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Elite observations: Tips for your winter speed workouts

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Created on Tuesday, 01 February 2011 07:00

Written by Tommy Manning

By TOMMY MANNING

Editor’s note: Manning is a math teacher and cross country coach at Fountain Valley School who finished 18th this month in the World Mountain Running Championships. He will provide periodic tips — all of which can be found here on OutThereColorado.com.

Most of us who run and race spend our winters in a "maintenance" mode trying to stay in shape for spring and summer races. I have done this most winters, with the exception of the past three, when I have trained for the Boston Marathon. Those particular winters I was out training hard and stuck to a very specific plan. I did spend those Decembers in a maintenance mode, however. 

If you have a spring marathon for which you are training, then I suggest you train properly and stick to a plan. For the rest of us, we want to spend our winter staying in shape and keeping our speed up to a certain standard. We are not necessarily looking to increase speed though.

To keep your speed up, you want to run a fast workout every week or two (more experienced and faster runners can do a winter workout each week; less experienced and slower runners can get by with doing speed work every other week), and you do not have to push as hard as you do in the spring or summer. I personally forget the watch and forget about splits and just run by effort. I want to run hard to get my heart rate up, work on leg turnover, and accumulate a good sweat and do not really care about hitting specific times. Remember the goal is to maintain speed throughout the winter and not to set any records. 

Previous blog entries

Closer inspection of fitness gadgets

Tips to enjoying quick post-race recovery

Tips for long-term recovery after big event

Taking stock in the mental side to training

Variety key in training

Typical training plan

Of course, you can do two things I hate for your winter speed work – run on an indoor track or on a treadmill. Personally, I run outside year round. With outdoor winter speed work, we have a few important safety precautions to take.

1) You definitely need to have a proper warm-up. Nothing is worse than pulling a hamstring and not warming up in the winter is a sure way to do just that. You need to dress in layers too to make sure you are adequately covered to keep warm and you can always take off layers if needed.

2) Think about light. We can get by running slowly during our pre-dawn or post-sunset runs, but when you are running fast, you want to avoid these times so you can see where you are putting your feet. The small rock in the road or the crack in the sidewalk can cause a lot more damage if you hit it running fast.

3) Be careful on ice. This is not a concern on most days. On days that are really icy, I slow down and am a lot more careful running and I might simply skip my speed work altogether.

The following are some examples of winter workouts I use to keep my speed up.  

800m repeats – I forget the watch and just go run hard. I don’t have a set number in mind and run them until I’m really tired.

Hill repeats – Same idea as the 800s except I run up a hill.

Fartlek runs – varying pace between moderate and fast for short time intervals. This is a nice variation to your normal, everyday run and is an easy way to put speed into your week.

Progression runs – go out a set distance or time and return faster. This is another variation to moderate runs and another easy way to incorporate speed.

Tempo runs – I do not run these too often in the winter as they tend to be more intense and longer workouts than I am looking for. 

Be safe, have fun, and keep the speed up.