Emphasis: XC, road, fall track endurance work
Goals: To methodically build aerobic endurance through progressive workloads. Athlete's health is of primary importance. Improvement within the season and beyond previous seasons is the hallmark of success. Ideally we want the athlete to exhibit the greatest focus on the championship meets, specifically PA's and Nationals.
The following is the XC schedule (http://www.pausatf.org/data/XC.html).
9/7: GGP
9/14: Crystal Springs
10/12: Sierra College Challenge. Aggie sponsored, nationals course preview, national's squad qualifier.
10/26: Shoreline. Aggie sponsored, national's squad qualifier.
11/7: Tamalpa
11/24: PA champs. National's squad qualifier.
12/14: 2002 USA Fall XC Championships, Rocklin CA. Aggie sponsored.
National Championships. http://www.trackandfieldinfo.com/xcnatls/
Additional Road races to consider:
9/29: Paso 10k (roads)
10/20: Humboldt ½ (roads)
GGP through PA's serve as Aggie "Race for Shoes" races. Finish top 5 for the club in open competition with full a full team and earn shoes, email your team captains for details. The masters have a similar program, which Joe Fabris joefabris@msn.com and your captains will have details of.
Your team captains are:
Open women: Tenaya Adams tenaya@cisco.com
Open men: Jamey Harris jamey_harris@hotmail.com
Masters women: Margaret Lang mml1@humboldt.edu
Master men: Tim Minor tminor@dri.edu
The goals for our teams this year are to race well at PA's and Nationals, while doing our best to win the team crown in all divisions (open and masters men's and women's). To do so, we need to do 2 things. Field full teams at each of the meets listed and race well during the championship season, namely PA's and nationals. Fielding a full team take a few phone calls, while racing well at PA's is a slightly taller order. For the last three years we have raced extremely well and beyond the expectations of many of our competitors. There is no reason to think we won't rise to the challenge again this year. We just need to do as we've always done, namely stay patient, train consistent, train with greater intensity as the season progresses and work together as a team. This year we have the added responsibility of hosting the Nationals meet. It would be great to not only host the best event the meet has seen, but also have each of our teams represent our club well. I have not doubt we'll meet these challenges.
The following is a pretty detailed overview of the training for the coming fall. This isn't written in stone, it's just there to let you know what level of work you can expect this fall. If you have immediate questions, feel free to send them my way.
Best of luck to everyone the coming fall and have a great weekend. Joe
Overview:
6/9-6/22: Stage 1: Recovery period (2 weeks):
-Goal: Recover from previous season's work.
6/23-7/6: Stage 2: Transition (2 weeks):
-Goal: Re-establish consistent training into the routine.
7/7-8/4: Stage 3: Easy base (4 weeks in length - week #4 is an easy week)
-Goal: Get back on the miles.
8/4-8/31: Stage 4: General Conditioning I. (4 weeks - week #4 is easy)
-Goal: Reintroduce some intensity, while maintaining the weekly miles.
-Workouts: Hill reps, negative splits.
9/1-9/29: Stage 5: General Conditioning II (4 weeks - week #4 being an easy week)
-Goal: XC training and higher weekly miles
-Workouts: Mile reps at tempo, 400's at 5k pace, steady run at marathon pace, fartleks at 10k effort
9/29-10/26: Stage 6: XC Specific training. (4 weeks - week #4 being an easy week)
-Drop the miles slightly, increase the intensity.
-Workouts: Mile reps at 10k, 400's at 3k pace, longer tempos, grass loops at 5k.
10/27-11/24: Stage 7: Final push (4 weeks - week #4 being an easy week)
-Focus on higher intensity work.
-Workouts: Mile reps at 5k, 400's at faster than 3k, 800's at 3k, Wake Forest drill
11/25-12/14: Stage 8: Taper, sharpening. (3 week at declining levels).
