The First Dozen Weeks

                              Delano Tiger Cross Country

The 2009 Season

“Two Dozen Weeks of Quality”

I. Make sure you are having FUN when you run!  If you’re not, take a break! Call your teammates and go run with people.

II. Eat properly each day: Fruits and Vegetables!!

A piece of red meat about the size of your hand three times a week for iron.  

Some broccoli and green pepper for more iron.

III. Get plenty of sleep! Take a nap when you’re tired.

IV. Cross train: go biking, go swimming, go canoeing, go backpacking, go roller blading, play Frisbee, play golf . . . play, play, play outside!

V. After every time you run, put your feet up for 6 minutes. This lets gravity pull your blood back out of your legs so that good things can happen. Stretch your muscles, too!!

VI. The center of an athlete is the COLUMN: your ab’s and back.  These need to be strong. Each day you should do

3 sets of 10. Add 5 a week. Build up to 3 sets of 33.

                        *crunches

                        *bicyclers

                        *leg-lifters

                        * “flying nuns”

                                    Add on a couple every week.

VII. For training purposes, we use timed runs and target heart rates much more often than simply distances so that all athletes train at the intensity they can handle.

The First Dozen Weeks

Weeks start on Mondays and end on Sundays

Phase IA: 3 weeks: 5/25– 6/14

Easy and Long runs, THR @ 38-40 beats/15”

THR = Target Heart Rate

            Measured by counting your pulse for 15 seconds.

Pace goal is around 6 ½ - 8 minutes/mile for veterans and 10’/mile for new people. Running twice a day for 30 minutes each is better training than doing one long run each day – there’s less chance of injury. BUT, do one long run each week of 50 minutes or so.

Run for a set amount of time, not a distance, which you determine BEFORE you start the run. We’re trying to progress through the season, NOT win all the first meets and then plateau. SO, don’t do more than 40 minutes a day to start and add a minute each week.

Phase IB: 3 weeks: 6/15 – 7/5

Add 4 - 6 strideouts of 20” – 30” – 40” at the end of runs, twice a week. Run with really perfect form for half a minute at a quick tempo – that’s a strideout. These are to improve running mechanics and form.

Hey, how’d the 4^th of July Run go? You ran it, right?!

Phase II: 6 weeks: 7/6 - 8/16

Most of your running continues to be easy runs with strideouts at the end, once in a while, but now a little more intensity can be added. Rather than the easy run that day, you run what it says to below, on the days of the week listed.

To do the shorter stuff, get yourself to some big park area, like Rebecca Park near the big playground or around the city parks of Delano; a big grassy place – you don’t need to do these on the track!

In order to measure out how far distances are in meters, here’s a handy fact: City blocks in Delano (going east-west) are 1/16 mile long = that’s 100m!  So four blocks is 400m.

Here are the target heart rates:

            Reps – THR 47-48 beats/15” Hard

            Threshold – THR 40-42 beats/15” Moderate

            Intervals –THR 43-44 beats/15” Pretty hard

Week 7: 7/6

Wed.    Reps              2 x 200m, 1 x 400m, rest for 1’, 3 - 4 sets

Thur.   Threshold     Mile runs, with 1’ rest in between, do 3 - 4

Sun.     Intervals        3’ runs, with 1’ rest in between, 5 - 6

Week 8: 7/13

Thur.   Reps              400m runs, rest for 1’ in between. 8 – 10.

Sun.     Intervals        3’ runs, with 1’ rest in between, 5 – 6

Week 9: 7/20