January 3, 2012
With an indoor track meet looming this weekend, it was my job to give the kids a workout to help them succeed. I was glad for an indoor practice (blustery and frigid outside) but knew this one would hurt. (I think it's important that I never ask the kids to do something I am not willing to do.) I arrived at the track early. I sometimes prefer to run the workout and suffer alone. This also frees me up to actually "coach" as the kids tackle the task.
With an emphasis on alternate foot breathing every fifth step, consciously lowering shoulders upon exhale and running in stealth mode (no clunky steps), the workout followed a one mile easy run and ended with another easy mile. Here's how it looked:
- 1 mile warmup- easy
- 6 x 600 m at a perceived effort of 8/10
- Immediate active recovery 200m jog after each 600m followed by the next 600m upon reaching the start line
- 1 mile recovery run
Total miles: 5 miles
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4 comments:
Thank you - this is very helpful to read an example workout. This is one I need to try out!
Glad to be of help. I am coaching the kids for races 1000m - 3200m for indoor track so it's a bit different from training for ultras. But, the work on faster running is very helpful for overall fitness for me (and proves how slow I have gotten). :(
Glad to see you have the jog rest between each 600. Much better than standing and pacing around or even walking to the next starting point. That will certainly build their stamina (and yours!).
There's good research to prove that active recovery is much better than just grabbing knees or standing around.
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