Hill City Middle Distance/Distance Training: Week 1

I will try to keep this "Ranger Running Log" updated on a weekly basis.

It's probably good to behin by explaining the season plan and the rationale behind what we are doing as far as training.

The season is divided into three parts: General Prep, Specific Prep and the Competition Phase. I'll just talk about the general phase, since it's the same for almost all of the middle distance/distance runners on our team. From that point on, training is more individualized to the athlete and goal event, then finally specific to the strengths of the individual athlete.

Phase I: General Preparation Phase
This is the longest phase we will cover during the season.  The focus of this phase is basic endurance and basic speed; working from the outside in, so-to-speak.  I like the Adams State model of splitting one half of the season into an endurance focus.  The hard, anaerobic training we will do will be in a 4-6 week window as to not beat a dead horse. 

On the endurance side of the coin, we will do some medium-length high-end aerobic runs, lactate threshold intervals, threshold effort fartleks, some tempos, progression runs and lots of easy running. 

Week 1:
Monday: 30-40 minutes very easy
Tuesday:  30 minutes easy + introductory circuit training
Wednesday: 30-40 minutes easy + strides 4-5x80m @ mile effort
Thursday: 30-45 min very SLOW
Friday: 10 min easy- 10 min moderate- 15 min very slow+ 3-4x50m hill sprints
Saturday: 45 min very easy
Sunday: OFF