It’s our first race week, and XC racing season has begun in earnest across the nation! We get to try out New Life’s new course by Falls Lake on Tuesday. It’ll be a medium-sized meet with plenty of competition, teams that we’ll see a lot this season, and I’m excited to see all the kids race. First race starts at 5pm - Coaches will arrive about 1hr early, and we suggest arriving at *least* 45min early to get warmed up, bib attached, and race ready. We’ll have the jerseys at Monday’s practice and at the race - don’t forget the black shorts. Please plan on cheering for all your teammates both before and after your race, we are a team! More info here: https://nc.milesplit.com/meets/631407-new-life-home-meet-2024
We had another good week of training. Monday was a ladder with both tempo and race efforts. Wednesday was a staple easy run with 40m internal sprints every quarter mile, and Thursday was a race specific track workout of 3x or 5x1000m. 1000’s at 5k race pace is one of those workouts your circle on the calendar. We can see the runners already seeing big improvements in their times from just a few weeks ago.
More Updates: Make sure to get your forms in before the race on Tuesday if you haven’t yet!
Varsity:
After a lot of back and forth over the months we were finally able to convince Adidas XC Challenge that we were eligible to race. Unfortunately, they then told us that the races are filled and we are waitlisted. I’ve told that the race director likes a full race, so if there is room he will get us in. I am optimistic, but we’ll let you know as soon as we know.
Training
We’ll go pretty easy on both Monday and Wednesday, with just a little speed & strength stimulus. On Thursday we are back at the track - We won’t be able to go again for a while because of the race schedule, so I want to get us to get a second 1600m time trail to see how we’ve improved.
We continue our move into race pace and VO2max work - It’s less than that eight weeks until the state meet, and generally you spend 6-8 weeks targeting VO2max. Most people see significant and near immediate gains in racing performance when targeting VO2max - but they begin to plateau and deteriorate past a certain point. It’s the icing on the cake - but you need to keep the aerobic and running economy “cake” in good shape. V02max is the maximum rate of oxygen you can consume & process - this is the lung busting work you think of when hitting the track. We’ll do sets of things from 400-1600m, usually with a 1-to-1 work to rest ratio. Here is Greg McMillian breaking down VO2 max work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WurIAmBZOfE
Monday
(Blackwood Farm Park, 8:05-9:15am)800WU, dynamics, skipsGame?Easy 20-30min with some short surges / hills to race effort to liven up the legs.
Tuesday
Race!
Wednesday
(Blackwood Farm Park, 8:05-9:00am)800m WU, dynamics20-30min run, ending with 5 x hills, (plyos?)
Thursday
(Old Northern Track 4:30-6pm)1mi WU, dynamics, skips, wickets2x strides to 90%1600m TT4-800M easy4x200m @800 race pace, walk/jog 200m in between4-800m cooldown
Friday
(Recommended for all to flush the legs!) Shakeout run - this is easier than easy.
V: 25-30min easy
JV:15-20min easy
Saturday
Long run with progressive finish. Remember, long runs should be easy, at conversational pace. The idea is just more time on the legs - building endurance, pushing the limits on your energy stores/sources. Make sure to eat some balanced nutrients after all runs - long runs in particular. There is research about how long the window is to re-fuel your cells after a workout… something like 30min-2hrs. I’m not any sort of medical or nutritional professional, I just encourage you to refuel quickly with not just carbs after working out!
V: 50-65min, finish with 10 minutes of progressing from “tempo”, or a bit easier than 5k race effort, and progress all the way down to 1mi race effort - it should feel like nearly an all out sprint for the last minute. We are learning to run hard on tired legs. It really shouldn’t feel all that bad - just open up your speed with whatever energy you have left. It’s an exhilarating type of exhaustion. I did one yesterday, it felt awesome.
JV: 30-45min - try to finish fast in the last 10min like varsity!
Sunday
Rest
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