On Monday, January 30, MVTF will meet for our first practice of the 2023 season. That is only four weeks from today! It is easy to forget how fast time can go by, especially when you have finals and holidays and other things that chew up the hours and days.
New Years resolutions can be hard–or meaningless–a year is so long. However, a month? That is a time period we can work with! Here are some suggestions for your next four weeks of running that can help you have a satisfying and successful track season.
- Consistent mileage. Give yourself a goal to run consistently all month long. If all you can set aside is 90 minutes, four days a week, then try to do something like that every week in January, maybe increase a bit each week if you can find the time. If you have bigger goals and running is important to you, then try to run six days per week and try to average three to five miles per week more than you ran during cross country season. So if you averaged 35 miles per week for most of MCVX22, and you have been running consistently since then, a nice goal for January might be: Week beginning January 2nd, 35 miles; January 9, 37 miles; January 16, 39 miles; January 23, 41 miles.
- Make Threshold Pace Your Friend. If the only challenge you accept from this list is #1 above, you are doing well! Next level is to work on your lactic threshold. The most current science tells us that lactic threshold is the best single indicator of race performance. My own experience over the last twelve years of coaching at MV is consistent with that science, and my college coaching friends from USATF and where MV alumni have gone tell me that they see the same thing. So…if you want to add to your goals…my first suggestion is to add 18 to 30 minutes of threshold training once per week. You can do this work on the track or road or trail; personally I suggest at least some of this off track for variety but I know many people love the track. Try running places where we won’t always run during the season to mix it up, or run something we will come back to later so you can see the improvement–it is your practice, you make the call! Pacing should feel comfortably fast, your optimal pace per mile probably in the range of 55 to 90 seconds slower than your current estimated 1600 race pace. Here is a suggestion for runs: Week beginning January 2nd, one mile repeats with a one minute recovery, three to four repeats; January 9, 1.5 mile (2400m) repeats with 90 second recoveries, two to three intervals (you can make the last interval one mile if you want to stick to four miles total); January 16, a two mile threshold run, followed by a two minute recovery, then either a one or two mile run at the same or slightly faster pace; January 23, a straight two or three mile threshold run.
- Hill Repeats. You still want more challenge? Keep reading…hill repeats give you so much return for the effort and time*. I think you would get a lot out of four weeks of hill repeats in January…hill reps help improve leg strength, power, and endurance. Hill reps work the muscles in the legs differently and require the body to generate more power to propel you upward. Hill repeats can also improve a runner’s speed and form, as well as mental toughness. Plus there is less pounding as you are doing the hard work up hill. Depending on how much time you have, and the weather and trail conditions, some good locations for hill repeats are: Linda Vista Park; Matt’s Hill (the loop around Hunter’s Point); Coach’s Hill (start at the first oak tree on the path towards Garrod’s Gate after the Up and Over intersection); there are hill of varying steepness on Stevens Creek Blvd to the right or left when you exit the McClellan bike path. There are many hills you can find, though, whatever is convenient–and you can build your hill repeats into almost any run. Try to separate the hill repeats from your threshold run by at least a day. Suggestions: Week beginning January 2nd, six hill reps 15-30 seconds each; January 9, eight hill reps 15-30 seconds each; January 16, six to eight hill reps 30-45 seconds each (this could be the full Matt’s hill repeat); January 23, six to eight hill reps 30-45 seconds each (this could be the full Matt’s hill repeat). Challenge: If you are an advanced runner, and you run your repeats on Matt’s Hill, try running Seven Springs afterwards. It’s really not as hard an add-on as you might think. Every time kids take off on that run I think of Rohan Choudhury, Emilio Torres-Gonzalez, and Julia Chang taking off on that route after a hot set of hill repeats. It is a pretty great feeling to cruise down Seven Springs after a set of hills, give it a try!
Of course keep up with your cross training, stretching, core work…and get off to a good start with your classes for this term…take care of your athletic clearance…yes, there is a big list. But if you can accept these running challenges this month, you will be feeling so strong on the first day of practice on January 30!
*I was going to say ‘bang for the buck’ but besides being a cliche, do you know where this term first might have been used? By a US secretary of defense talking about investments in nuclear weapons. Ugh. Not sure if that is true, you can’t believe everything in a quick Google search, but I think I want to stop using this cliche!