track vs. xc

Hills often show the difference between the girls and the women. If you train for hill running you'll have an advantage come fall. Short, fast hills, long slow hills - try to do as many runs on hills as possible. No accident that Kenya is full of hills.

Add this in to your daily routine and trust me it will make a BIG difference in maintaining form and adding strength at the end of your race, giving you the ability to pass many people.

Strides at the end of your run (3 or 4 X 30sec.)

Core work: planks, crunches, leg lifts

Lifting: dumbbells- pump your arms in place, and do basic lifting on each arm

HILLS: try to get as many in as possible in the summer

Just for context - weights and core work are more controversial than you might think. While western distance runners do both, Africans don't (or at least not as much).

And Africans are plenty fast.

I think core and weights can be done lightly, but not as a serious part of a routine by young runners - unless coached closely.

Not saying they would necessarily hurt you, but I do think they are a bit of a fad in the West.

Huh? Did you ever compete above HS level? Everyone I know in top NCAA programs do core after EVERY practice. Ever see/hear interviews with the Wisco guys (Solinsky, Teg, Jager)? They also do core at least 5xweek. Watch anything on Meb after his NYC win? He talks about lifting 3xweek.

Ralphy wrote:

Huh? Did you ever compete above HS level? Everyone I know in top NCAA programs do core after EVERY practice. Ever see/hear interviews with the Wisco guys (Solinsky, Teg, Jager)? They also do core at least 5xweek. Watch anything on Meb after his NYC win? He talks about lifting 3xweek.

Like I said - western runners do those things. Africans generally don't (I believe). I've been around long enough in running to know that fads come and go - stretching, lots of miles, low miles, plyometrics, carbo depletion, carbo loading, etc. They all seem like science at the time. This sport has fads - I believe in 10 years we will look at core exercises as one of them. Anything separate from actual running should be looked on questionably.

I barely competed at a D1 school, but just barely.

cv4 wrote:

This sport has fads - I believe in 10 years we will look at core exercises as one of them.

Yes, this is probably true. Not to say that core is unimportant--were I still coaching, I'd have my runners do some work on it--but I suspect the American "pill" philosophy ("If a little is good, a lot must be better!") has rather taken over the subject.

The reason that I think non-running training is probably valuable for most Western runners is simply that we (typically) don't get a lot of other physical activity in our daily lives.

And the reason that a lot of East African runners can get away without much non-running work? Well, they may get more of a variety of activity in the course of their day; and, in any case, they *tend* to be shorter and much lighter than many Western athletes. And lighter runners probably can get away with less of the general conditioning.