April 6 - April 12 Running Workouts

1. Hill repeats: similar to last week’s stride workout.  This effort consists of short repeats up a hill with a jog down.  Make sure you’re warmed up before you go at this one. Ideally, the hill should take 45-90 seconds to run up.  We will often do this one on the hill on the trail behind the UPEI track or on Commonwealth Drive leading up to West Royalty School, but any reasonable hill will do.  You can also do this one quite easily on a treadmill. Focusing on form, run up the hill around 5km race pace then jog down, catch your breath and grit your teeth, then back up.  Aim for 6-10 climbs. A couple tips for running up hills: try to stay as light on your feet as you can. Keep your footstrike light and quick. And shorten your stride drastically – even cut it in half if you can.

2. Another Fartlek type run:  This time let’s go 3 minutes off, 2 minutes on at 10km race pace.  Make sure you warm up and cool down. This is another one where you’ll find yourself getting a little quicker each time you go fast, and probably on the parts where you go slowly too.  Aim for 20 – 45 minutes.

3. Long run:  the general rule of thumb is to increase your mileage by 10% each week.  So figure out how much you ran last week, then calculate how far your long run needs to be to increase your mileage for the week accordingly.  If you missed a run or two, then just put on a good podcast and get out there for 30-60 minutes.

- Team 782