It’s going to be another hot one, with the forecast showing the wet bulb globe temperature edging into the orange range in our draft race and workout cancellation guidelines, so be sure to bring plenty of water. We’ll be running in the shade, and you can stop at any time if the heat gets to you.
Meet on Tuesday night at 6 PM at the parking area in the bowl of the F. R. Newman Arboretum in the Cornell Botanic Gardens (Google Maps pin) and be ready to start the warmup at 6:15 PM in the sculpture garden. Invite your friends and new grad students!
Everyone is welcome, though you must sign the FLRC Training Programs waiver once for 2025—many regulars still need to do this, since the Cornell waiver for indoor track was separate—and, if you come regularly, be an FLRC member. You don’t have to run the PGXC series—the workouts are great social running on their own—but we’ll try to recruit you. Probably repeatedly.
For the workout, after we do dynamic warmups and 10 minutes of jogging, we’re going to do surging grass loops in the Arbor Road field below where we meet (see the image below for the workout location and locations of additional parking spots). We’ll reconvene at the top of the Arbor Road loop. I’ll assign everyone to one of two groups by rough pace/weekly mileage, and each group will start running around the loop.
I’ll start the workout by blowing a whistle. Group A will surge to 5K race pace, while Group B will continue to run at a conversational pace. After 15 to 60 seconds, I’ll blow the whistle again, at which point Group A drops to conversational pace and Group B surges to 5K pace. Every subsequent time I blow the whistle, the groups will swap paces. We’ll keep this up for 15-20 minutes or until it seems like people have had enough—the reps are short, so they shouldn’t be too taxing. But with lots of people on the relatively short loop (and plenty of places to cut short if you want—it’s about time, not distance), there should be some fun group chaos.
The goal of this workout is to help you learn how to run at different paces and to change gears as necessary in a race to pass someone on a turn, extend a lead on a straightaway, or kick into the finish. You never know when you’ll need to surge in a race, so the random nature of the timing will help your legs learn to respond as needed, rather than at a specified time or distance.
Any questions? See you Tuesday night!
Resources
- Administration: You must be an FLRC member and sign the 2025 waiver!
- Location: All XC workouts take place at the F. R. Newman Arboretum in the Cornell Botanic Gardens east of the Cornell Vet School
- Parking: There’s plenty of parking in the Arboretum; latecomers have to park farther from the warmup area.
- Warmup: Jay Johnson’s Lunge Matrix and Leg Swings, then 10 minutes of jogging
- Cooldown: Jogging until everyone’s done, then Jay Johnson’s Strength and Mobility
- Pace Calculator: Jack Daniels’ VDOT Running Calculator