Sorry for the delay on getting word out on this week. Barton is on this week as usual. Meeting at 7:10 in the downstairs / West / Statler side of the building, then moving up once we’re sure Cornell Track is finished up.
For this next month or so what’s recommended may differ with runners in different places on the season calendar. A number of you are getting into the final 2 - 4 weeks of your competitive indoor seasons. Given it takes a few weeks for there to be measurable physiological change in fitness,the hay is close to being in the barn for most of your indoor racing seasons. The focus should be what makes you feel confident, nothing that leaves you sore ahead of competition, but also not over-tapering. For those of you in that boat on focal competitions, let’s connect further in person to map that out.
For most of you I’d like to continue with V02 work. While we can’t get in some of the fuller benefits of VO2/Threshold/Tempo which would be longer sustained efforts (at least without our heads exploding from too many repetitive indoor circles), that’s still the stimulus that will reap the most benefit long term. Building the cardiopulmonary capacity, the energy producing physio, and with workouts that don’t risk leaving you needing a couple days to recover from a workout. Consistency wins over isolated epic workouts.
With that said, there is on occasion good reason for boss workouts that leave you exhausted and beat down. The benefit of those though is more on the mental side. It mixes it up, gives you the feeling of being tough, of accomplishing something, of being confident that you’ve put in the work. Those benefits are huge. But, they also carry higher risk of breaking down, of less consistent training, and ultimately strength and wellness. For those in a place where you’re feeling like you need one of those, I can give it, but in general it’ll be more of a one-off.
Last year at this point in the season I started shifting to shorter distance repeats. After a couple of weeks athletes commented feeling like they were missing the feeling of strength gained in longer repeats, even if longer can be a bigger mental lift. At that point I deviated from the map to start mixing longer stuff back in, and I think it was received well in feeling and confidence. So while it is often fun to do shorter reps, ladders, etc…, for Aerobic Monday’s I’m going to build on what we’ve been doing the past 8 weeks as I think it’s the best bang in gain and risk for your time.
Monday:
Mile easy / social warmup
Group dynamic drill set
Workout: Extended warm up: 1 x 1600 at Threshold, workout set 5 - 7 x 800 at V02.
Getting your targets:
For the 1600, go to the Vdot Calculator here, plug in your estimated mile race time, click enter, then look down for your threshold pace for a mile.
For the 800’s, click through to our training pyramid here. Select the 800 - 1600 tab at the bottom, enter your mile race time at the top, click enter. Your targets will be in Row 38, 200 splits in B38, recovery time in G38, and time in H38
Wednesday:
Two miles easy (inside or out) / social warmup
Group dynamic drill set
Options: 6 - 10 Max Velocity Fly’s on the straight or progressive 200’s ending at Max w/ full recovery.
One - two miles easy
Ian