Detailed write up:
6/9-6/22: Stage 1: Recovery period (2 weeks)
2 weeks no more than 4 days of running per week, no more than 30-40 minutes per run. Can supplement easy cycling or swimming on days not running.
6/23-7/6: Stage 2: Transition (2 weeks)
Get back into a training routine. Gradually get back into the groove of consistent training.
- Long Run: 50-60 minutes easy
- AE: 30-45 minutes easy.
- Strides following an easy 30-40 minute run one day of the week.
7/7-8/4: Stage 3: Easy base (4 weeks in length - week #4 is an easy week)
Get back on the miles. Spend this month with one goal in mind, get your miles up approximately where you want them for the next few months. Nothing heroic pace-wise, just get the miles in. As a guideline if you're thinking 70 MPW for the goal by the end of the month, then go 40, 55, 70 followed by an easy week of 55. Another guideline, add no more than a 10-15% increase over the previous year's weekly high mileage mark. For instance, if the highest mileage you handled safely within the last 12 months was 80 MPW, make the goal for this season no more than 88-92 MPW. As much as possible, keep the runs in this stage on soft surfaces such as dirt and do these runs in the hills.
* Paces: Keep the paces on your run in check. The goal here is not intensity, it's on volume. If you hit a day where you feel good and smooth, go ahead and press the pace, don't force it though. Strides one or two days a week is cool as long as you feel up to it. Don't force anything at this stage.
* AM or Lunch runs. To achieve the mileage goals you'll most likely have to add some double days in there. Start adding second runs to the days you are planning on doing your harder effort days first and foremost, then add them to the other days of the week. 3-5 days a week of doubles should be expected. If you plan on doing your hard workouts on Tuesday and Friday the coming season, start adding doubles to Tuesday and Friday first before adding them to the other days of the week. In this way we can start making the two days proportionally harder than the rest of the week, which is a cornerstone of the program.
8/4-8/31: Stage 4: General Conditioning I. (4 weeks - week #4 is easy)
Reintroduce some intensity, while maintaining the weekly miles. The weekly miles should be roughly at the level you intend to maintain throughout the next 2 months of training program with stage 4 and 5 being the highest mileage months of the program. If you're thinking 90 MPW as the high for this coming fall, you should be in mid 80's at this point and look to build on this over the next 8 weeks. The workouts through the next 8 weeks are not supposed to be super hard. The goal here is moderate intensities and lots of miles. Maintaining the higher level of miles while trying to hammer your workouts will lead to only one thing being hammered and that's you. Keep the paces conservative.
* Long Run: Should be 90-120 minutes based on experience, try to make it roughly 20-25% of your weekly mileage.
* AE days: approx 45-60 minutes. Aerobic Endurance runs (AE) are simply runs where you start at a very easy recovery pace and run with the primary goal of covering the distance. As your fitness improves the pace at the end of these runs can become fairly brisk. If this happens to you, feel blessed and go with the flow. This isn't the type of run where you force the pace at all, rather you run on the easy side of life and as you warm-up you naturally pick up the pace.
* Double days: 25-35 minutes easy. Again, add these on hard rep, hill run or tempo days first and foremost
* Recovery days: make one - two days very easy recovery days. A 30-45 minute jog or a DNR or active recovery such as swimming that sort of thing. The other option would be 2 x 30-40 minutes easy (on in the AM and one in the PM), just easy. Just make sure that a recovery day includes nothing over 45 minutes and is at a butt slow pace.
* Strides: Before the main workouts for the week. 4-6 100m efforts at mile race pace effort on grass if possible. 30 + seconds between each.
* Add a mid week run at an easy to moderate effort. Ideally 12-15% of your weekly mileage.
Workouts. 2 per week. All the following workouts should be proceeded by a 20-30 minutes AM/Lunch run.
* Negative split run: A 30-40 minute run followed by 20-30 minutes at tempo type, gradually build pace to a marathon race pace effort at the fastest (add 20 seconds per 400 onto your 1500 race pace or take 80% of your 3k-5k time). No hands on the knees stuff. 1-2 mile warm down. Do this once a week.
