Hi team,
Hopefully you’re training in a bubble this week, but here’s a session for you to do elsewhere, and you might recognise it, as it’s a club favourite!
Summary:
“200m reps, with a static recovery twice as long as it took you to run that rep.
After completing half of your target total number of reps, have a long break for a full recovery, before doing the second half”
In detail:
Find yourself a flat stretch of road or grass, which will be similar to run in both directions. We will be looking for approximately 200m, or the sort of distance you can achieve running quite hard for around 45 seconds (anything over 30 seconds but under 60 seconds will do).
You can take two drinks bottles, and put one at each end, as you will be stopping for recovery at each end, and this will be thirsty work if it’s a hot day.
Do a thorough warm-up. At least 10 mins slow jog, and at least 10 mins of your favourite dynamic stretches that you know you can perform well. You will be running fast, so do include some fast feet and strides to help focus the mind.
Run hard from one end to the other, and when you get there, you should stop and recover for twice as long as it took you to run there.
For example, if you ran hard for 50 seconds, take 100 seconds recovery before you set off for your next rep – back to where you started.
You should look to be doing between 4 and 8 reps in the first half, then have a good break and full recovery, around 10 mins rest. Then do another 4 to 8 reps again! Each of those two halves should take between 10 and 15 minutes.
If you are new to this kind of speed, keep the number of reps low.
You will have covered between 1 and 2 miles by the end of the session, and you will have covered that distance very quickly!
Hint: if you don’t have a watch, you can judge your recovery time by waiting for two of your similarly paced friends to do their rep, each in turn, if you start with two of you at one end, and one at the other.
Please, no high-fiving or baton-passing, though! And please do adhere to all other social distancing guidelines.