FLRC Summer Speed workout Tuesday 5/23 at 6:30 PM at Stewart Park

FLRC’s Summer Speed workouts continue to grow, with 26 runners joining last week, as people figure out how to work the new time (6:30 PM) and location (Stewart Park) into their schedules. We’ll meet again at the bocce pits near the large pavilion—see the map below. We recommend parking on the side of the road directly across the field, but anywhere else you want is fine too.

For this week’s workout, we’re going to be doing Single File Surges, a classic cross-country team workout common in high school programs. In a couple of groups, depending on how many people we have and the range of paces, we’ll do three or four loops of the roughly 1-mile circuit around Stewart Park, running on the Waterfront Trail’s paved surface or on the grass next to it as desired.

After we regroup from the 10-minute warmup jog, the group will spread out into a single file with 5-10 feet between each person, running at a comfortable easy pace. The order of runners doesn’t matter. After everyone is in position, the person who is at the back of the line surges to the front, passing everyone in front of them on the left and then tucking into the head of the line after passing the last person. As soon as they’re in front, the new person at the back surges to the front, and so on. The surge pace should be quick—somewhere in the R pace to I pace range (1 mile to 5K race pace)—because each surge will be short and the intervening pace will be easy.

After finishing the workout, doing a cooldown loop in the Bird Sanctuary, and doing our strength and mobility exercises (which will start getting harder since everyone has adapted to what we’ve been doing—see this video for a sense of where we’re going), Tonya and I are getting dinner at Northstar House over in Fall Creek (202 E Falls Street, Ithaca, NY 14850) and everyone’s welcome to join us—they have outdoor seating under a canopy.

As always, all are welcome, and speed and experience are irrelevant, though you should be running enough that a distance of 3–4 miles isn’t problematic. The only requirements are that you must be an FLRC member and sign the FLRC Training Programs waiver once for 2023.

For those who haven’t come before, here’s how the workouts go:

  • 6:15–6:30: Arrive, change, mill around, chat with your friends.
  • 6:30–6:40: We do a lunge matrix and set of leg swings to start the warmup.
  • 6:40–6:50: 10 minutes of jogging before the rest of the workout.
  • 6:50–whenever: Meet at the starting point to go over the workout, break into pace groups, and run the workout. When you finish the workout, move into 10 minutes of jogging to cool down.
  • ~7:45: Reassemble as a group to do strength and mobility exercises. Bringing a towel or yoga mat can be helpful if the ground is wet or uncomfortable.
  • ~8:00: Chat with your friends, get changed, make dinner plans

See you Tuesday!

Resources

Sorry to miss this one - my older son has his first orchestra concert at the same time as our workout!

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