It’s the week before the first race, and the last day of the Olympics! We had another great week of practice, culminating with a big track set of 800s tempo intervals with low rest on Wednesday morning. This is the WEEK before our first race, and please note that the meet has been moved UP two days to Tuesday, August 20th. The new location looks *beautiful* in the photos I’ve seen, a mostly flat gravel single loop course that goes along Falls Lake.
There are a lot of updates and reminders as we close in on the season start:We’ve moved back practice at Blackwood Farm Park by 5 minutes to let the park open the gate open before we arrive. If you show up at 8-8:05am that is perfect.
Tim sent out info for Gatorade on race day volunteering - please help us get that filled out!
Uniforms are ordered and we’ll have them by end of next week. Don’t forget that you must have black shorts for the races - many races are extremely strict about this and won’t let you race if you don’t match your team.
Varsity runners/parents: I am hoping to field both men’s and women’s teams at the Adidas XC Challenge in Cary at WakeMed, September 21st (Saturday). It’s one of the fastest XC festivals in the Southeast and a fun morning of, watching and joining in, fast racing. I’ve heard back from more than half, all positive, so I think we are going to be able to do it - reach out to me about it if you haven’t yet, please! It should be a fun day (and all can come, they also have a youth race that we won’t compete in as a team, but you can join if interested!).Training
We continue to shift our focus towards improving our threshold speed and endurance, while also continuing aerobic, strength, and form work. We will add some race pace work this week since our first race is just a week out (one week earlier this year)! One thing that you need to develop in running is multiple "gears" - the ability to change speed, and to perform at different paces. Many runners get stuck with just one grey zone "gear" because they train at only one speed (usually too fast), and then they don't end up racing well.
Did you see Cole Hocker show his gears in the 1500!?! He has the best closing speed the track world has ever seen, and boy is it fun to watch!
One of my favorite training calculators and general training resources is https://www.mcmillanrunning.com/. As you advance as a runner the calculator can really help you nail down appropriate training paces for different types of workouts from easy to tempo to sprinting.
Monday
(Blackwood Farm Park, 8:05-9:15am)800WU, dynamics Ladder: 1min hard/1min easy (1mi race effort), 2/2 (3k race effort), 3/3 (5k race effort), Varsity 4/4 (Tempo effort), and back down. Plyos
Tuesday
(Optional)JV: 15-25min including 3x 20s surgesV: 30-40min easy including 5x 20s surges at 1mi race pace
Wednesday
(Blackwood Farm Park, 8:05-9:15am)800m WU, dynamics, skips 35min run w/ internal 40yd sprints or hills
Thursday
(Old Northern Track 4:30-6pm)1mi WU, dynamics, skips, wickets Varsity: 5x1000m @ slightly faster than 5k goal pace, 200m jog and 3-4min rest JV: 3x1000m @ 3k goal pace. with 200m jog on 3-4min rest.(See pace chart on training spreadsheet, talk to coaches about goal paces) CD 400-800. 4x150m fast/faster/fastest. CD 800-1mi.
Friday
(Recommended for all to flush the legs!) Shakeout V: 25-30min easy JV:15-20min easy
Saturday
Long run. V: 50-65min w/ 5x30s surges to 5k effort - always do your surges in the second half of your run. JV: 25-40min easy run - just get out and run!
Sunday(optional)Catchup / easy run.
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