This weeks fitness focus is on efforts slightly under threshold (maximum lactate steady state) and unpredictable surging efforts- starting to get specific to the demands of cross country racing with efforts from 40 minutes to an hour.
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
Squat to Pop Squat progression
Split squat to alternating leg lunge jump
Suggested Drills for the week
Ground touches (while running)
Leg swings
Carioca (Grapevine)
Tuesday Session
10 minutes easy running to warm up
Twenty minutes of effort – spend 2-3 minutes building to a pace where you are gasping for breath, then dial back the pace a little bit to the point where you can say 3-4 words – hold that pace. If you feel that you could manage a full sentence of talking then accelerate until you just start to gasp for breath and then ease back a little.
5 minutes easy
Repeat the twenty minutes effort
5 minutes cool down
Thursday Session
10 minutes easy running
Drills
Dice Fartlek – there will be dice at the end of each straight. You will roll the dice…
1 = 200m easy
2 = 200m Hard
3 = 400m Hard
4 = 400m easy
5 = 600m Hard
6 = 800m Hard
Cool down
(Inspired by https://www.snackinginsneakers.com/fartlek-workouts/ )
Sunday Session
A long (relative to your normal weekly runs) run make sure to include some hills in the route every time you encounter a hill, even a small one, put in a max effort for the first 30 seconds of the hill (or the whole hill if its a really small hill).
Manchester Harriers and Athletics Club 