Week 4 Training Plan, 9/16-9/22

This week features the first of four dual meets that are contested with other schools in the Dual County League. With that meet on Wednesday, the long run will be on Monday and the other major workout of the week will be either Friday or Saturday depending on your availability. The length of the short, medium and long run days remain the same as last week.

Mon 9/16 - warmup followed by progressive long run. The pattern we follow for the PLR is first third easy, next quarter "fresh"/moderate, next quarter "good" and the final sixth easy again. In practice it will shake out as follows:

Level 1: 42 minutes (15 minutes easy - 10 minutes fresh - 10 minutes good - 7 minutes easy)
Level 2: 54 minutes (18 minutes easy - 13.5 minutes fresh - 13.5 minutes good - 9 minutes easy)
Level 3: 66 minutes (22 minutes easy - 16.5 minutes fresh - 16.5 minutes good - 11 minutes easy)
Level 4: 78 minutes (26 minutes easy - 19.5 minutes fresh - 19.5 minutes good - 13 minutes easy)

Tue 9/17 - warmup including burpees followed by a short run. All new athletes will attend a talk on the optimal approach to pacing in races before warming up and doing the day's workout. We will be referencing this article by Steve Lane, former boys coach at CCHS. Returning athletes are welcome to attend the talk as well, although it's not necessary if you're already familiar with the topic The total time for today's run, not including the time spent doing the drills, is as follows:

Level 1: 22-26 minutes
Level 2: 26-30 minutes
Level 3: 32-36 minutes
Level 4: 42-46 minutes

Wed 9/18 - Dual Meet #1 vs. Westford Academy and Weston at Burchard Field in Weston. More information on this meet will be forthcoming in a subsequent post. Today is a medium length day in terms of how much running you should be doing overall. The bus will (hopefully) arrive at 2:30 and we plan on being on the road by 2:45. We should return around 6:00.

Thu 9/19 - warmup including burpees followed by a short run incorporating hill drills. In all likelihood we'll do the drills on Wallace Road. Total length of the run today is as follows:

Level 1: 22-26 minutes
Level 2: 26-30 minutes
Level 3: 32-36 minutes
Level 4: 42-46 minutes

Fri 9/20 - warmup followed by a medium length run at an easy effort or else the following workout:

Timed repeats of 3 minutes in length. Each repeat should follow this pattern: first minute good, next 90 seconds hard, final 30 seconds intense. The recovery after each repeat is 2.5 minutes of very easy jogging/fast walking. Number of reps as follows:

Level 1: 4 reps (warmup and cooldown of 5-6 minutes apiece)
Level 2: 5 reps (warmup and cooldown of 5-6 minutes apiece)
Level 3: 6 reps (warmup and cooldown of 6-8 minutes apiece)
Level 4: 6 reps (warmup and cooldown of 8-10 minutes apiece)

Sat 9/21 - either a medium length run at an easy effort (on your own), or else the following workout at Lincoln on the field loop near Mt. Misery:

Timed repeats of 3 minutes in length. Each repeat should follow this pattern: first minute good, next 90 seconds hard, final 30 seconds intense. The recovery after each repeat is 2.5 minutes of very easy jogging/fast walking. Number of reps as follows:

Level 1: 4 reps (warmup and cooldown of 5-6 minutes apiece)
Level 2: 5 reps (warmup and cooldown of 5-6 minutes apiece)
Level 3: 6 reps (warmup and cooldown of 6-8 minutes apiece)
Level 4: 6 reps (warmup and cooldown of 8-10 minutes apiece)

Sun 9/22 - off