* Hill reps: Find a gradual smooth dirt or grass 300-400m uphill. We will run up using the best form you can think of and jog back down. Quick turnover with a good, strong push off. This is NOT meant to be real hard, we only want to develop some strength in you hip flexors, quads, calves and feet, without getting you broken. For the total time of hill rep, start your watch at the bottom, stop it at the top and
don't reset. Restart at the beginning of the next uphill rep. All times will add up and the first session should equal approx 10 minutes of uphill running. Add 60 seconds each successive time you do this. We want a good 30-40 minute warm up to add some miles to the hill rep day.
In weeks #3 and 4 we may consider offering the option of the radio tower hill. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. We want some strides before this workout. 4-6 light 100m efforts at mile race effort. Full recovery between each.
* Hill runs: one other day of the week, you should do a good, solid 60+ minute run with some heavy hills in there. In the Southbay think the Towers run at San Antonio or Quicksilver park. One or two of these a week is ideal with one being equal to 12-15% of your weekly mileage that will work as your mid week longer run. Keep the paces in check here! I know how group runs on these can get, so heed a word of warning, there are a handful of guys who've made it through a steady diet of killing everyone each week on this run. Just keep it in your shorts.
How all this would look in standard week:
Sun: Long run. AE effort, 20-25% weekly mileage
Mon: AM: easy 20-30 min. PM: 45-60 min AE run in hills
Tue: AM: 20-30 min. PM: hill reps
Wed: Mid week long run. AE effort, in hills (Poly Canyon?). 15% weekly mileage.
Thu: AM: 20-30 min EASY PM: 35 min EASY
Fri: AM: 20-30 min. PM: Negative split
Sat: 45 min EASY or DNR or bike or hike
Easy Week (last week of above stage): Cut back mileage 20-25% on all runs: recovery, AE, long runs. Cut back number of reps the same % (ie, if doing 6 x 3 min on/off, cut it back to 4 x 3 min on/off)
Races: You can race a low key race or two during this stage. Good for determining fitness and paces to be run the following stage of training. Not to be a real big deal, simply see where you're fitness is at. You want to do these races with a long warmup. So for instance, if you're running Wharf to Wharf we'd ask you to park near the finish and run back to the start timing it so that you arrive pretty close to the start of the race. Then you'd run the race at a solid effort and get in a 2 mile cool down. For a 5k, a 40-60 minute run beforehand is not out of the question. Feeling good is not the point, getting fit is.
9/1-9/29: Stage 5: General Conditioning II (4 weeks - week #4 being an easy week)
Races: Paso 10k on Sunday 9/29. Easy week precedes this. GGP 4 mile XC race. Only if you're super antsy and want to race.
This is where we start incorporating aspects of XC training with the highest weekly mileage. It's really just another progression up from last month. Again, workouts are to be done on effort, not absolutes. Doing the higher volume of weekly miles leaves you flat and a bit mileage weary, therefore the times in workouts tend to suffer. This is why I prefer athletes to do stuff fartlek style where the pressure of hitting split times is greatly reduced. Sure 400's can be done on the track, but it's ideal if you can do the tempo work, mile reps and 1k's on the grass, dirt or roads. 5-10 seconds off what you expect to be doing them in is fine and acceptable. Consistency is what we're after here not PR workout performances.
* Long Run: Should be 20-25% of weekly mileage, probably 90-150 minutes depending on experience.
* AE days: approx 50-70 minutes.
* Double days: 25-40 minutes easy again on hard rep, hill run or tempo days first and foremost
* Recovery days: Make one - two days each week very easy recovery days. A 30-45 minute jog or a DNR or active recovery such as swimming that sort of thing. The other option would be 2 x 30-40 minutes easy (on in the AM and one in the PM), just easy. Just make sure that a recovery day includes nothing over 45 minutes and is at a butt slow pace.
