Sunday, August 8: Off
To start off this week of training, I took Sunday off. I did some core and stretching in the morning and had a breakfast of eggs, toast, and bacon. Then later in the day, I went to the beach with some friends and we stayed until sunset.
Monday, August 9: 5.50 miles -- Harmon Canyon
On Mondays, we go to Harmon Canyon which is a local trail in Ventura that goes a few miles into the mountains with very hilly terrain. We usually do some type of hill repeat workout or a fartlek type of workout. This week, we did a series of hill repeats. The workout was to run two miles easy out to one of the bigger hills, then do 3x45 seconds at 3200m pace, 3x30 seconds at 1600m pace, 3x15 seconds at 800m pace (all with active recovery), and then run back two miles to the start of the run. The strides ended up being around 1.50 miles and the full mileage of Monday was 5.50 miles.
Tuesday, August 10: 6.24 miles -- Camino Real Park & Arroyo Verde Park
Today was a recovery day. We did a 10-minute warmup which was around 1.20 miles. Then my team and I started our run at Camino Real Park and made our way up to Arroyo Verde Park. Camino Real is a flat grassy park that we usually do our tempo workouts at. Arroyo Verde on the other hand has a hilly dirt path that has a two-mile loop. We ran 2.50 miles up and into Arroyo, then turned around and went back down to Camino. After the run, we went and got smoothies at a place called Blenders. The mileage for Tuesday was 6.24 miles including the warmup.
Wednesday, August 11: 4 miles -- San Pedro Street
We had an easy run at the beach Wednesday. We start at a street called San Pedro and we run along the promenade of Ventura. I went 2 miles out, turned around at a place called Surfers Point, and went two miles back. I had a shorter practice on Wednesday because we had a tempo workout the next day. After the run, we went swimming in the ocean. The mileage for Wednesday was 4 miles.
Later in the day, the team and I went to Golf N Stuff and played mini golf which was super fun!
Thursday, August 12: 5 miles -- Camino Real Park
On Thursday, we went to Camino Real Park to do 1K tempos. Since this week was a bit of a down week, we could either do the same amount of 1Ks as last week or one less. I did the same amount as the week before. We started off by running a 10-minute warmup and doing drills. After that, we did our warmup strides which are 4x100m, 1x300m, 2x150m, and lastly an 800m at 5K race start pace.
Once we were done with the strides, we got four minutes of recovery and then moved onto the 1Ks. For each of these, we got 45 seconds of active recovery (jogging easily in between reps). After all the 1Ks were done, I did a half mile cool down.
The total mileage for Thursday was 5 miles. Later that day around 6 pm, the team went to the beach for a going-away party for one of our friends. We played volleyball, went in the water, and had a good time.
Friday, August 13: 4 miles -- Kimball Park
Friday was an easy recovery at Kimball Park (a park similar to Camino Real).
Before the run, we did hip openers on the grass and core. Then we ran two loops around the park and went a little out of the park to hit the mileage we wanted. I ran shorter so that my mileage this week could still stay low. The final mileage was 4 miles.
Saturday, August 14: 8 miles -- Foster Park
Saturday is a long run day.
We go to Foster Park which is near Ojai (North of Ventura). Foster park has a long (semi-flat) dirt path alongside a bike path that climbs a little elevation going up and is more downhill on the way back. For this week's long run, I went 8 miles. For longer runs, we try to negative split the miles. After the run, I hung out with some friends and went to the beach at sunset to end the day.
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Total Mileage: 33 miles
Note: This is the second of what will be several training blogs ahead of the cross country season. Stay tuned for more coverage of more boys and girls athletes heading into the 2021 season.
