Off week - training notes

Well this weekend we don't have any races. I think its a perfect week to not have a race. In my experience, we start to see little aches and pains about 3-4 weeks into the season, so I usually try to be cautious about this time of the year. We had a pretty good week of practice this week. We started with a Monday workout of some goal paced 1000's followed by a few 600's and a few 400's. Usually what we do during this workout is keep them in a controlled race pace rhythm and then quicken things up gradually with the 6's and 4's; all of it is done with short rest periods. The total distance covered is about 3/4 of the race distance. Good workout we are controlled and really find our race pace.

Wednesday, we went out and ran a hill workout which is something where we are continuously running. We did alternating mile repeats where the groups would run at a pace about a minute slower than goal pace the first mile then go right into goal pace for the next mile. The men continued this pattern for 8 miles and the women ran this for 6 miles. The entire course has hills with the major hills in the faster miles. This workout really helps them to work the hills and continue moving throughout the run. Alot of coaches think you need to run hill repeats to get in good hill work. I believe in running over rolling hills as it is more of what you will experience during a cross country race. Everybody did great during this workout and really had a fantastic day.

Thursday we did our shake-out morning run then came back in the afternoon for a game of continuous football, where we don't stop running for about 30 minutes, take a break then play the second half. Its a fun game where we get a little bit of running in. We needed a day like this after 3 hard weeks, to have a little fun.

Then this chilly morning we had a controlled fartlek day where everyone ran 3 min. hard, 2min hard, 1min hard x 3 with a 1min rest in between the whole workout. This is a purely effort based workout where we tell everyone to run at race pace on the 3min. and 2min. sections and then turn it over a little bit on the 1min section. Often as distance runners we become consumed with times, in our program, the most important thing is effort and place. That's a little insight into a week in our world. I will try to include things like this from time to time, to let people know how things are going and give you some insight into our overall philosophy. Check-in next week as we prepare for the large Brismann Lundeen meet in Rock Island, Ill.