Summer Training Blog: Valor Christian's Cole Sprout (Week 4)

Week 1

Monday, July 30:

Today I did a track workout on the Johnson track at Nike world headquarters with the other Nike elite boys. Jerry Schumacher (Bowerman Track Club coach) has us do a 2-mile tempo at 5:05 pace followed by a 1200m @ 75 seconds each 400, 800m @ 68 seconds per 400, 400m @ 60 seconds, and 2x150m working on acceleration and turnover. Each rep had a 400m recovery jog in between. Warmup and cool-down was a 2-mile jog. The workout felt really comfortable, especially by having some other guys to run with. (Galen Rupp was also on the track doing a workout making us all look bad.)

Total miles: 8.7


Tuesday, July 31:

I got back this morning from the Nike Elite Camp and decided to take a rest day and catch up on some sleep. Taking care of the little things like sleep is just as important as showing up to practice every day.

Total miles: 0


Wednesday, August 1:

Today I did a 30-minute easy run at 6:25 pace just to shake out the legs and such after traveling. Then the team and I did eight-second hill sprints, with the last two about 20-30 seconds long on a gradual dirt hill to kind of mimic an XC course. This was all followed by a 15-minute cool-down jog at 6:45 pace. Overall the run felt good, and the hill sprints felt better after I got a couple into them.

Total miles: 6.9


Thursday, August 2:

I did a 54 easy/steady run today at grigs which is a fairly hilly trail. Average pace was 6:31 and I worked on taking the hills fairly easy and then increasing the pace by quite a bit on the downhills which kept the average pace fairly low while still allowing me to recover. This trail can kind of suck sometimes so it was a good sign for the run to feel fairly easy and controlled when some days it feels the opposite of that. 

Total miles: 8.31

Friday, August 3:

Today we did diagonal strides on the soccer field starting at 5k pace down to mile pace for 15 minutes. Rest was an easy jog down the length of the soccer field. For the first kind of real speed workout I've done so far this season, it felt really comfortable, and I didn't feel as fatigued afterward as I thought I might be.

Total miles: 6.7


Saturday, August 4:

I did a long run today with the team at Waterton Canyon (12/10 would recommend) and on the way out I averaged around a 6:25. The way back I ran into some guys from the BYU team and ended up running back with them averaging a 6:05ish which actually felt pretty good considering I haven't been normally running that fast for long runs so far this season. 

Total miles: 12

Sunday, August 5:

I just did an easy run today focusing on efficient form, fast cadence (number of times your feet hit the ground per minute), and effort rather than pace. I didn't look at my watch the whole run except to check overall time for when to turn around and the overall run felt a lot more natural than when I'm trying to hit a certain pace. 

Total miles: 7.4