Off Season Base

 Hopefully you've seen the blank spreadsheet for winter mileage and are ready to start filling it up.  

After a LOT of thought about where the season went sideways for us, I've come to the conclusion that we went too hard, too early, with too little volume.  This left us aerobically weak when we needed to be strong.  It's my goal to get you guys to: 1) continue to develop as runners and 2) get ready for a good track season.

Please check the attached template for winter training.  Before you jump right in, let me summarize.

For the month of December

• Build to your peak mileage of your previous peak +5mpw at the very least, try to reach that for the last week of December.  If you can comfortably do it for the last two weeks, even better.
• Run ONLY 1 HARD WORKOUT PER WEEK.  This could be a tempo, or small dose of CV intervals.  Don't let the hard effort be the enemy of building your volume backup.
• Build back up to a 90 minute long run.  You might need to start back at 60-70 min or you might be OK to jump back in at 90 right away, if you keep the pace relaxed
• Run sprints once per week and strides one or two more times on top of that.  
• Keep all of the running at a VERY comfortable level.

For the month of January and February

• The emphasis remains on keeping the volume high
• We'll bring in a second "workout" per week
• Workouts will be kept UNDER CONTROL.  No more racing in races that aren't races!
• We'll try to hit 2 x 3 week blocks of peak volume.  The intensity will need to be kept very reasonable in order to do this 

First race is at the end of February.  I would hope that you come into that race a little better than you were at our 6 minute test last August