Please critique our first week of Malmo???

As far as the lifting is concerned, she is an awfully good basketball player as well and is kind of "addicted" to lifting. She didn't want to give it up completely so I talked her into just one upper and one lower each week. Are you thinking we should we entirely cut it?

Thoughts? wrote:

As far as the lifting is concerned, she is an awfully good basketball player as well and is kind of "addicted" to lifting. She didn't want to give it up completely so I talked her into just one upper and one lower each week. Are you thinking we should we entirely cut it?

Nope - just curious as to what you are trying to gain from lifting. When you say one upper and one lower each week - do you mean sesions or lifts? Your original week had one day of lifting and no running on that day. I'm assumming she does several lifts during each session but I hate to make assumptions.

How many days a week does she play basketball? Is she in leagues? Be cautious if so, especially if still trying to get mileage up to the 50s.

My daughter is a little younger than yours I think. She can run 5 for 1600 and 4:40 1500. She doesn't do that much mileage maybe the most was 35, but she ran those times doing less,and does at least equal speed to long run. She lifts 3 times a week, plays basketball and volleyball. She does lunges and squats, hills and plyometrics. She works out because she likes it and just happens to win a few things along the way.

Thoughts? wrote:

HS freshman girl w 8th grade PRs of 16:06 in XC 4k, 5:41 1600 and 12:00 3200 -- goals of 15:00 4k, 5:15 1600 and 11:15 3200 this season.

Day 1 --

Run Distance: 4.89 Mile(s); Time: 42:38; Pace: 08:43 /mile;

Day 2 --

Run Distance: 4.30 Mile(s); Time: 33:00; Pace: 07:40 /mile;

Day 3 (double) --

Run Distance: 3.66 Mile(s); Time: 31:24; Pace: 08:34 /mile;

Run Distance: 6.97 Mile(s); Time: 59:00; Pace: 08:27 /mile;

Day 4 --

Lower body lift and crunches

Day 5 --

Run Distance: 5.78 Mile(s); Time: 56:22; Pace: 09:45 /mile;

Day 6 --

Run Distance: 4.02 Mile(s); Time: 29:37; Pace: 07:22 /mile;

Upper body lift and crunches

Day 7 --

20 min fartlek -- sprint @ 200m / slow jog @100m

About 30 mpw plus the 20 min fartlek. Thoughts for the first week? Too much or too little? Changes? Are her goals realistic in the fall?

I suppose that you are looking to me for some help here? While I have no problem with you starting off with one double during the week, I do have an issue with a few things.

You have a freshman girl is is already running longer than I was doing as a sophomore boy, and on top of that, it is 95º out? Also you have 10 miles of the 30 miles crammed into one day?

1) Smaller chunks. Start off with 2 miles in the morning; 2-3-4 then eventually 5 days a week.

2) When she's used to that, bring it up to 2.5 or 3 miles in the morning -- no more. I don't get why you start off her first day of doubles with 3.7 miles plus 7 miles? That must have been hell?

3) Her easy runs, whether or not they are 4-5-6-10- or 15 miles should all be at the same pace. Easy is a pace. Easy doesn't become different if the distance is longer. If she has to slow down when extending the distance then she was running too hard at the shorter distance in the first place.

3) Keep the afternoon runs at 3-4 miles and don't lengthen them until her fitness improves. if shes running 2 miles in the morning and 3-4 in the afternoon 3-5 times a week, she will improve rather fast.

4) Those 200s. While it's an OK substitution for what is prescribed in SOM, I'd have her run 150s as prescribed, then as a substitution for tempo runs I'd have her run repeat 200s-400s at what would be tempo pace. Eventually lengthening the length of the repeats week by week.

5) Don't be in a hurry to have her running 6-7 miles at once. That's almost and hour? Do you see the folly of having a 14 yo girl running an hour at a time during the Summer when she's not yet fit? That's not fun at all.

Smaller bites. Extend as fitness comes around, don't try to force it.

Malmo -- a couple things:

*Thanks a ton for the insight! I truly appreciate it.

*The 95 degree day was a "learning experience" -- she was slated to run in the morning before another scheduled event and overslept. Without further conversation, she went out after that event -- at 4pm and ran.

*As far as your statement that they "should all be at the same pace", I was under the impression that runners were to run on feel. If you feel good, run a little harder. If not, run a little slower. Just run. No?

*In regards to being fit, she still is (to an extent). Track just ended a couple weeks ago and she was in good shape as that finished. Would you have recommmended a longer break?

DistanceDad wrote:

Malmo -- a couple things:

*Thanks a ton for the insight! I truly appreciate it.

*The 95 degree day was a "learning experience" -- she was slated to run in the morning before another scheduled event and overslept. Without further conversation, she went out after that event -- at 4pm and ran.

*As far as your statement that they "should all be at the same pace", I was under the impression that runners were to run on feel. If you feel good, run a little harder. If not, run a little slower. Just run. No?

*In regards to being fit, she still is (to an extent). Track just ended a couple weeks ago and she was in good shape as that finished. Would you have recommmended a longer break?

She should refrain from "learning experiences" at 4PM in the afternoon in 95 degree weather. Run in the morning or run in the evening. It's just dumb to run at 4pm in the Summer.

Yes, she run by feel by all means. But the empirical data shows that as she runs longer she runs slower. That simply means that her aerobic fitness is very poor. If her aerobic fitness is poor then keep the length of her easy runs at a level that she can complete and feel invigorated afterwards. If she's slowing down for them then she's obvviously not running easy, becasue it's becoming struggle for her. Make sense yet?

Make those easy runs more frequent - DOUBLES. Eventually, or I should say rather quickly, her fitness will improve. At that point start to lengthen those runs a bit.