Week 1 Training Plan: 8/31--9/6

This week encompasses the end of pre-season and the beginning of school. The pre-season start time of 3:30 will change to the regular routine of practice starting at 2:30 on Wednesday. While last week's practices were comprised mainly of just steady running, this week features two days with training that's more structured, focused, and of a higher overall intensity. In addition, note that due to the forecast for temperatures pushing 90 degrees on Monday, I'm changing things around such that we'll be visiting the Town Beach on Monday rather than Tuesday. While everyone will meet at the high school to start, some people will be finishing up at the beach with aqua jogging and should arrange to be picked up there. These are the people who haven't had as much training under their belts during the summer. If you're not sure if this applies to you send me a note or ask me at the start of practice.

Here's the day by day breakdown:

• Monday 8/31 - medium length run plus 15-20 minutes aqua jogging. Medium length here means anywhere from 25 to 55 minutes depending on the person. Overall intensity of 5 or 6 on a scale of 1 to 10. Everyone will meet at the school at 3:30, and hill drills will be making their first appearance of the season as well (hold your applause). Some people will be running back to the school from the lake; those that have less summer training and have been running less volume thus far in practice will be picked up at the pond. It will be hot today, please remember to bring your water bottle.

• Tuesday 9/1 - 10 minute warmup, timed repeats at 80% effort, 10 minute cool down jog. After meeting at 3:30 and doing the team warmup, we'll be heading over to the intersection of the Weston aqueduct and Herland Road, which will be the starting point for the workout. Everyone will be running timed repeats with relatively short recoveries; the idea is to run at an exertion level that's a notch below race intensity. The length of the repeats will be either 2, 3, or 4 minutes, with 1 minute, 90 seconds, or 2 minutes recovery respectively. The number of repeats will vary from person to person, overall the goal is to have the entire workout, including warmup and cool down, add up to a length of time fairly similar to yesterday. It goes without saying that a timed workout such as this requires a timekeeping device; if you have a watch with stopwatch or better yet countdown timer function, please bring it. While we do have a supply of wrist watches for use, there aren't enough to go around.

• Wednesday 9/2 - Longer run, out and back along the Hultman aqueduct. With the resumption of school, the warmup will start at 2:30. After that we'll do a brief round of introductions and then head out east along the aqueduct, accessing it from Maiden Lane. Today's run should be 30-50% longer than Monday's, i.e 35-70 minutes depending on the person. The pace should be quite easy and relaxed at the start, 3 or 4 on a scale of 1-10, and gradually picking up to 8 for the last 5-10 minutes of the run.

Thursday 9/3 - 10-20 minute warmup, circuits, 5-10 minute cool down. More details will be forthcoming on the circuit workout, but in general it will consist of 8 different stations of 3 exercises followed closely by a run of 200 or 300 meters at an intensity level of 9. Each of these runs is followed by a very short jog before going directly into the next station of 3 exercises. We'll be doing this on the track once a week for the month of September, and it'll be the only type of workout we'll be doing on the track this season.

Friday 9/4 - With no school today, there's no organized practice at the usual time. For those that are interested, there'll be an optional practice on the Lincoln trails at 3:45 in the afternoon. This is located at 145 Lincoln Road, and is the site we visited last fall for our optional Saturday practices. If there had been school and a regularly scheduled practice session, it would have been a repeat of Monday's practice with a mix of running and aqua jogging. If you can do this or something like this on your own at any point during the day that would be great. If your family's plans make that impossible for this particular day but you can do it on another day this weekend then do that instead.

Saturday 9/5, Sunday 9/6 - These two days and Monday 9/7 are of course part of the Labor Day holiday weekend. The plan I'd like for you to follow is as follows: one day of running at an intensity between 5 and 7 on a scale of 1-10, one day of cross training somewhere in the neighborhood of an hour, and one day off.

We'll reconvene on Tuesday with a busy week that will include the distribution of uniforms, a team shopping night at Marathon Sports in Wellesley on Wednesday 9/9 (20% off all purchases) and the first meet of the season on Saturday 9/12 in Newburyport.