Try these tough race-prep workouts for unstoppable stamina on road and trail

While most of your training should be easy mileage, it’s important to have some speedwork and harder efforts in there if you want to perform your best on race day—and occasionally, an extremely challenging workout. Renowned coach and ultrarunner David Roche explains that, inserted once in a while, an epically tough session will pay off in a variety of ways. “Your brain and body can essentially have their light-bulb moments: ‘Oh! I see! I will not die the next time I push this hard? Good to know, you can carry on.’ ”

While these workouts are designed with trail runners in mind, they can be very effective for runners training for road and track races as well. “These workouts are designed to suck,” Roche jokes. “That way, future workouts and races will suck less.” Make sure that you are well-trained with a strong base before tackling these in order to prevent burnout and injuries, and do them after a few recovery days (and followed by a few recovery days as well).

Hill and tempo leg-crushing combo

Warm up with 15-30 minutes of easy running. If you’re prepping for shorter races, feel free to tweak the warmup, but make sure your muscles are warm and your legs are ready to work before kicking it into high gear.

Run 5 x 3-minute on hills at a hard effort, and run down the hill for recovery between reps.

After the final hill interval, run 15-30 minutes with a moderate effort to simulate tired, race-day legs.

Roche suggests aiming for an average grade of six to eight per cent on the hills—a moderate incline that will allow you to maintain form while pushing hard. “At the top, you can put your hands on your knees for a second before running down normally,” Roche says, and suggests giving an extra-hard push to the final two repeats. When you wrap up the final interval, run down the hill and ease into a relaxed tempo, pushing to a moderate effort.

Cool down with 10 minutes of easy running.

Roche suggests trying this one 10-17 days before your goal event.

Three-minute hill hell

Warm up with 15-30 minutes of easy running (adjust if you’re running a shorter race).

Run 8-10 x 3 minutes at roughly a 10K effort uphill, with one to two minutes of easy recovery between hills and three minutes of very easy recovery after your final rep.

Next, run 6 x 30 seconds of hard effort (Roche says aim to “feel and accept discomfort” in these) on semi-steep hills with 90 seconds of easy recovery between hills.

Cool down with 10 minutes of very easy running.

Roche says this workout can be used in almost any training cycle, even for road races, and suggests fitting it in once you have a strong mileage base to avoid injury.

Remember, Roche recommends several rest and recovery days before and after each super-tough workout that you do to prep your legs for race day.

posted Thursday February 29th
by Keeley Milne