Month: April 2024

This week we will be continuing to work on pace with some 1-2 minute anaerobic efforts.

From a technical perspective everyone’s running form is starting to look pretty good so we’re good to add some ‘icing on the cake’ with some hip mobility and proprioception.

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 split squats and then jump split squats / lunges

Suggested Drills for the week

Toe touches – swing left leg forward while keeping it straight and aim to touch the toes of your left leg with your horizontally outstretched right arm; repeat this on the opposite side.

A-Progression

Carioca (also known as grapevine)

Tuesday Session

10 minutes warm-up

40 minutes of:

During the warm-up give everyone in the group a number from 1 to 3, ensuring that there are roughly equal numbers of ‘1’s, ‘2’s and ‘3’s.

Start out at a steady (long-run, i.e. arerobic) pace then pick a landmark (lampost, postbox, bush, cone, anything!) that you are about to run past, the whole group should continue running at a steady pace after passing it, continue for 30 seconds, then all of the ‘1’s should run fast (3-5km pace or faster) back to the selected landmark, turn around at the landmark and continue, fast, back to the group. When the ‘1’s return to the group, pick a new landmark and then the ‘2’s run fast back to it after the whole group has gone 30 seconds past the landmark, repeat this for the ‘3’s and then continue this pattern until it is time to cool down.

For a detail explanation with diagrams see here.

10 mins Cool Down

Thursday Session

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

6 times 200m max effort for that distance.

4 times 400m max effort for that distance.

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) do the last quarter at a pace where you can only manage 3 to 4 word sentences.

This week our technical focus is arm drive; the back-swing of the arm drive helps to promote good leg drive.

Our ‘fitness’ focus changes this week as summer approaches and 5km, 10km, short fell races and track season approaches; the basic physiology still stays the same with performances in endurance (3km and over) being dominated by VO2 Max, however, we now start using a much larger proportion of that capacity and the body starts giving the brain strong signals that we’re reaching the limit of our bodies’ capacities. To enable you to keep running fast at that point we start doing sessions that get you comfortable with being uncomfortable (whilst simultaneously training the underlying energy systems).

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 split squats and then jump split squats / lunges

Suggested Drills for the week

A-March to A-Skip progression – with focus on arms

Progression of short strides – over a short (90-100m) course where you can go back and forth, repeat a stride (30m to accelerate, 30m at 85-95% sprint pace, 30m decelerate) and on each pair (back and forth) focus on the following in order; pair 1) keeping the arms moving in a plane that is parallel to your direction of movement (so they are not crossing in front of your body), pair 2) keeping your forearm and upper arm at 90 degrees to each other throughout the arm drive, pair 3) driving the arm back with ‘purpose’, not forcefully, but with some energy (your hand should end up in line with your torso with your elbow behind your torso), pair 4) keeping the shoulders down and relaxed. This should be 8 strides in total.

Tuesday Session

10 minute warm-up

40 minutes of:

During the warm-up give everyone in the group a number from 1 to 3, ensuring that there are roughly equal numbers of ‘1’s, ‘2’s and ‘3’s.

Start out at a steady (long-run, i.e. arerobic) pace then pick a landmark (lampost, postbox, bush, cone, anything!) that you are about to run past, the whole group should continue running at a steady pace after passing it, continue for 30 seconds, then all of the ‘1’s should run fast (3-5km pace or faster) back to the selected landmark, turn around at the landmark and continue, fast, back to the group. When the ‘1’s return to the group, pick a new landmark and then the ‘2’s run fast back to it after the whole group has gone 30 seconds past the landmark, repeat this for the ‘3’s and then continue this pattern until it is time to cool down.

For a detail explanation with diagrams see here.

10 minute cool-down

Thursday Session

5 Minutes easy running

Drills and Strides

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.

Sunday Session

Minimum of 10 minutes warm up

Find a hill suitable for at least two minutes of effort but ideally three, then run 6 to 8 intervals starting steady and accelerating to the maximum effort you feel possible by about half way up the hill, sustain that to the top. Walk down the hill until your breathing returns to normal, then jog down to the starting point.

At least 10 minutes cool down

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. Tuesday’s workout will be on how long we can maintain that state for.

For technique we’ll be working on keeping a nice short stride.

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 split squats and then jump split squats / lunges

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

Warm-Up

TWO TIMES: 20 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 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.

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 running tall; keeping the torso tall and stable for good running economy.

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 split squats and then jump split squats / lunges

Suggested Drills for the week

Straight legged running

Hopping

Strides while staying tall

Tuesday Session

10 minute warm-up

1 minutes ‘on’ (max effort) 2 mins easy – repeated for approx 40 minutes

10 minute cool-down

NOTE: If doing Manchester marathon I would suggest skipping two out of three of the hard efforts and keep the hard efforts relatively easy i.e. 1 minute half-mara pace, 8 minutes easy repeated

Thursday Session

Warm-Up

THREE ‘Broken miles’: 400m hard, one easy loop of the D (or approx. 100m easy depending on venue), 400m hard,one easy loop of the D, 400m hard,one easy loop of the D, 400m hard,one easy loop of the D – then recover fully (this could take 3-4 minutes)

Cool down

NOTE: If doing Manchester marathon I would suggest just doing the first 400m at marathon pace and the remainder of each rep easy.

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.