DON’T FORGET THE STRIDES
One of the most important pieces of the summer training, that sometimes we forget about, is including strides (striders, build ups, etc.) into our training week. While I am a big believer in building the miles over the summer (Summer 101 — Build the Base), it should also be a time where you are building your speed foundation as well.
For me, and my old school approach, this is simply adding in 4-8 relaxed strides 1-2 times per week after easy runs. I always assign these with the instructions to run smooth and efficient and to feel good on these; never tying up.
As your runners mature you can replace one session of strides with a speed maintenance workout…you can read about that workout here.
Typically I like for the week to be balanced like this early in the summer:
Monday — Easy running w/ 4-8 x strides
Tuesday — Easy running
Wednesday — Easy running w/ 4-8 x strides
Thursday — Easy running (or x-training)
Friday — Speed maintenance session
Saturday — Long run
Sunday — Easy running (or rest day)
Including these strides and speed maintenance sessions will help build the foundation of speed that you’ll need to start doing some faster running later in the summer and into the XC season…so it’s important.
DON’T FORGET THE STRIDES!!!
Phillips Running 