* Strides: Before the main workouts for the week. 4-6 100m efforts at mile race pace effort on grass if possible. 30 + seconds between each.
* Mid week run should be at 15% of weekly mileage.
* Longer warm-ups and cool downs. We want a 20-25 min warm-up and cooldown on all workouts (except the tempo).
Workouts:
* 4-6 x 1600 with 3-4 min recovery at tempo effort. We'll do this on the dirt loop at Fairbank's. 20-25 min warm-up and cool down.
* Tempo Run: 40-50 minutes run straight into 4-6 miles at marathon race pace (15-20 seconds per mile SLOWER than tempo pace), 1-2 mile cool down. Will be done at Avila.
* 12-16 x 400 at 4-5 seconds per 400 faster than 10k race pace w/ 400 jog. 20-25 min warm-up and cool down. We will do this on the flat 400 dirt of Fairbank's.
* 6-10 x 3 minute on/2 off at 10k XC effort on the grass loops at Poly. We'll meet at Mando's office and go to the grass fields at Poly for this one. 20-25 min warm-up and cool down.
How all this would look in standard week:
Sun: Long run. AE effort, 20-25% weekly mileage
Mon: AM: easy 25-40 min. PM: 50-70 min AE run
Tue: AM: 25-40 min. PM: mile reps or 400's at Fairbanks
Wed: Mid week long run. AE effort, 15% weekly mileage.
Thu: AM: 25-40 min EASY PM: 35-40 min EASY
Fri: AM: 25-40 min. PM: tempo at Avila or 1k's at Poly.
Sat: 45 min EASY
Easy Week (last week of above stage): Cut back mileage 20-25% on all runs: recovery, AE, long runs. Cut back number of reps the same % (ie, if doing 6 x 3 min on/off, cut it back to 4 x 3 min on/off). Also, plan on racing (if possible) at the end of the easy week to get a solid handle on your fitness.
9/29-10/26: Stage 6: XC Specific training. (4 weeks - week #4 being an easy week)
XC Races: Sierra College 10/12.
Shoreline 10/26. Easy week precedes this.
Roads: Humboldt ½. Easy week precedes this.
At this stage we start making the jump up the intensity ladder. As such
it is advisable to drop the weekly mileage 10% or so. It just doesn't
work well when you combine your highest mileage week of your life with
some increasingly difficult workouts. Just to ease your mind, this is
exactly what Meb and Deena do when they go from high miles and low
intensity to higher intensity. Doesn't make it right, but there is a
solid precedent for doing so.
* Long Run (20-25% weekly mileage): 80-135 minutes easy to
moderate
* AE days: approx 50-70 minutes.
* Double days: 25-40 minutes easy. You may now be getting to
the stage where you feel good on these runs. If you feel strong, run
the AM run at a progressively faster pace running the last mile or two
at speeds approaching marathon race pace.
* Recovery days: make one - two days very easy recovery days.
You can choose to do one at 30-45 minutes jogging or a DNR or active
recovery such as swimming, that sort of thing. The other should be 2 x
30 minutes easy.
* Strides: Before the main workouts for the week. 4-6 100m
efforts at mile race pace effort on grass if possible. 30 + seconds
between each. Can add at the end of a recovery day as well.
* Mid week run . You can maintain this if you like, others may want to
run a 50-70 min AE run instead.
Workouts:
* 4-7 x 1600 with 3-4 min recovery at 10k effort. We'll do this on the
dirt loop at Fairbank's. 20-25 min warm-up and cool down.
* Tempo Run: A 15-20 minutes warm-up then 2 x 3-4 miles with 1 mile
jog. First 3-4 miles at marathon pace, second 3-4 at tempo pace (15-20
seconds a mile faster than marathon race pace), 1-2 mile cool down.
Will be done at Avila.
