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Brent Lineberry

Web and app developer. Coffee, beer, and running, in any order.

Training for a XC 5k: Phase 2

Friday began the second phase of my training cycle targeting the Atlanta Track Club’s Grand Prix Cross Country 5k. Here’s how phase one went, some adjustments I plan for my strength training, and what I plan for phase two.

Friday began the second phase of my training cycle targeting the Atlanta Track Club’s (ATC) Grand Prix Cross Country 5k.

Phase One

Phase one went fine. I increased my mileage as planned and did a few runs on the Mason Mill trails near my neighborhood.

This is my third training cycle where I’ve tried to be strategic in my strength training, using phase one as the time to focus on increasing volume and intensity, and it’s the third training cycle where I start feeling really beat up from it. I don’t think my strategy of aggressively increasing in phase one, moderately increasing in phase two, holding in phase three, and deloading in phase four is working. I lose so much by missing a week, or backing off for a mid-cycle race, and then the intentional deload at the end.

As I move each lift to a weekly increase, I’m going to try switching to a Heavy Light Medium approach. This would allow me to play with the light- and medium-day offsets to compensate for my running. I particularly like Andy Baker’s description of athletes as “recovery impaired”. There are a lot of variables in this approach, I’ll play with them to try and get a balance of recovery and ongoing increased strength. I hope to be able to drop volume as needed for races and adjust the sets/offsets for recovery without cycling so dramatically over the course of a training cycle to keep a steady strength trajectory.

Phase Two

Phase two introduces running workouts, and I plan for them all to be R-pace workouts. Jack Daniel’s Cross-Country sample plan is very general, specifying workout day paces instead of whole workouts. I’m cycling through the appropriate workouts from his chapter on training paces.

With Jack’s advice to do some workouts off road, I plan to do one of the weekly workouts on the track and the other on Decatur’s cross-country course. For those, I’ll have to convert the reps from distance to time and do them by feel rather than pace.

I discovered that I had miscounted the number of weeks in my training cycle, so phase two gets one more week than I originally thought. This messes up my 4th-week down week coinciding with the final taper. I intend to have a 5th-week down week to get back on track, instead of several 3rd-week down week chunks.

This phase includes the ATC Decatur DeKalb 5k. It will take the place of one of the workouts during the fourth week.

In general, phase two will look like this:

  1. Week 1
    1. Friday: 60 min Easy
    2. Saturday: skipping because we’re spending all day traveling to Hawai’i
    3. Monday: 10 min Easy + 8 x 200m R-pace with 200m jog recoveries + 10 min Easy
    4. Tuesday: 30 min Easy + 8 Strides
    5. Wednesday: 10 min Easy + 2 x (200m R-pace + 200m jog + 200m R-pace + 400m jog + 400m R-pace + 200m jog) + 10 min Easy
    6. Thursday: 30 min Easy + 8 Strides
  2. Week 2 (planned down week)
    1. Friday: 45 min Easy
    2. Saturday: 20 min Easy + 8 Strides
    3. Monday: 10 min Easy + 2 x 200m R-pace with 200m jog recoveries + 400m R-pace + 400m jog + 2 x 200m R-pace with 200m jog recoveries + 10 min Easy
    4. Tuesday: 20 min Easy + 8 Strides
    5. Wednesday: 10 min Easy + 3 x 300m R-pace with 300m jog recoveries + 400m R-pace + 10 min Easy
    6. Thursday: 20 min Easy + 6 Strides
  3. Week 3
    1. Friday: 30 min Easy + 8 Strides
    2. Saturday: 60 min Easy
    3. Monday:10 min Easy + 4 x 400m R-pace with 400m jog recoveries + 10 min Easy
    4. Tuesday: 30 min Easy + 8 Strides
    5. Wednesday: 10 min Easy + 8 x 200m R-pace with 200m jog recoveries + 10 min Easy
    6. Thursday: 30 min Easy + 6 Strides
  4. Week 4
    1. Friday: 30 min Easy + 8 Strides
    2. Saturday: Decatur DeKalb 5k Race
    3. Monday: 60 min Easy
    4. Tuesday: 30 min Easy + 8 Strides
    5. Wednesday: 10 min Easy + 2 x (200m R-pace + 200m jog + 200m R-pace + 400m jog + 400m R-pace + 200m jog) + 10 min Easy
    6. Thursday: 30 min Easy + 6 Strides
  5. Week 5
    1. Friday: 30 min Easy + 8 Strides
    2. Saturday: 60 min Easy
    3. Monday: 10 min Easy + 4 x 300m R-pace with 300m jog recoveries + 400m R-pace + 10 min Easy
    4. Tuesday: 30 min Easy + 8 Strides
    5. Wednesday: 10 min Easy + 400m R-pace with 400m jog recoveries + 10 min Easy
    6. Thursday: 30 min Easy + 6 Strides