Week 6 (Week 2 in person) Training Schedule - 9/28-10/4

A few housekeeping items first:

- There is no organized practice on Monday. If you're not observing the holiday you have the option of running on your own (see below) but it's not required. 

- The mask brackets have arrived and will be distributed starting on Tuesday. These brackets should make it easier to breathe while running with a mask on. The mask bracket is yours to keep; if you lose it it's up to you to replace it.

- The forecast is for a lot of rain on Wednesday; this alone won't cancel practice (see Team Policies and FAQ). Please be prepared with dry clothes in your gym bag. In event of rain we'll meet under the bleachers instead of sitting on them. 

-In advance of the first meet of the season which is on Saturday, uniforms will be distributed this week after practice. In order to receive a uniform, the user fee must be paid or a waiver approved. 

Monday 9/28 - No scheduled practice. If you're not observing the holiday today you can go on a short run or cross training workout on your own if you like, as follows:

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

Tuesday 9/29 - Team 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)

This week and next week will feature the longest long runs of the season, measured by the length of time you'll be running. For today, after spending the first part of the run touring the revised, social distancing friendly home course, I'd like for people to head out along the Weston Aqueduct towards Framingham. New athletes on the girls team will have a brief meeting after practice to discuss racing tactics and pacing.

Wednesday 9/30 - Team warmup including burpees followed by a short run at a mostly easy to moderate intensity including hill drills. 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

New athletes on the boys team will have a brief meeting after practice to discuss racing tactics and pacing.

Thursday 10/1 - Team warmup followed by a warmup jog (5-10 minutes), then 2-4 sets of 4x400 meter repeats at "CV pace" (85-90% effort) with 100 meter jog recoveries. After the fourth 400 of each set, there is a 200 meter jog then a 200 meter repeat at or faster than race pace (hard to intense). Then a 2-3 minute recovery before the next set. Finally, after all sets are completed, a cooldown jog. In total, including warmup and cooldown jogs, the amount of time running should come out to

Level 1 - 30 minutes

Level 2 - 40 minutes

Level 3 - 50 minutes

Level 4 - 60 minutes

Friday 10/2 - Team warmup including burpees followed by a short length run at mostly an easy effort. Save the last 8-10 minutes of the run for two sets of short intervals on top of the aqueduct.

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

Saturday 10/3 - Meet #1 vs. Weston. More information including time schedule, lineups and a course map will be published on this site by Friday morning.  Remember today should be a medium length day in terms of total running time, including warmup and cooldown. This breaks down as follows:

Level 1: 28-32 minutes
Level 2: 36-40 minutes
Level 3: 43-47 minutes
Level 4: 52-56 minutes

Sunday 10/4 - off. Those who were observing the holiday on Monday have the option of doing a short run or workout on their own, as follows:

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

Week 5 Training Schedule - 9/21-9/27, and shoes, and mask update

The first full week of practice is a busy one, and includes the eagerly anticipated first appearance of the prize bag and the only scheduled practice at Lincoln on Saturday (this is an optional practice). First a few housekeeping issues, this will be a long post but the information needs to be put out there:

- Practice Time: unless otherwise noted (see Saturday), practice will start at 3:30 PM. More on the length of practice can be found in the Team Policies and FAQ document under Useful LInks on the right. 

- Shoes: In the past, the team has had an optional "Spike Night" at Marathon Sports in Wellesley where WHS team members got a 20% diiscount on all purchases. Among the running related items for sale at this store are training shoes, accessories, and racing shoes, AKA "spikes" because they can accommodate metal spike elements in the sole for better traction on race courses. Race shoes are not a requirement for participation, and Spike Night was never a mandatory event. However if you need a new pair of shoes, socks, hydration tablets, sunglasses, clothes, even racing shoes it might be worth your while. There is no specific night for each participating school this year like there has been in the past. Instead, for this week only they will be offering a 20% discount on purchases by high school runners. I assume this applies to all locations throughout the area and not just the one in Wellesley. Note that the Wellesley location is a small store with limited occupancy and they will most likely have you wait in line outside on the sidewalk until there’s room inside.