* 8-12 x 400 at 4-5 seconds per 400 faster than 5k race pace w/ 200
jog. 20-25 min warm-up and cool down. We will do this on the flat 400
dirt of Fairbank's.
* 6-12 x grass loops w/ 2-3 min jog recovery at 5k-10k effort. We'll
meet at Mando's office and go to the grass fields at Poly for this one.
20-25 min warm-up and cool down.
Easy Week: Cut back mileage 20-25% on all recovery, AE, long runs, reps
etc..
10/27-11/24: Stage 7: Final push up the fitness charts (4 weeks - week
#4 being an easy week)
XC races: PA Champs 11/24.
Roads: Clarksburg 11/10
Workouts:
* 4-7 x Adams State miles with 3-4 min recovery. Fairbanks
* 4-6 x 800's at 3k pace, on grass if possible.
* 6-8 x Wake Forest Drill. Fairbanks
* 6-10 x 400 at 1500-3k pace w/ equal standing rest. 20-25 min warm-up
and cool down. We'll meet at Mando's office and go to the Poly oval for
this one.
11/25-12/14: Stage 8: Taper, sharpening. (3 week at declining
mileage levels).
Races: USATF Fall XC National Championships 12/14.
Last 3 weeks of workouts after PA's.
11/24-11/30
* Wake Forest or tempo
12/1-12/7
* 400 at 1500-3k pace w/ equal standing rest. 20-25 min warm-up and cool down. We'll meet at Mando's office and go to the Poly oval for this one.
* Adams State miles or 800's at 3k
12/8-12/14
* 800's at 3k pace or in/out 400's
* 4 x 300's
12/14: Nationals
Definitions of paces and a few other pointers:
Aerobic Endurance (AE): 45 minutes and up (includes the long run). A run that starts at recovery pace initially but the pace will pick up as you loosen up. Usually you are finishing at a decent clip. This run makes up the bulk of the weekly mileage for most distance runners and can be pretty brisk at points when you're in shape. When you're not that fit it is usually done at recovery pace or slightly faster.
Marathon Race Pace: A pace that's 4-5 seconds per 400m slower than ½ marathon race pace. Wanna get fancy about determining this pace? Take your mile pace for 400m and add 20 seconds, if you're a sub 4:30 miler, add 25 seconds if you're sub 5:00 and 30 seconds if you're sub 5:30. The other option is take you're pace for a 3k-5k and divide by 80%. Example: A 4:00 miler runs 60 second pace, add 20 seconds and you get 80 second pace or a 5:20 mile. The same 4:00 athlete should be able to run about 64 pace for a 3k, so 64/.80 = 80 second pace or a 5:20 mile.
Tempo (Lactate Threshold): Pace that's 4-5 seconds per 400m SLOWER than current 10k race pace or 4-5 seconds per 400m FASTER than marathon race pace. If you're doing a tempo run and can't honestly maintain the pace for 60 minutes then it's too fast. This is roughly your ½ marathon race pace and if you do enough of this you become very, very strong. Not fast, just fricken strong. If you're into this sort of thing talk to me about fractionalized VO2, tempo runs improve this aspect of fitness.
10k: Your current 10k race pace which is roughly 4-5 seconds per 400m faster than tempo pace or 4-5 seconds per 400m slower than 5k pace.
5k: Your current 5k race pace which is roughly 4-5 seconds per 400m faster than 10k pace or 4-5 seconds per 400m slower than 3k pace.
3k: Your current 3k race pace which is roughly 4-5 seconds per 400m faster than 5k pace or 4-5 seconds per 400m slower than 1500 pace.
1500: Your current 1500 race pace which is roughly 4-5 seconds per 400m faster than 3k pace or 4-5 seconds per 400m slower than 800 pace.
800: Your current 800 race pace which is roughly 4-5 seconds per 400m faster than 1500 pace or 4-5 seconds per 400m slower than 400m race pace.
400: all out speed for most distance runners.
Strides: 80-200 meter efforts at roughly mile race pace. Should be smooth and loose. Recovery is generally twice the time run.
