Following our warmup on Tuesday the athletes were given training pace times based on his/her individual results at Monday's Time Trial after which we held an Easy run of 5 Miles for Group 1, somewhat less for Group 2, using those paces. I've found that most high school runners like to train every day at one pace. Some treat each day like a race, while others consistently hold back or run with a friend maintaining a slow pace. The truth is an easy pace day does two very important things. First, it allows a runner to recover from a hard, stressful workout from the previous day. Second, and equally important, it sets the runner up to be capable of running hard or completing a difficult workout the following day. On Tuesday, many of our runners were able to run farther, nearly all completing 5 miles, as a direct result of slowing down his/her pace to the Easy pace mile times. The team closed things out with Core and Stretching. We were pleased with the results of today and even more excited about seeing their impact on tomorrow's workout.
On Wednesday, VO2 Max training pace times were provided in anticipation of an 800-meter workout. The VO2 times are indicative of cardiorespiratory fitness and is essentially the measurement of oxygen consumption over a period of time. This pace is intended to increase running strength and running efficiency. We opted to run on the grass, a soft surface and more appropriate for our Cross-Country runners. We marked out a course which ran between two field hockey teams, the JV soccer squad and dozens of geese which call our playing fields home this time of year in an effort to reduce impact. As we do with workouts of this type, we are looking for consistency. Just about all our runners ran a little faster than VO2 max pace during his/her first 800, so we advised everyone to slow it down just a bit . . . we had five more to do. That said and done, everybody got through the workout with no problems. A four-minute recovery between repeats was adequate for each runner to maintain his/her VO2 Max pace time throughout. It wasn't easy by any stretch of the imagination, but it was enjoyable and productive! A brief cooldown jog followed by stretching and mission accomplished!
Yesterday, Thursday, was a well-deserved Easy day. The runners were again reminded of their Easy pace times and asked to run 30 minutes at that pace. Everybody felt comfortable and ran well. The run was followed up with an upper body weight training session in the school fitness center. We jogged back to the field and closed out the day with stretching. And we were very happy with the results over the three days. There were a couple of athletes experiencing "discomfort". But everybody remains overwhelmingly healthy!!!
Practice Friday will get under way at 2:30. Yes, even on an early dismissal day, we practice at 2:30. The reason is that not all the coaches have the flexibility, due to work commitments, to start earlier. We understand some student-athletes may have transportation issues as a result and apologize for any inconvenience, but it is unavoidable. "Fun Friday" will be an Easy run, in anticipation of Saturday morning's long run, scheduled to begin at 8:30 at Burrage Pond, Hawkes Avenue in Hanson, followed by Coach S games. We hope to see you all there!
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