Month: November 2022

The fitness focus this week and until the new year will be working on getting our aerobic threshold as close as possible to our lactate threshold; there is a good, albeit cycling focused, article here.

The technical focus will be working on a strong effective arm drive.

Suggested Drills for the week

A-Progression (A-March, A-Skip, A-Run)

A-Progression (A-March, A-Skip, A-Run) with focus on arm drive

Strides while focusing on the individual aspects of arm drive in each of 4 sets of strides; keeping elbow joint at 90 degrees, keeping the arm in the correct plane, getting a full arm drive and keeping the shoulders relaxed.

Tuesday Session

5 minute warm-up

10 minutes at the fastest pace at which you can still hold a conversation (albeit one with heavy breathing).

5 minutes easy

15 minutes at the fastest pace at which you can still hold a conversation.

5 minutes easy

10 minutes at the fastest pace at which you can still hold a conversation.

5 minute cool-down

Thursday Session

20 mins easy warm up – include the suggested drills for the week

Two 15 minute blocks of 400m timed reps; alternating breathing only through the nose and normal breathing – aim will be to get to the fastest pace you can maintain both nose-breathing and normal-breathing laps at the same pace.

5 mins cool down

Weekend Session

Minimum of 10 minutes warm up

Do a long run (distance will be up to you but this should be your longest run of the week) with the last 30 minutes at the pace practiced earlier in the week, i.e., the fastest that you can still breath through your nose/hold a conversation at.

The fitness focus will be lactate shuttling – working on efforts above and below lactate threshold (the highest level of effort where lactate concentration in the blood still remains steady)

The technical focus will be running with good posture.

Suggested Drills for the week

A-Progression (A-March, A-Skip, A-Run)

Lunge Progression (Static Lunge, Walking Lunge, Jump Lunge – all with focus on keeping core upright)

Strides while imagining a balloon lifting your head

Tuesday Session

10 minute warm-up

Alternating minutes at 10km / Cross-Country race pace and half marathon race pace, i.e., 1 minute at each for a total of 16 minutes – repeat this twice with a break of 5 to 6 minutes between the efforts.

10 minute cool-down

Thursday Session

10 mins easy warm up – include the suggested drills for the week

3x 800m @ 10km race pace with 400 easy between reps followed by a threshold effort* with 50m ‘sprint’ bursts.

* threshold should be approximately a pace you can sustain for an hour – this will be somewhere between 10km and half marathon race pace. This table allows you to look up your ‘VDOT’ based on race paces and then table 2 on the same page shows your threshold pace.

10 mins cool down

Weekend Session

Minimum of 10 minutes warm up

Do a long run (distance will be up to you but this should be your longest run of the week) with a 50-100m stride every 1km.

The fitness focus will be VO2 Max improvement – the key metric that determines performance over ‘middle’ distances and is best improved by efforts of 4-8 minutes

The technical focus will be short stride running – according to Brian Mac this can be an effective way to improve cross-country running speed.

Suggested Drills for the week

Straight Leg Run – landing on the ball of the foot and using the springiness in the calf and achilles to keep ground contact time short.

B-March

B-Skip

Short strides with a focus on driving the feet back and a short stride length.

Tuesday Session

10 minute warm-up

Then keep repeating the following until it is time to cool down:

3 minutes at 5km race pace

2 minutes at steady pace

2 minutes at 5km race pace

1 minutes steady

1 minute at 5km race pace

3 minutes easy then repeat…

10 minute cool-down

This session has been shown to allow athletes to do an extended amount of hard effort when compared to a session with fixed duration intervals of 5km race pace

Thursday Session

10 mins easy warm up – include the suggested drills for the week

FIVE TIMES: 800m as 200m maximum effort then 600m 5km pace minus 5 seconds per km, then recover fully (2 to 3 minutes)

5 minutes easy running to cool down

This is a tough set; if you want to know why you’re doing it I have written some details here.

Weekend Session

Minimum of 10 minutes warm up

Do a long run (distance will be up to you but this should be your longest run of the week) but aim to do the last third at the pace you would normally race the distance of your long run e.g. if your long run is 21km then the last 7km should be run at half marathon pace.

The fitness focus will be tapering for the second XC of the season.

The technical focus will be practicing all the drills with a view to having a good race warm-up routine.

Suggested Drills for the week

Leg swings

Straight Leg Running

A-March to A-Skip progression

B-March to B-Skip progression

High Heels drill

Side stepping

Carioca

Strides whilst imaging a balloon attached to your head.

Tuesday Session

10 minute warm-up

4x 6 minutes @ 5km pace with 4 minute recoveries.

10 minute cool-down

Thursday Session

10 mins easy warm up including (extra) drills

4 x 400 @ 10km race pace – lots of recovery

10 mins Cool Down

Weekend Session

Cross-country or 9km at race pace in a muddy field.