Picture courtesy of Barry Cornelius
Aaron and Dorian like cross-country but what was muddier?
Glos XC league at Wooton-under-Edge or English XC Championships at Nottingham
Please check the H&Sand sessions guidance, if you did not read January 11th's Blog.
Sessions
NB In light of ground conditions, you may find you need to base your pace on effort rather than speed, so run at the effort of your 5k rather than try and run at the speed of your 5k in the ice and snow.
Session 1 : “Gear Changer”
Suitable for all standards. It’s distance based.
Purpose of session : – Help practice your finishing kick! Also helps you to accelerate when you’re tired. It’s based around your 5k race pace. You should be “spent” at the end.
Warm up : for 10-15 minutes and finish with three 30-second sets of accelerations.
Efforts : * see last week's Blog for 5k pace description, noting comment above.
Rep 1 : Run 800m starting at your 5k pace. When you have done 700m, go flat out to the finish(100m). Jog/walk recovery of 3 to 4 minutes.
Rep 2 : Run 800m starting at your 5k pace. When you have done 600m, go flat out to the finish (200m). Jog/walk recovery of 3 to 4 minutes.
Rep 3 : Run 800m starting at your 5k pace. When you have done 500m, go flat out to the finish (300m). Jog/walk recovery of 3 to 4 minutes.
Rep 4 : Run 800m starting at your 5k pace. When you have done 400m, go flat out to the finish (400m).
Cool down : run for 10 to 15 minutes “easy” pace and do some static stretches to aid recovery, especially those for calf muscles, hamstrings, quads and glutes.
Session 2 : “Reducing Efforts Tempo Run”
Tempo should be run at a pace just a bit slower than your 10k race pace.
Easy pace should be about 33% (a third) slower than your Tempo pace, i.e. if running tempo at 4 minutes/km then easy is 5minutes 20s / km.
Warm up run at steady pace for 10 minutes and after 5 minutes include 3 sets of strides (about 30 seconds each)
Efforts :
1. Run for 15 minutes at your Tempo pace
2. Run 3 minutes at your Easy pace (not walking! – see pace guidance above)
3. Run for 10 minutes at your Tempo pace
4. Run 3 minutes at your Easy pace
5. Run for 5 minutes at your Tempo pace
Cool down : as per Session 1
Have fun with them and stay healthy.