Accelerations. These are 30-150m efforts starting at 1500m effort and getting down to 400m speed. Very good for the athletes looking to maintain the ability to really move (ie. Middle distance guys). Recovery is usually complete. Example would be 100m accelerations with 300m easy jog OR walk back recoveries. No more than 1% of you weekly mileage here though.
Hill reps: There are 3 basics speed we use when doing hill reps.
A. Form: This is where the athlete concentrates on running up a hill with the best form they can. Running tall, hips forward, feet landing under the center of gravity, good arm action, strong/quick push off, quick turnover. Basically a poor man's plyo. Usually these are done at tempo effort early on. These do a great job early in the season of getting the strength built up in your legs such that when you add the real fast stuff you are better prepared to handle the increased intensity. They look easy on paper but usually make you pretty sore the first time or two you do them. If you do this properly, the speed is faster than anticipated simply because it's hard to run jogging slow if you are doing all the good form stuff. Good to keep in the back of your mind in a race that if you concentrate on the form, you'll be running fairly brisk when you run up hills.
B. Moderate: These hill reps are done at roughly 5k-10k EFFORT, not pace. You want the form to stay in tact, but the emphasis is a moderately hard uphill run. In fact as you get fitter the form speed and the moderate speed almost become the same speed. Early in the season, the times are about 3-5 seconds apart on a 300m gradual hill.
C. Brisk: These are done at 1500/3k EFFORT, not pace. Hard, fast rep with the emphasis on fast turnover but you have to maintain the form. If the form falls apart, the athlete is done. The time is usually 3-5 seconds faster on the brisk ones than on the moderate ones for a 300m long uphill.
All these paces listed above are rough estimates and are only really good for 1, maybe 2 speeds above or below your best race distance. Few people are equal across the board, but there are a few. Here are my PR's at the distances above: 56.4, 1:57.3 (58.5), 3:50.1 (62.5), 3k (NT), 14:23 (69.5), 29:44 (72), 1:05:37 (75), 2:18:06 (79). As you can see the chart above isn't completely accurate but it can give you an indication of what needs development in your program. It also indicates the simple truth that those who posses better leg speed have the best potential for faster times up the distance chart, which goes back to the argument that master's need to relearn how to run fast again and get efficient at it if they are to approach their times of 10-20 years ago.
3 weeks on/1 week off
A simple idea. Take every 4th week and cut the mileage approx 20-25% for the week. This is usually done the week before a big race to make sure you're rested, but more importantly, it's done to keep you from getting injured from too much mileage. It also serves as a mental break so you can make the next block of training consistently good. This concept can also be done as 2 on/1 off or 4 on/1 off. 5 on is a bit too much though. The thing with easy weeks is that they usually start out dreadful. You are usually dragging and not real motivated. The upshot is that towards the end of the easy week and through the following week or two you feel pretty strong so it usually after an easy week when we bump up the training a notch.
Recovery days
No way you can improve without taking a down day or two per week. Don't be afraid to take days off! When the day calls for a recovery day (especially if you're a master's runner), in many cases it's good to just take the day off, go out to the movies with the family and come back rested the following day. I know you're HS coach said to never miss a day and your college coach said never miss a day, but I'm here to tell you that taking a full day off may be a much better idea than trying to pad the log book . It'll get you recovered, it'll keep you mentally fresh, it'll help keep you healthy and it'll take the pressure off of having to race home from work to get a 4 miler in. Make your hard days hard On the opposite side of the recovery day coin is don't be afraid to make your hard days hard. Want to do doubles, do it on you hard rep days first and foremost. Want to pad the log book? Hit an extra long 30-40 minute warmup or warmdown on you hard rep days. I mean if you're committed to working out hard, devote an extra 30-40 minutes that day to running so that when you need to take a day off later in the week because the cat needs to go to the vet, you won't feel too bad or stressed about missing that day.