Category: Training

As summer draws to a close we are heading towards XC season – particularly with the Nationals in less than a month.

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

Split squats or bulgarian squats are this weeks exercises.

Suggested Drills for the week

A-Progression (A-March, A-Skip, A-Run)

High Knees running

Strides while focusing on getting a full arm drive and keeping the shoulders relaxed.

Tuesday Session

10 minutes warm-up

Alternating minutes at 10km / Cross-Country race pace and half marathon race pace, i.e., 1 minute at each for a total of 16 minutes – repeat this twice with a break of 5 to 6 minutes between the efforts.

10 minutes cool-down

Thursday Session

5 minutes easy

Warm-up drills

400s with reducing rest – starting with approx. 2 minutes rest and reducing by 10s per rep – until we get to no rest (10-12 reps total)

Cool-Down

Weekend Session

Minimum of 10 minutes warm up

Your longest session of the week and aim to do the last 3rd at as close to race pace for that distance as you can.

As summer draws to a close we are heading towards XC season – particularly with the Nationals in less than a month.

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

Split squats or bulgarian squats are this weeks exercises.

Suggested Drills for the week

B-Progression (B-March, B-Skip, B-Run)

Straight legged running

Strides while focusing on getting a full arm drive and keeping the shoulders relaxed.

Tuesday Session

10 minutes warm-up

Chain running – run in a line, the last runner runs hard (90% of max pace) to the front of the group, when the last runner reaches the front then the next ‘last runner’ sets of hard to get to the front. REPEAT for 15 minutes

10 minutes easy

15 minutes more chain running

10 mins Cool Down

Thursday Session

5 minutes easy

Warm-up drills

Pyramid – 400. 800, 1600, 800, 400 with 400 m easy between each. Efforts at 3km pace.

Cool-Down

Weekend Session

Minimum of 10 minutes warm up

Your longest session of the week and aim to do the last 3rd at as close to race pace for that distance as you can.

This week our technical focus is on foot landing; ensuring your foot lands close to under your center of mass and that your knee is flexing as your foot lands.

Our fitness focus is VO2 max improving efforts.

Suggested Drills for the week

Walking Lunges – remember to keep your leading knee behind your leading toes and your trailing knee should not quite touch the ground.

Straight Legged Run or ‘claw’ – keep your leg straight, driving with your glute muscles and lightly tapping the ground with the ball of your foot.

Jog on the spot building to a very high cadence then lean (from the ankle) slightly forward until you naturally start running.

Short (30m build, 30m @90%, 30m decelerate) strides in back-and-forth pairs; on each pair – focus on keeping a short stride length (and high cadence) in the first stride of each pair and then driving back with the feet on the second stride in each pair.

Tuesday Session

10 minutes easy running

5 Times: 5 minutes max effort followed by 5 minutes easy

Thursday Session

5 Minutes easy running

Drills and Strides

FOUR (or FIVE if time allows) Mile reps i.e. 4 laps of the track at 5km race pace (or faster) – take a 3-4 minute recovery between efforts either standing or staying mobi;e

5 minutes easy running to cool down

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

As promised we start training for the cross-country season this week. I am planning to move some of the late August and September sessions to William Scholes’ Field in Gatley – so please keep an eye on email and this site for announcements as to when the first one will be.

As always I will be looking at both technical skills and fitness in my sessions, but they will be rather different from the last few months!

The fitness focus will be lactate shuttling.

The technical foci will be; Tight Turns and Even Efforts.

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 Bulgarian Split Squats.

Suggested Drills for the week

A-progression

Lunge progression to Jump lunges

Tight turns (gradually accelerate to 90% sprint, decelerate to cone, 180 turn, accelerate to 90% sprint, decelerate to starting point)

Tuesday Session

10 Minutes Warm-Up

5x 4 minutes at half marathon pace, 4 minutes at 10km pace

10 Minutes Cool Down

Thursday Session

5 minutes easy

A-progression

Lunge progression to Jump lunges

Tight turns (gradually accelerate to 90% sprint, decelerate to cone, 180 turn, accelerate to 90% sprint, decelerate to starting point)

200m max effort then 600m maintaining perceived exertion – followed by 2-3 minutes standing recovery.

5 minutes easy

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

No training at the track this Thursday due to Sale Sizzler race

This week our technical focus is on foot landing; ensuring your foot lands close to under your center of mass and that your knee is flexing as your foot lands.

Our fitness focus is still 5km race pace and the Thursday session focuses on lactate clearance.

Suggested Drills for the week

Walking Lunges – remember to keep your leading knee behind your leading toes and your trailing knee should not quite touch the ground.

Straight Legged Run or ‘claw’ – keep your leg straight, driving with your glute muscles and lightly tapping the ground with the ball of your foot.

Jog on the spot building to a very high cadence then lean (from the ankle) slightly forward until you naturally start running.

Short (30m build, 30m @90%, 30m decelerate) strides in back-and-forth pairs; on each pair – focus on keeping a short stride length (and high cadence) in the first stride of each pair and then driving back with the feet on the second stride in each pair.

Tuesday Session

10 minutes easy running

REPEAT: 10 minutes @ 10km race pace, 5 minutes recovery pace

5 minutes cool down

Thursday Session

5 Minutes easy running

Drills and Strides

TWO TIMES: 4x400m @3km race pace with 400m recovery @ Half Marathon Pace – total of 3200m for each of the two reps – total of 6400m for this section.

5 minutes easy running to cool down

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

This week we will be continuing with our technique focus; proprioception – the sense of self-movement, force, and body position.

The session will be the last of the 5k specific sessions and we will be starting to look towards the upcoming cross country season next week.

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 Bulgarian Split Squats.

Drills

A – Progression

B – Progression

C – Skips (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Zc_utJGTQWU)

Carioca

Tuesday Session

10 minutes warm-up

40 minutes of:

4 mins hard effort, 2 minutes easy effort (for the mathematically minded you’ll note that the last 4 minute effort won’t have a recovery and the recovery will be the cool down…)

10 mins Cool Down

Thursday Session

5 Minutes easy running

Drills and Strides ~ 10-15 minutes

5x1km – for the last time this year!

Cool down

Sunday Session

Minimum of 10 minutes warm up

On your longest run of the week do the last 3rd at as close to race pace for that distance as you can achieve e.g if you’re doing a 15km then try and get the last 5km close to 5km race pace.

At least 10 minutes cool down

This week’s technique focus will be proprioception – the sense of self-movement, force, and body position.

The sessions this week will target 5k race ability

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 Bulgarian Split Squats.

Drills

A – Progression

B – Progression

C – Skips (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Zc_utJGTQWU)

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

5 Minutes easy running

Drills and Strides ~ 10-15 minutes

10x 400m (fewer if you’re racing the sizzler on Friday)

Cool down

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’s technique focus will be getting a slight forward lean in our running.

The sessions this week will target 5k race ability

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 Glute bridge progressions

Drills

B – Progression

High cadence jogging on the spot and ‘falling’ into a run

Strides*

Tuesday Session

12 minutes warm-up

6 TIMES: 2 minute max effort then 4 minutes easy running

12 minutes cool-down

Thursday Session

5 Minutes easy running

Drills and Strides ~ 10-15 minutes

5 x 1km at target 5km race pace – 30 seconds recovery!

Cool down

Sunday Session

Minimum of 10 minutes warm up

A long run (your longest of the week) with strides* every 1km

At least 10 minutes cool down

* Strides – accelerate gradually to 90% of max pace, hold for 10-20 seconds or about 30 m, decelerate gently.