Key Workout Archives - High School Running Coach

Mark Lacianca – Key Workout

The Workout

Cruise Intervals – 6 x 800, 8 x 800, 8 x 1000 (depending on the age and fitness of the runner)

I prefer the cruise intervals over the tempo runs for most high school runners; it is a great team building workout and the workout is set up for everyone to succeed.

The Summer

Prior to the first time our team runs this workout, there is a slow summer build-up of mileage. This workout is not attempted until our team has maxed out our minutes of running.

The Varsity Workout

Our top runners will run 8 x 1000 with 40 – 62 seconds of rest. The different rest allows us to run our top 7 – 10 runners together, and gives the runners some flexibility to adjust their practice based on how their body responds. We are fortunate to have a grass campus with some room to run, and our track is circled by our cross country course. The breakdown of the 8 x 1000 workout is the first six 1000’s are on the course, and the last two 1000’s are on the track (standing recovery between all intervals). All of our workouts are “waterfall run” — run slow to fast, meaning that we always run our final intervals at a greater speed than our initial intervals.

The Specifics [Read more…]

by Jay Johnson

Scott Bliss – Key Workout

Here is an example one of the staples of our xc training. It is kind of a combo of taking stuff from Scott Simmons book “Taking the Lead” and a workout I found in one of the running magazines done by one of the elites. We are trying to simulate a number of the things that they will experience in a race. We call it a combo workout and it includes three different training stimulus in the workout.

Warm up drills – lunge matrix, leg swings and dynamic warmup

Running warmup 15 minutes

First segment 10 minutes at tempo pace – we have a 1000 meter grass loop that is rolling that we will do this on for the full 10 minutes. We can change where we are doing this based on what we are wanting to accomplish with the tempo. This is followed by about a 4-5 minute jog down to where we will do hill repeats.

The second segment is hills and they will be determined by what race is coming up and what we want them to get out of the hills. We have a medium length stair step style climb, a shorter section with 2 hills that we call the “figure 8 hills” because they allow them to climb and then recover down to the next climb and they just keep doing them and it is basically in the shape of a figure 8 and then we have a much longer, hard hill that will do near our state meet. We again then jog for about 4-5 minutes to the last piece.

The third segment is very similar to strides to simulate the end of a race. We want them to change gears when they tired from the rest of the workout to feel what it feels like to do that when they are fatigued.

Cool down 15 minutes and any after practice work we will do if any.

by Jay Johnson

Jonathan Dalby – Key Workout

Warm-up: Dynamic Stretching followed by 10-15 mins of easy running and 4-6 strides.

Workout: 2-5 x 1 mile w/ 800 at Tempo pace, 400m at 5K effort, 400 back at tempo. 2 mins rest between.
Followed by some short sprint work. Something like 5-6×10 sec hills all-out w/3 mins rest, or 2×80,2×100,2×120 w/3 mins rest.

Cool-Down: 10 mins of easy running followed by either light hurdle mobility and/or plyo work. Finish w/ 5 to 10 mins of dynamic flexibility. Some athletes throw on some additional static stretching if they choose to.

We use workouts like this when the kids have an important race late in the season and we are trying to maintain fitness. If the race is on Friday, we might do this workout on Tuesday. However, we have done this with only a day of rest between the workout and race w/ great results. We just had to reduce the volume a little.

The volume usually depends on the age of the athlete, and the importance of the race. Our freshman/low volume kids typically only do 2×1 mile, where the older kids can do 4 or 5. Before a race like the League Championships our older kids might do 5 of these as the only workout that week, knowing the race itself counts as the most important effort of the week. Before state or NXRSW we might only do 3 of these w/ 2 or 3 days of rest after.

The short hill sprints at the end of the workout are there to help keep their speed up. Late in the year they have already developed a nice base of speed hopefully, and the short hills are to make sure that they do not loose that.

I have found that the kids usually bounce back very quickly from this workout, and walk away feeling pretty good from the effort. As a coach, I like to watch and make sure they are not pushing too hard, especially on the tempo portions of the workout. It is important to not let the kids get carried away with this workout if you want them feeling good for an important race.

by Jay Johnson

Dan Iverson – Key Workout

The 10-mile Run

This is a staple of our summer program. It’s a pretty simple workout — it’s a 10-mile run, after all. We revolve our summer program around this workout. It seems crazy simple, I know, but the beauty of it is that it is so adaptable for so many kids.

For our freshmen, it piques their interest. We start at five miles. For them, that’s the most they’ve ever done. So they do it and feel pretty good about themselves. then, we go to six miles, and seven, and eight… Obviously, we end up for the last month of summer doing 10-milers every Monday. The freshmen get to go farther than they ever went before. Sometimes, it’s pretty slow, but it opens their minds to new volumes of what they can accomplish. It’s truly awesome to see our new kids see how much they can do!

For our experienced kids, we preach this as not a feat of length, but of intensity. [Read more…]