Category: News

With road and track season coming to and end and the days still warm enough for us not to want to think about cross-country just yet, we’re going to have a more unstructured week which is mainly about just having fun (type 1 and type 2 fun).

This week our technical focus is on hip stability – keeping the hips high and level to promote running economy and minimise injury.Our technical focus is on arm drive this week; using the momentum of your arms to counter the momentum of your trailing leg and thus making sure your energy is being used to go straight forwards.

Suggested Drills for the week

A-March while focusing on the arm drive

Jump Lunge with arms

High Cadence running on the spot then lean forward from the ankle until you ‘fall’ into a run

Strides – alternate: imagine a helium balloon attached to your head lifting your head and torso up and make your out breath long and drop your shoulders as you breath out

Tuesday Session

Easy run! But…

Vary the route up; as a group try and get a little lost and explore new paths and roads (but don’t get too lost).

After the first ten minutes throw in some strides roughly every 5 minutes, i.e., accelerate to 90% max speed for approximately 10 breaths and the decelerate down to an easy pace.

Thursday Session

Fun and games

Sunday Session

Long* Run – surges every 1km; accelerate to 90% of max pace, hold that pace for 10 long breaths (about 20-30 seconds), focus on imagining your head and torso being lifted by a balloon.

*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 our technical focus is on hip stability – keeping the hips high and level to promote running economy and minimise injury.

The fitness focus is on building top end speed with some anaerobic efforts in the Tuesday session and plenty of strides on the Sunday.

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

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

NO SESSION – Sale Sizzler

Sunday Session

Long* Run – surges every 1km; accelerate to 90% of max pace, hold that pace for 10 long breaths (about 20-30 seconds), focus on imagining your head and torso being lifted by a balloon.

*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 our technical focus is the foot landing; ensuring that the foot strikes the ground when already travelling backwards, i.e., when the knee is in flexion and indeally when the foot is under the centre of mass.

We continue our focus on 5km running and the Thursday session is a classic of 5km training.

Suggested Drills for the week

Straight Leg Run

B-March

B-Skip

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

Tuesday Session

10 minute warm-up

40 minutes of:

During the warm-up decide an order to run in.

Start out at a steady (long-run, i.e. arerobic) pace the first runner then chooses when to start the interval, how fast to run the interval and where to end the interval – they do no need to tell the rest of the group their decision, the rest of the group will simply attempt to keep up as best they can. Once the first runner reaches the end point they have selected for their interval they turn around and run to the back of the group.

For a detail explanation with diagrams see here.

10 minute cool-down

Thursday Session

5 Minutes easy running

Drills and Strides

FIVE TIMES: 1000m at target 5km pace, 2-3 minutes rest (until fully recovered).

5 minutes easy running to cool down

Sunday Session

Minimum of 10 minutes warm up

Find a hill suitable for ideally 3 minutes of effort. Acclerate to maximum over the first few paces, maintain this pace for approx 10 breaths (should be around 20 seconds), walk back down the hill for 10 seconds, turn around and repeat the uphill. Do 8 reps. This will take around 4 minutes do a steady pace for around 6 minutes and aim to end up back at the bottom of the hill. REPEAT 3 TIMES (30 minutes total for this block).

This is a Tabata style workout, but done on a hill to help reduce over-striding tendencies.

At least 10 minutes cool down

Our technical focus is on arm drive this week; using the momentum of your arms to counter the momentum of your trailing leg and thus making sure your energy is being used to go straight forwards.

We continue our focus on improving VO2 Max using Tabata style interval sets – we practiced getting the pacing right last Thursday, this Tuesday is time to nail all 4 efforts.

Suggested Drills for the week

A-March while focusing on the arm drive

Jump Lunge with arms

High Cadence running on the spot then lean forward from the ankle until you ‘fall’ into a run

Strides – alternate: imagine a helium balloon attached to your head lifting your head and torso up and make your out breath long and drop your shoulders as you breath out

Tuesday Session

10 mins easy warm up

4 minutes of run fast* for a count of 20 breaths, walk for 10 breaths (repeating this cycle for 4 minutes) THEN full recovery including some easy running.

* fast – this should be a reasonably smooth acceleration to your maximum pace. By the end of the 4 minutes it will feel EXTREMELY challenging.

REPEAT the above four times

10 mins Cool Down

For background see here.

Thursday Session

NO SESSION due to Sale Sizzler

Sunday Session

At least 10 minutes warm up

Find a hill that takes 3 minutes to run up then do 6 repeats (walking back down) – pace is meaningless on a hill so aim for a perceived effort of 8 out of 10

10 minutes cool down

This week our technical focus is on keeping the hips high and stable to avoid wasting energy lifting the torso up and down.

We continue our focus on improving VO2 Max using Tabata style interval sets.

