Tag: Threshold

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

4 times 400m max effort for that distance.

6 times 200m 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 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.

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

Straight legged running

B-Skips

Strides

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).

This week we will be starting a bit more work at pace and improving VO2 Max since spring is in the air.

For our technical goal we will be aiming to use a nice, strong arm drive.

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 minutes 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

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

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

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) but every 1km do a stride (accelerate to 90% of sprint speed, hold it for 10 breaths or approx 20 seconds, then decelerate).

This week we’re aiming to work at paces around ‘Threshold’ (MLSS or Maximum Lactate Steady State).

The technique focus will be keeping high stable hips.

Strength Exercises for the week

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

Glute Bridge, Cobra, Turkish Get-Up

Suggested Drills for the week

A-Progression Drills

High Cadence on the spot with a ‘fall’ into a run

Strides; imagining you have a balloon attached to your head drawing your torso up

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

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

10 x 400m efforts with minimal recovery – the efforts should be run at faster than 5km race pace. The recovery should be maximum 45 seconds.

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) on a course that has rolling hills.

This week we’ll be ‘playing’ with different paces.

The technical focus will be working on maintaining a good posture and light-footedness

Strength Exercises for the week

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

Straight leg run

A-progression

B-progression

Tuesday Session

10 minutes warm-up

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.

5 minute cool-down

Thursday Session

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

FOUR TIMES: 800m effort, recover, 200m effort, 200m easy, 400m effort

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) on a course that has rolling hills.

This week we will be starting to up the pace a bit.

The technical focus of this weeks drills is on arm drive.

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

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

10 minute cool-down

Thursday Session

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

16 times 200m @ max pace at which you can hold good endurance form then 200m easy recovery – regroup after each rep but do not hang around!

5 mins 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 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).

A week of trying to improve VO2 Max

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

Tatton Park XC or…

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.

The fitness focus this week and until the new year will be working on getting our aerobic threshold as close as possible to our lactate threshold; there is a good, albeit cycling focused, article here.

The technical focus will be working on maintaining a good posture and light-footedness

Strength Exercises for the week

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

Straight leg run

A-progression

B-progression

Tuesday Session

10 minutes warm-up

2 x 20 minutes at a pace where conversation is no longer possible but short sentences with brief gaps to breath are still possible – this should be somewhere between your half marathon pace and your 10km race pace

5 minute cool-down

Thursday Session

The aim of this set is to maintain a heart rate that is between aerobic threshold and lactate threshold – we do this by keeping the majority of the lap easy but with some hard effort in the middle of each lap and minimal rest between laps

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

On each lap; start easy accelerate slowly to 90% of sprint speed by 200m then decelerate slowly until the end of the lap – once everyone has completed the lap start again.

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) on a course that has rolling hills.

The fitness focus will be tapering for the next XC of the season.

The technical focus will be practising all the drills with a view to having a good race warm-up routine.

Strength Exercises for the week

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

Leg swings

Straight Leg Running

A-March to A-Skip progression

B-March to B-Skip progression

High Heels drill

Side stepping

Carioca

Strides whilst imaging a balloon attached to your head.

Tuesday Session

10 minute warm-up

4x 6 minutes @ 5km pace with 4 minute recoveries.

10 minute cool-down

Thursday Session

10 mins easy warm up including (extra) drills

4 x 400 @ 10km race pace – lots of recovery

10 mins Cool Down

Weekend Session

Cross-country or 9km at race pace in a muddy field.