Hello my name is Cesar and I run cross country. My cross country season just ended, and I'm thinking about taking a 1 week break and then start working out in the winter to get ready for track season in the spring.
Well the problem is that I don't know what kind of workouts I should do and I wanted to ask what kind of workouts do you suggest?
My 5k time is a 16:46 and my fastest 2 mile time is a 10:40.
I am currently aiming for a 10:00 min 3200. Do you think that is possible? If it is then what kind of workouts should I do?
Answer by Dominique:
Hi Cesar,
Thanks for your 3200m race question.
First off, do I think it is possible?
With the proper training you can, without a doubt, improve a lot. You are still young, you'll get faster and stronger as you get older. I am not going to promise you results, but I'll let you know what I think your running should look like over the winter months.
In short, the winter is an excellent time to be working on improving your base. You do this by basically doing easy runs, steady-state runs, long runs and maybe a weekly tempo run. Nothing faster than tempo running.
There are lots of runners who don't even do a weekly tempo run. And some runners break up their base building period in two phases: the early phase in which they only do one weekly tempo run and then the next phase in which they do two weekly tempo runs.
I like that approach, so I would definitely push that you keep at least one tempo run in there and maybe closer to race season go to two weekly tempo sessions.
Also depends on how much you run by the way and what your starting point is. Run only short distances three times a week? Then doing two tempo runs during your off-period may be a bit too much. You may want to balance it more towards two long runs and one tempo run. Run more than that? Then two weekly tempo runs is quite acceptable. So, it does depend on your circumstances.
Anyways, whatever you do, in this period it is best to keep the intensity low, but work on increasing your mileage and increasing that tempo running strength.
Closer to actual races you will want to start doing speed work as well. But this is probably part of your normal running training routine in spring anyway.
To read up on some of the stuff I talked about above please check out the following pages:
Hope this helps.
Best of luck.
Kind regards,
Dominique
Want more running gear advice?
Simply subscribe to my newsletter or to my site blog and you are ensured of keeping up-to-date with all the Best Running Gear!
