What happens when you are at the end of racing season, but OF COURSE you NEED to keep running? Well, that is sometimes a tough one.
Here's the deal, even though you may not have a plan for quite a few months, it is a great time to try some new stuff. During the winter I am typically banished to the infinite abyss of treadmill miles, which I hate, but I have also grown to love. On a typical week, my workouts scale back to about 5 runs, with 1-2 being something with effort- by this I mean something that is a little more difficult they just straight runnin'.
Here's a pretty good example of an indoor workout week....
Sunday- outside long run 6-10 miles
Monday- treadmill easy 4-5 miles
Tuesday- treadmill workout or track workout- .25 miles easy, .25 miles at easy pace with incline or hill, .5 miles hard- repeat for 5 miles and include 1 mile warm up and 1 mile cool down
Wednesday- easy 4-5, or cross train
Thursday- 4-5
Friday- off or easy
Saturday- Cross train
The idea behind this is that during the non-racing season you are still building or hanging on to your base, but with a little bit of quickness. Then when you are about 30 days out from an important race (typically not the first race, use that one as a test of fitness) you can ramp back up to two workouts per week and 5-6 running days without the fear on injury. Also, the treadmill and winter running is certainly more difficult, so take into account that you will inevitably miss days due to illness or snow (gross....) without stressing about what's coming next.
Happy Running :)
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