Training To Be Your Best: December 23rd-29th

Alright, so we are back in business!  The school semester is over, Christmas is here, and weather is great (okay, maybe not for everybody)!  The coming track season is a month away, or two months away for those states that don't have indoor track, and it is time to start thinking about the future.  How do you want the first half of 2014 to play out?  I'm going to help guide you through the winter and spring to prepare you for a great track season ahead.  Now this season will be a little more tricky to navigate between indoor and outdoor state meet dates, but I'm going to do my best to give you guys ideas of where you should be at in your training.  Since Louisiana has indoor and outdoor track and both are within a week or two of many state meets, I'm going to keep those dates as the ones to use.  Indoor state is February 22nd and Outdoor state is May 10th.  If you have any questions about how these dates will compare to your state meet, please email me at vpprotraining@gmail.com.  Good luck this year!

Even if it's winter, it is still time to hit up the trails!

So this will be the first week back, and honestly there is nothing special about this training week.  Not that there needs to be.  You want to ease back into the training and be mentally and physically ready to go for next week to start getting into track shape.  This week you need to start thinking about your track goals and the amount of work you are willing to put in to achieve them.  

Monday- 15-20 minutes easy
Tuesday- 20-25 minutes easy
Wednesday- Christmas Day! Off
Thursday- 20-25 minutes easy
Friday- 20-30 minutes easy, 8x strides, Workout A
Saturday- 25-35 minutes easy, 8x strides
Sunday- Off

Legend:
Warm Up- A few minutes jogging, dynamic stretching, a few strides
Easy- A pace you can handle and have a conversation at the same time. Relaxed.
Tempo Run- A distance run at a pace of 5k race pace plus 30 seconds per mile.
Ins and Outs- Striding the straights and jogging the turns on the track
Strides- Not a sprint! Simply a short pickup of 50-100 meters at around 1-2 mile race pace. Full recovery.
Progression Run- Training done at progressive pace that increases throughout the run. Begin at an easy pace and finish at 5k race effort or so for the last few minutes.
Fartlek- A run of varied pace for varied time which can be anywhere from an easy jog to hard sprinting.
Hills- Not all out sprints, good paced effort around 5k race effort. Can be anywhere between 100-400 meters long.
Workout A- 10-30x pushups, 10-30x prisoner squats, 10-30x lunges, 10-30x crunches, 30-60 seconds of planks on each side and the middle, and 30-60 seconds of Australian crawl.
Workout B- 20-40x step ups, 5-20x tricep pushups, 30-60 seconds of bridging, 10-20x dips, 30-60 seconds of pedestal, and 30-60 seconds of scissor kicks.