Some of my fondest memories of running were during warm-ups and cooldowns. While at Santa Clara University, Paul Gyorey and I trained with West Valley Community College team during track season.
I trained with a group of 10,000m runners and an elite women’s marathon, Sue Munday. Paul and I would do our hard days on the track at West Valley and get our two a day in by ourselves. We did not like to compete during workouts on easy days, and stayed focus on the task at hand. For example, if we had done a 20x400m on Tuesday, our Wednesday runs would be slow, and on the soft surfaces as much as possible.
Emil Zatopek raced in this shoe in 1952, the year he won the 5,000m, 10,000m and marathon in Helsinki 1952, photo by adidas Communications
Did it work? In the spring of our senior year, we scored PBs from 2 miles to 10,000m. We raced about 15 times that spring and summer and the quality work, and easy days in between gave us a grand racing season.
Listen to your body.
Wednesday: light run, 40 minutes easy pace, stretch, 4 x 150 m light cooldown.
2021 RunBlogRun, week # 10, Summer mileage, day 3
Monday: light run, 40 minutes easy pace, stretch, 4 x 150 m stride-outs, light cooldown.
Tuesday: warm-up, relaxed 55-65 minute run in the hills, enjoy the day, cooldown.
Wednesday: light run, 40 minutes easy pace, stretch, 4 x 150 m light cooldown.
Thursday: warm-up, run in the hills, get in 40 minutes in your 65 minute run of hill running, cooldown.
Friday: light run, 40 minutes easy pace, stretch, 4 x 150 m stride-outs, light cooldown.
Saturday: warm-up, 60 minutes run in a park, moderate pace, with ten-minute hilly runs during the run, cooldown
Sunday: Long run, 65-75 minutes, at a conversational pace
