This week’s post is less about things outside the track I do to supplement training and more of what I physically do on a daily basis. My coach is a very schedule-oriented person which bodes well for me because so I am. I always know what kind of training day each day of the week will entail but typically not the specifics on workout days just because he likes to change our workouts based on how we are feeling that week.  This is what the mid-distance group can count on:

Mondays:

Mondays are steady run days. I had never ran a steady run before college, as I did about 2-3 hard workouts a week and the rest were shorter recovery jogs (20-35 minutes ish). A steady run is faster than a regular run pace and slower than a tempo run. For me, I’m the lowest mileage girl in the mid-distance/distance group so I do 6 miles on Mondays. My first 2 miles are easier-ish to get into the steady pace. This is anywhere from 7:10-7:40 to get into my steady pace depending on how I’m feeling (usually first mile around 7:40 and then get faster the second). I run this continuously, so straight into the next four miles. The next four miles are steady pace. Over the summer this meant 6:50-7:05 (my warmup miles were slower then too) but now I’m about 6:33-6:50 depending on how I’m feeling. The purpose of steady runs are to supplement the hard track workout we do on Tuesday. No single workout is designed for us to ‘reach the well’, but the two of these days combined as hard efforts are supposed to strengthen us aerobically and make us stronger.  After the steady run, we do strides. For the most part this means 3x150m strides, or 3x 30-30-30 buildups. I do my dynamic drills before the strides because changing up to a faster pace without warming myself up dynamically typically leaves me sore. After all the running is done, we do hurdle drills, hip mobility exercises, and core.

Tuesdays:

Track workout day! I really look forward to workout days because I always feel accomplished afterwards. The energy and camaraderie amongst the mid distance/distance girls is amazing and we support each other during each rep, in between, before, and after. Having training partners to push and pull me makes these days a lot easier than the typical hard days I used to do by myself in high school.

We always start out with a 20 minute warmup and drills and I end with a 10 minute cooldown.

An example of a speed workout is: 3x200m, 2x300m, 400m, 2x300m, 3x200m, long break, 3x200m. Each rep except for the 3×200 after the break is on a :35/200 pace and everything has 90 sec rest in between. The final 3×300 start at 30, then 28, then as fast as week can go. The last time we did this, I finished on a :26.

If we were to do a distance workout, an example is: 4x800m with 75 seconds rest in between. The 800s are on 2:40. We typically always end with something fast no matter what so we’d end with 3x200m cutdowns (get faster each rep).

We always lift on Tuesdays after practice. The thinking is make your hard day hard and your easy day easy.

Wednesdays:

Recovery day. Much needed and appreciated. I do 4 miles easy. In high school this was a joggg. Now it’s anywhere from 7:45-8:15 pace depending on how I feel.

Thursdays:

For everyone else in the mid-distance group it’s another steady run day. For me, doing two steady runs, 2 hard workouts, and a long run was too much at this point. I bet in future years I’ll be able to get there. For now, this is a longer and slightly faster (about ‘regular run pace’) recovery run. This is 5 miles typically from 7:20 to 7:40 pace per mile. On Thursdays, we lift for the second time.

Friday:

Track workout day #2! Depending on the day, it’ll be a speed day or distance day (examples above but there’s a whole slew of workouts we can do). If this is a meet week, then Friday would be pre-meet day. This entails 35 minutes easy to regular run pace, 3×200 @ :32, :30, :28, and lots of stretching.

Saturday:

Meet day or long run day. My long run is also the shortest long run in our group. I do 8 miles now. I actually look forward to long run days now. I listen to music, running for about an hour, and it’s a refreshing and nice way to start off my weekend. If we don’t meet for team practice on Saturday, I do this run right when I wake up so around 7:30-8 am. My runs go from about 7:13 to 7:30/mile average.

I run by myself whenever we do not have a track workout (so Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday). We all meet as a team either 2:30, 2:45, or 3:15 depending on the day, but I just go off my own way.  I enjoy running alone just because I have full control over the paces. Coming back from injury months ago, I struggled to keep up with my teammates and unnecessarily stressed my body so I started to run alone. I’ve just continued with it since and look forward to workout days when we all work together and push each other!

Last but not least, Sunday off day 🙂

*sorry for the longer post*