Running Around 8-7-06

And now for something completely different ... a hill workout! We're moving into phase 2 where we will work on improving strength, turnover, and running economy.

Hill workouts should be run at about the same intensity you run 400m repeats on the track. Remember to focus on good form and light, quick steps. Experiment a little to see what works best for you, but some suggestions for hill running include slightly shorter strides, leaning slightly forward, and slightly exaggerating your arm drive and knee lift. Note that I included "slightly" often. These are subtle not radical adjustments.

The hill route is at the Kingston Pike end of Cherokee Blvd. We start at the iron gate and jog down to where the path is interrupted by the road the second time. When you get to the bottom, turn around and run up. Jog back down for recovery. Since you finish at the top, there is no need to do a recovery jog after your last one. The hill is slightly over 400m. The route is here: http://www.usatf.org/routes/view.asp?rID=9492.

There are two warmup options for the hill workouts. The first is to run the greeway out to Cherokee Blvd. That route is about 3 miles. The second route is Kingston Pike to Cherokee Blvd. Conveniently, it's almost exactly 2 miles. I've mapped it out here: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=28366 ... Start at the track. Cross the bridge to the Ag campus. Cross Neyland and pick up the greenway next to the river. Follow the greenway and then continue to the intersection of Neyland and Kingston Pike. Cross over to the North side of Kingston Pike to run on the sidewalk. Follow K.P. all the way to Cherokee Blvd. Since it will be dark, be extremely careful -- especially crossing K.P!!

If you don't want to run the hill workout for whatever reason, you can run 400m repeats on the track.

Now for the workouts ... Week #5 in the training cycle and 16 weeks until Autumnfest:

1a. 4-10 x hills @R intensity.
1b. 6-12 x400m @R pace with equal distance rest.
For both, volume should be about 5% of your weekly mileage. Count only the hard running, not the rest. So, 30 miles per week would run 6 hills or 6 x400m on the track.

2. Striders TWO times this week following an easy run. 4-6x100.

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Fall marathoners ... 11 weeks until race day (for Chicago; others see notes that follow)

1. 6x200m @R-pace, 4-8x400 @R-pace. Rest should be equal distance jog. Total R-paced running should be about 5% of weekly total

2. Long run. You should be getting close to 20.

No additional workouts.

Marathoners for races other than Chicago have the following number of weeks to go. See the previous posts at http://trackworkouts.blogspot.com/ for the corresponding workouts:

Marine Corps: Do the marathon workout from 7-31-06
NYC: Do the marathon workout from 7-24-06
Chickamauga: Do the marathon workout from 7-24-06
Huntsville: Do the marathon workout from 6-26-06

Anyone running Huntsville or later or scheduled for a R-paced workout this week can substitute the hill workout if you want to run with the group this week.