this will be a lot less. That’s OK, this down mileage week is part of a good season plan! Trust your coach.
Sunday: Rest day from running, but some cross training (bike run, swim, hike, walk) is a great idea! And foam roll that IT band, a dozen passes a side.
And that’s it, we have a plan for week six! Please let me know if you have any questions!
