We’re now coming to the end of XC season which means that some of you will be going straight into the final preparations for spring marathons, half marathons and 10km races, whilst others will be beginning the preparation for the track and 5km racing season in summer; the upcoming workouts should be good preparation for that.
As a technical point we’re going to be working on a, literally, central point of running form, posture.
Strength and Conditioning
All exercises should be body weight variants only unless an S&C coach (can be me) has agreed you have perfect form. Good examples of form can be found on https://www.muscleandstrength.com/exercises
Side Plank with hip dip, Supine Toe Tap (not on exercise DB; lie on front raise one leg, tap toe on floor and raise leg again do some reps then change legs), Bird Dog
Suggested Drills for the week
Lunge Progression – remember to keep your leading knee behind your leading toes and your trailing knee should not quite touch the ground.
A-March to Skip Progression – ensuring chin, toes and knees are ‘up’.
Strides with a ‘balloon’.
Tuesday Session
8 mins easy warm up
1 minute, 2 minutes, 4 minutes, 8 minutes, 8 minutes, 4 minutes, 2 minutes and then 1 minute at ‘max effort for that time’. With 2 minutes at a recovery pace (probably 5-10s per km slower than marathon pace) between each effort
8 mins Cool Down
Thursday Session
Warm-up and Drills
For the main set we will work in two groups the ‘speed’ group whose focus is track and 5km and the ‘endurance’ group whose focus is 10km and longer in the spring.
FOUR TIMES: ‘endurance’ group aim to even pace 1600m reps, ‘speed’ group 400 easy 400 max 400 easy, 400 try and catch and overtake as many of the endurance group as possible. Regroup and recover before repeating
Cooldown and Strength
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.
Manchester Harriers and Athletics Club 