Suggested Drills for the week

A-March

Ball Slam

Jump Lunge

High Cadence running on the spot then lean forward from the ankle until you ‘fall’ into a run

Strides – imagine a helium balloon attached to your head lifting your head and torso up (but keep your shoulders relaxed)

Tuesday Session

10 minute warm-up

40 minutes of:

During the warm-up decide an order to run in.

Start out at a steady (long-run, i.e. arerobic) pace the first runner then chooses when to start the interval, how fast to run the interval and where to end the interval – they do no need to tell the rest of the group their decision, the rest of the group will simply attempt to keep up as best they can. Once the first runner reaches the end point they have selected for their interval they turn around and run to the back of the group.

For a detail explanation with diagrams see here.

10 minute cool-down

Thursday Session

5 mins easy warm up

Drills

4 minutes of run fast* for a count of 20 breaths, walk for 10 breaths (repeating this cycle for 4 minutes) THEN full recovery including some easy running.

* fast – this should be a reasonably smooth acceleration to your maximum pace. By the end of the 4 minutes it will feel EXTREMELY challenging.

REPEAT the above four times

10 mins Cool Down

For background see here.

Sunday Session

Minimum of 10 minutes warm up

Find a hill suitable for ideally 3 minutes of effort. Acclerate to maximum over the first few paces, maintain this pace for approx 10 breaths (should be around 20 seconds), walk back down the hill for 10 seconds, turn around and repeat the uphill. Do 8 reps. This will take around 4 minutes do a steady pace for around 6 minutes and aim to end up back at the bottom of the hill. REPEAT 3 TIMES (30 minutes total for this block).

This is a Tabata style workout, but done on a hill to help reduce over-striding tendencies.

At least 10 minutes cool down

Our technical focus this week is still making sure the knee is flexed prior to the foot striking the ground.

There is no Wythenshawe session this week due to the Sale Sizzler, but our week’s trainng will be built around that.

Drills

Straight leg, ball of foot taps

Toe-taps

B-Progression

Strides; focusing on pulling the ground backwards

Tuesday Session

If doing the Sizzler – Easy run with 3x 90 seconds at 5km pace with plenty of recovery in between them.

If not doing the Sizzler – 10 mins warm-up, 4x 8 minutes at 10km pace with 2 minutes recovery, 10 mins cool-down

Thursday Session

Sale Sizzler

OR

Solo 5km TT – do a solid 20 minute warm-up including some drills from above. Then use the following as a pacing guide (where 1 is a perceived effort (PE) of walking, 3 is a chatty run, 7 is quick but still able to speak in short sentences and 10 is chest burning, ready to vomit hard and 11 is sprinting as if being chased by a bear) – run the first 1km at PE of 7, build from 7 to 10 in the second km and then hold 10 for the remainder of the 5km effort (if you need to vomit, pause your watch and make sure to use the side of the trail).

Sunday Session

Long* run; start easy (able to hold a conversation) and in the last 30 minutes progress steadily from that pace to your 10km pace.

Our technical focus this weeks picks up on the first theme noticed during last week’s observations which is making sure the knee is flexed prior to the foot striking the ground.

The fitness focus will be to improve your ability to select race paces and to build VO2 Max; VO2 Max is the maximum amount of oxygen an athlete’s body is capable of using per minute – it is a very strong predictor of endurance race performance, particularly 5 and 10km races for well trained athletes. Improvements to VO2 Max can be elicited with efforts that are just below (lactate) threshold (the point most athletes can sustain for around an hour) and thus are relatively ‘easy’ to achieve.

Drills

Straight leg, ball of foot taps

Toe-taps

B-Progression

Strides; focusing on pulling the ground backwards

Tuesday Session

10 minute warm-up

Marathon Pace – 5 minutes
Easy 3 minutes
Half Marathon Pace – 5 minutes
Easy 3 minutes
10km Race Pace – 5 minutes
Easy 3 minutes
5km Race Pace – 5 minutes
Easy 3 minutes
1 mile Race Pace – 5 minutes*

10 minute cool-down

* If your mile pace is sub-5 minutes then feel free to do 1 mile ‘best effort’ and have some extra rest

Thursday Session

5 minutes warm-up

Drills

400m @ self selected pace*

400m 10s faster than self selected pace

400m 10s slower than self selected pace

400m 10s faster than self selected pace

400m 10s slower than self selected pace

400m 10s faster than self selected pace

400m 10s slower than self selected pace

400m 10s faster than self selected pace

400m 10s slower than self selected pace

1km handicap race

5 minutes cool down

* Choose a pace you are confident at being able to improve by 10s on subsequent 400s, i.e., a pace you are confident is at least 25s per km slower than your fastest 400m rep time.

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.

You may notice that most weeks at the moment include a hill set – hill sets are great for; reducing overstriding, building strength and doing high effort aerobic work with low(er) injury risk.

At least 10 minutes cool down