Month: March 2024

This week we’re working at well over LT2 (Second Lactate Threshold)/Maximum Lactate Steady State (MLSS) – these workouts are hard but can very quickly build ‘top end’ fitness for newer athletes and are helpful for experienced athletes to maintain fitness.

For technique we’ll be working on arm drive – and trying to remember to bring arm drive into the final few hundred meters of each effort.

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

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

10 minute warm-up

7 x 3 minutes at somewhere between mile race pace and 3km race pace with 2-3 minutes between efforts

10 minute cool-down

Thursday Session

Warm-Up

FOUR TIMES: 800m faster than 5km pace, 200 easy, 200 max then recovery (easy or walking/stretching)

Cool down

Weekend Session

Do a long run (distance will be up to you but this should be your longest run of the week) on a course that has rolling hills – put in max effort up the hills (assuming its reasonably local and the hills are less than 5 minutes to climb).

Hopefully everyone achieved what they wanted at Wilmslow Half – we’re now only three weeks from Manchester Marathon and then we’ll be into track and fast road season; this week’s sets are building towards that.

This week we will be looking at tall running posture and keeping enough tension in the legs to develop a ‘springy’ low ground contact time run.

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

We will be doing perfect form squats and then progressing these to ‘pop squats’

Suggested Drills for the week

Straight legged running

Hopping

Strides while staying tall

Tuesday Session

Warm-Up

THREE TIMES: 14 minutes at a pace at or slightly faster than 10km race pace take 5 minutes easy between the efforts

Cool down

Thursday Session

Warm-Up

18 times 200m @ max pace at which you can hold good endurance form – regroup and then 200m easy recovery together after each rep.

Cool down

Weekend Session

Long* Run with a stride (30m acceleration, 30m fast, 30m decelerate) every 1km

*Long is relative to what you have been doing recently; no more than 20% longer than any run you’ve done in the past 4 weeks.

This week we’re working at well over LT2 (Second Lactate Threshold)/Maximum Lactate Steady State (MLSS) – these workouts are hard but can very quickly build ‘top end’ fitness for newer athletes and are helpful for experienced athletes to maintain fitness.

For technique we’ll be working on arm drive – and trying to remember to bring arm drive into the final few hundred meters of each effort.

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

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

10 minute warm-up

7 x 3 minutes at somewhere between mile race pace and 3km race pace with 2-3 minutes between efforts

10 minute cool-down

Thursday Session

Warm-Up

6 times 800m @ max pace at which you can hold good endurance form – stay mobile for 2-3 minutes recovery.

Cool down

Weekend Session

Do a long run (distance will be up to you but this should be your longest run of the week) on a course that has rolling hills – put in max effort up the hills (assuming its reasonably local and the hills are less than 5 minutes to climb).

Thanks to those of you who participated in the video analysis session last week; generally everyone’s running form was looking really good. I’ll share specifics with each of you individually as I see you. However, there are a couple of things I noted that we are going to work on together. They are arm drive and maintaining nice tall running posture.

This week we will be looking at tall running posture and keeping enough tension in the legs to develop a ‘springy’ low ground contact time run.

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

We will be doing perfect form squats and then progressing these to ‘pop squats’

Suggested Drills for the week

Straight legged running

Hopping

Strides while staying tall

Tuesday Session

Warm-Up

THREE TIMES: 12 minutes at a pace at or slightly faster than 10km race pace take 5 minutes easy between the efforts

Cool down

Thursday Session

Warm-Up

16 times 200m @ max pace at which you can hold good endurance form – regroup and then 200m easy recovery together after each rep.

Cool down

Weekend Session

Long* Run with a stride (30m acceleration, 30m fast, 30m decelerate) every 1km

*Long is relative to what you have been doing recently; no more than 20% longer than any run you’ve done in the past 4 weeks.

With Nationals NOT done we’re now into spring marathon and half marathons and preparing for a summer of fast road and track work.

Now XC season is over I’m going to do another round of video observations to determine what technical points to work on in the next few weeks.

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

Observation and Video Analysis week!

Tuesday Session

Warm-Up

8 or 10 x 400m (self selected pace, but hard efforts). If being done away from the track then 90 second efforts instead of 400m

Cool down

Thursday Session

Warm-Up

200, 400, 800, 1600, 2000, 2400

Cool down

This set will be primarily about observing everyone’s running form and selecting technical points to work on for the next few weeks.

Weekend Session

Long* Run with a fast (10km race pace) finish

*Long is relative to what you have been doing recently; no more than 20% longer than any run you’ve done in the past 4 weeks.