- Masks: Board of Health regulations stipulate masks must be worn at all times while on school grounds. On the first day of practice there were athletes who encountered difficulty with running at anything faster than a jog while breathing through a mask, with the mask fabric collapsing inward and obstructing breathing. Most of the home course is on school grounds and I have no expectation of the Board of Health modifying their policy; in the meantime we're actively pursuing various options. One intriguing possibility is wearing a mask bracket under the mask to create space between the mouth and nose and the mask itself. This would prevent the mask material from collapsing and obstructing breathing when inhaling. While nothing has yet been decided it's possible we will purchase brackets for team members to wear under their masks. More details to come. In the meantime if you'd like to have a bracket of your own feel free to order whatever looks best, they're typically not that expensive. 

- Pods: Finally before getting to the week's training, a reminder that the pods need to be named no later than Thursday of this week. The members of the pod with the best name will be rewarded at practice on Friday. The composition of each pod is listed in the post preceding this one. 

Now, the training plan for the week:

Monday 9/21 - Team warmup routine followed by cyclic long run. Remember the pattern is to do the first segment at an easy intensity, the next segment at a fresh/moderate intensity, and the next segment after that at a "good" intensity. On a scale of 1-10, the effort would be 3-5-7 or 4-6-8. The easy/fresh/good cycle gets repeated three more times over the course of the entire run. Level by level it looks like this:

Level 1: 36 minutes (3 minute segments)
Level 2: 48 minutes (4 minute segments)
Level 3: 60 minutes (5 minute segments)
Level 4: 72 minutes (6 minute segments)

The site for this run will start out along the Hultman Aqueduct for all groups. There will be at least one water stop for everyone. At every water stop and road crossing where you stop running, be sure to stop your watch as well. Many of you will run out and back along this prominent landscape feature; Level 4 athletes have the option of visiting some trails near the Aqueduct in the Wayland/Weston town line area.

Tuesday 9/22 - Team warmup including burpees followed by a short run at a mostly easy to moderate intensity. Ideally the pace of the run should pick up gradually in the second half, but not to a crazy degree. Total length of the run today is as follows:

Level 1: 20-25 minutes
Level 2: 25-30 minutes
Level 3: 35-40 minutes
Level 4: 45-50 minutes

Wednesday 9/23 - Team warmup then Tempo run. The plan is to split the overall length of the run into three equal parts by time--a warmup segment to start, the tempo segment in the middle, then a cooldown segment at the end. The warmup should start easy and gradually work up to a moderate effort. The cooldown should be easy. The tempo segment in the middle should be run at a 7.5-8 out of 10 effort level. The overall length of the run will be as follows:

Level 1 - 25-30 minutes

Level 2 - 35-40 minutes

Level 3 - 45-50 minutes

Level 4 - 55-60 minutes

The site of this workout is TBD, but I can say it won't be on campus. 

Thursday 9/24 - Team 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: 20-25 minutes
Level 2: 25-30 minutes
Level 3: 35-40 minutes
Level 4: 45-50 minutes

Friday 9/25 - Team warmup followed by a medium length run at an easy effort for those planning on going to the practice in Lincoln tomorrow. Those not planning on being at Lincoln tomorrow will do the following:

Timed repeats of 3 minutes in length. Each repeat should follow this pattern: first two minutes "CV pace," next minute at race pace (hard). The CV pace is the same 85-90% effort you were running on the track last Friday. Race pace should be 90-95% effort. The recovery after each repeat is 3 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)

We'll do this workout on the fields on either side of the football field/track area, where much of the home course is as well. 

Sat 9/26 - For those attending the practice in Lincoln, meet at the Lincoln Station parking lot (address 145 Lincoln St. Lincoln MA) at 9 AM. From there we'll jog over to the field next to Mt. Misery and do the workout listed below (the same workout the rest of the team did yesterday):

Timed repeats of 3 minutes in length. Each repeat should follow this pattern: first two minutes "CV pace," next minute at race pace (hard). The CV pace is the same 85-90% effort you were running on the track last Friday. Race pace should be 90-95% effort. The recovery after each repeat is 3 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)

For those who did the timed repeats yesterday, a medium length easy recovery run, don't push the pace at all this is active recovery today. Cross training is an option for those who haven't run as much during the summer. Overall length for this workout:

Level 1 - 25-30 minutes

Level 2 - 35-40 minutes

Level 3 - 45-50 minutes

Level 4 - 55-60 minutes

Sunday 9/27 - off

Schedule, Practice Guidelines and Pods

First, word has come down from the DCL Athletic Directors regarding the schedule of meets for this fall; this schedule can be seen in the sidebar to the right. October will be a busy month with meets on all five Saturdays. There's the possibility of a DCL Championship meet as well but the specifics of that remain hazy. Stay tuned for further details, we hope to know more within a week or two. Know that the start of this season has been like figuring out how to fly a plane while it's taxiing down the runway. 

