Many of my clients and people that know me in Kelowna, know that I am passionate about running. I am going to start doing some blog posts, time allowing, on some different running drills/work outs, that will help you run faster.
Any time you are going to try and run fast make sure that you do a good warm up. What constitutes a good warm up for running? Here is approximately what I do for a warm up before doing a hard running or speed work session. I do this warm up session at a running track.
WARM UP
First off is running four laps of the track, at a slow pace. Usually in the outer lanes, as per track etiquette the faster runners run in the inner lanes of the track. After that, I do some head circles, followed by arm circles (forwards and backwards), trunk rotations, crossing one leg in front of the other and bending over. This last stretch is not held, it is a slow controlled movement, up and down. First stretch has the right leg in front, the next stretch, the left leg is in front. Then standing up tall and pulling one knee to the chest, obviously one at a time, so you don’t fall over. Finally some ankle circles. I would say do between 10 -20 reps of each exercise. This part of the warm up lasts about 5 minutes maximum. Then we move onto to the mobility drills.
The mobility drills we use are, while we move on the track, jumping jacks and cross-over steps (karioca) (youtube for a demo), alternating sides. We use about 80m of the track when doing this warm up. Doing jumping jacks half way down the track facing one direction, then half way turn around and face the other way for the remainder. The same applies to the karaoke drill.
We then move into the running specific drills call the A’s and the B’s. We do those marching and with a little skip in the step. These drills are light plyometric moves that the get the calf muscles ready to take impact while running. We finish off with a funky little groin stretch, again while marching and skipping if you are that coordinated.
Finally, we do some strides. Strides are 80 m accelerations. Basically accelerate for the first 1/3, maintain in the middle 1/3 and decelerate in the final 1/3. We do 3-4 of these with about 30 seconds rest between.
Done the warm up! Altogether, the warm up takes about 20-25 minutes to do. It is very important, if you are going to make your body work hard, you better warm up. Spending 20-25 minutes to warm up is much better than spending a few weeks on the sidelines with a pulled groin or hip flexor or calf or…
THE WORKOUT
Now here is this 90-60-30 running drill. I do this most of the time at a running track, the Apple Bowl in Kelowna is a great place. This is a continuous drill, meaning that you do not stop. I would do somewhere between 3-7 reps of this drill depending on fitness level.
This should be slightly faster than a 5 km pace. You run for 90 seconds, walk or jog for 60 seconds, run for 60 seconds, walk or jog for 30 seconds, run for 30 seconds and walk or jog for 90 seconds. That is one rep of this work out. Then you start over again, running for 90 seconds… The cycle keeps going.
COOL DOWN
After your work out, do a good cool down. I will usually walk or run, slowly, 2-3 laps of a 400 m track and then do some stretches. This is a video my stretching routine that I like to do after my hard run workouts.