Tomorrow's first day of practice will start at 3:30; this is the typical start time for practice during the week for now. We're looking into possibly adjusting the start time on Wednesdays but a decision hasn't been made yet. Tomorrow we'll meet briefly in the same area where we met last year, near the corner of the upper parking lot, and then quickly move over to the bleachers for announcements. 

 With the first day of practice fast approaching it's necessary to share important details about how practice will be conducted. To that end I've written a list of guidelines that needs to be read by every athlete and parent in advance of the start of the season. This document serves as a complement to a similar document that will be shared by Mr. Rollins, the WHS Athletic Director. The version I'm sharing here has some information specific to our sport.

One of the items addressed in the guidelines is the fact that the teams will broken into pods. There are two pods for each team. The pods will be as follows:

Girls:

One pod will be Calder, Han, Javed, Kim, Korzeniowski and Tobe

the other pod will be Ciasullo, Grieco, Liu, G. Marto, E. Mente, J. Mente, O'Donnell, and Snyder

Boys:

One pod will be Bonanno, Billy Caddoo, Duffy, Goode, Li, Z. Marto, Morris, Mui and Schilp

the other pod will be Blackburn, Ben Caddoo, Creavin, Frank, Grossman, Jay, Lieb, Morrison, and Narvaez

The pods currently don't have names; there will of course be a naming contest. 

Finally, the practice on Friday will be streamlined such that we're done no later than 5:30, some will be done earlier than that. Attendance at this practice is not mandatory, particularly if you're observing Rosh Hashanah and the timing of the practice conflicts with your plans. There are no consequences for not being at Friday's practice. 

Week 4 pre-season (transition) training schedule - 9/14-9/20

 Most noteworthy about this week of course is the fact that (at long last) in-person practice will resume on Friday the 18th. This is a topic that will get its own post on this website in the next few days, as there's a fair amount of details to go over. 

Regarding the training this week, the plan for those who have been training through the summer months is to decrease the overall amount of training, a concept known as a "down week." This is way of giving yourself an opportunity to absorb the training you've done over the past few weeks and hopefully avoid staleness, illness, and/or injury. For those who are still getting their legs under them and haven't been running as much over the summer, it's best to stick to doing 3 or 4 runs including Friday's practice. 

This week most of you should hopefully be doing a total of five runs (or mix of runs and cross training workouts) with two days off. The breakdown of the workouts is laid out below. Note the different length of the workouts depending on your level of experience (Level 1-4). These levels are explained in the "Breakdown" tab of the summer training spreadsheet.

2 short runs - for Level 1 athletes these should be 20-25 minutes in length; Level 2, 25-30 minutes; Level 3, 30-35 minutes, and Level 4 should be at 40-50 minutes. If you're feeling good you can pick up the pace a bit in the final 5-10 minutes of the run.

2 medium length runs - Level 1 - 25-30 minutes, Level 2 - 35-40 minutes, Level 3 - 45-50 minutes, Level 4 - 55-60 minutes. One of the two medium length runs will be Friday's practice, which will include a series of repeats on the (newly resurfaced) track. More details on that will follow. The other medium length run, i.e. the one that isn't Friday, should include a series of 4-6 pickups of 15-20 seconds in the second half of the run. These should be fast but not all out, and give yourself enough time after each one of them (at least a minute) to catch your breath. 

1 long run - Level 1- 36 minutes, Level 2 - 48 minutes, Level 3 - 60 minutes, Level 4 - 72 minutes. We alternate between doing Progressive Long Runs (PLRs) and Cyclic Long Runs (CLRs). This week is a PLR which means you should be gradually picking up the pace over the course of the run, starting out easy, picking it up after a time to a good pace, and then picking it up again to a "fresh" pace before the final few minutes back to an easy clip. It's fine to take a brief break once or twice during the run, just be sure to stop your watch while you've stopped. A more thorough breakdown of how the long run is structured can be found in the "long run breakdown" tab of the summer training spreadsheet. 

Week 3 pre-season (transition) training schedule - 9/7-9/13

 Before the week's training outline, a couple of notes:

- If you haven't registered and/or submitted a training log from the summer, please do so. Some people have done one or the other of these two things. A link to the WHS Athletics registration page is the first item in the "Useful Links" sidebar just to the right. Athletes who are new to the team aren't required to hand in a log from the summer but are welcome to do so if they've been keeping track of their training; everyone who submits a log is eligible for the various prize incentives described in the summer training guidelines. Returning athletes are required to submit a training log.

- The fall sport coaches will be having a meeting with the Athletic Director on Tuesday afternoon. If anything particularly noteworthy or critical comes out of that meeting it will be shared on this website. 

This week follows a similar overall pattern as the last two. Originally, this was to be the week with the first meet, the regrettably canceled Clipper Relays. In its place I'd like for you to do a tempo run which is NOT a simulated race or time trial; more details below. The meet would have been on Saturday; you can do the tempo run on whichever day you like, but not the day before or after the long run or timed repeats. 

It's worth noting that the guidelines below are written for someone that's been training consistently over the summer months. If you're new to the team and the sport and/or haven't been able to train as much as what's listed below you should scale back the training to 3 or 4 runs in the week instead of 6. Try to do a longer run and a couple of shorter runs if this applies to you. Finally, if you can please start off each day's workout with the lunge matrix and leg swings.

This week you should hopefully be doing a total of six runs (or mix of runs and cross training workouts) with a day off. The breakdown of the workouts is laid out below. Note the different length of the workouts depending on your level of experience (Level 1-4). These levels are explained in the "Breakdown" tab of the summer training spreadsheet.

3 short runs - for Level 1 athletes these should be 20-25 minutes in length; Level 2, 25-30 minutes; Level 3, 30-35 minutes, and Level 4 should be at 40-50 minutes.

2 medium length runs - Level 1 - 25-30 minutes, Level 2 - 35-40 minutes, Level 3 - 45-50 minutes, Level 4 - 55-60 minutes. One of these two medium length runs should include a series of 4-6 sets of running 2 minutes at pace somewhere between "good" and race pace with a 1 minute jog between each. Note the adjustment in pace here--the length of the repeats and the recovery jogs is such that you shouldn't try to run the repeats at race pace. After completing the 2 minute repeats, finish things off with 4-6 shorter faster repeats of 30 seconds at race pace with a 1 minute recovery between them. A description of how to approach the timed repeats can be found in the "workout descriptions" tab of the summer training spreadsheet. 

The other medium run should be a tempo run. For this workout the goal is to be running at an "uncomfortably sustainable" pace for about one third of the length of the overall run. This is done in the middle third of the run; the first third is a warmup, the final third is a cooldown. Level 1 should aim for a 10 minute tempo run; Level 2, 12 minutes: Level 3, 15 minutes; and Level 4, 20 minutes. If done properly, you should finish the tempo run feeling like you could have gone further at that pace if you had to. The pace of the tempo run should be similar to what you do in the "good" phase of the long run. It's better to start a bit too slow than a bit too fast! If you finish the tempo segment and still feel frisky, feel free to do 3 or 4 20 second pickups during the cooldown phase.

1 long run - Level 1- 36 minutes, Level 2 - 48 minutes, Level 3 - 60 minutes, Level 4 - 72 minutes. We alternate between doing Progressive Long Runs (PLRs) and Cyclic Long Runs (CLRs). This week is a CLR which means you should be changing gears between an easy (40% effort), fresh (60%), and good (80%) effort. It's fine to take a brief break once or twice during the run, just be sure to stop your watch while you've stopped. A more thorough breakdown of how this is done can be found in the "long run breakdown" tab of the summer training spreadsheet. 

Since we're not meeting in person, you have some flexibility in how you structure your week. That said I would avoid doing the timed repeats and long run on consecutive days, and in general it's best to alternate the medium and long runs with the short runs. The weather this week is generally favorable for running in the afternoon if that's what you prefer, although it might be a little hot on Tuesday afternoon. In general the morning is even better if your schedule allows for it.