Winter Training Pointers - "How to Achieve your Track Goals"

We just wanted to collaborate on winter training pointers, mostly just covering the "whole picture" that can make all the difference several months later when the post-season finally rolls around. Training isn't just running every day, living the life of a runner, including getting good nutrition, getting adequate and regular sleep, and staying healthy, is how you can make the biggest difference and get those PRs.

Here's our 8 winter training pointers:

1) Live like a clock, especially in season. This means going to bed at the same time EVERY night, and waking up at the same time EVERY morning. Your body responds extremely well to this. This is just as important as getting ENOUGH sleep.

2) Recovery. There are some really good recovery benefits from ingesting a 4:1 ratio of carbohydrates to protein. It's been proven to be the most effective way to recover, if you have any questions, just ask about it. Having chocolate milk and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, eating a banana and a gatorade, or eating an energy bar and washing it down with a sports drink within a half hour of the running will provide the protein and glucose to your muscles that they need in order to run well the next time you run. If you do this every time, eventually it could lead to you dropping serious seconds off your PRs.

3) Drills/strides. Get efficient. Strides and other speed work that don't get too intense are great. 4-8x100m strides will help with turnover(stride frequency) and recruit fast twitch muscle. Make sure you do your strides with good form so that efficiency translates over to all running. Recruiting fast twitch muscle to help your top speed helps a lot. Having good form helps a lot.

4) Consistency is key. Don't drop your mileage until you have down weeks(breaking up the cycle) or taper. This also means don't get injured. The best runners out there are the ones who have gone the longest time without being injured. Uninterrupted training brings you to the top. Now how do we prevent injury? Below

5) Injury prevention can be very simple. It takes a while to know what injuries are injuries and which are just funny feelings that you can run through, no one can explain it, its just intuitive to those who have been running long enough to know. For those of you who are new though, or maybe a veteran with something that is sore, here are some pointers. ICE. Ice the spot that hurts several times a day but not close to when you will begin your run, after is good, before is bad. Don't ice for over 20 minutes on any one spot. MASSAGE. Massage spots that hurt. Pretty simple. If it isnt hurting it isnt doing anything. ELEVATE. If the injured spot can be elevated above your heart, do it. REST. Don't run on something that hurts. This is especially important in knee, hip and achilles injuries. Those linger for ever if you try to run through them.

Cold weather: if it is cold enough that you feel even slightly tight in the early parts of your run as a result, wear sweats or tights when you run. That cold tightness can cause real problems. Make sure to warm up before running fast as well.

6) Don't kill yourself in the winter workouts, you can go hard but remember that your are just getting in shape to the point that it will help your in season workouts, you don't really need to gain fitness, just maintain. When the season starts you can go harder, your hardest efforts should be mid-late season. You are peaking for May or June.

7) Motivation. During the stormy winter days, it can be tough to get out there and slog through a miserable run. There are many different ways to motivate yourself, from goal setting to reading motivational quotes to watching a clip of a famous race. Whatever can get you juiced to get out the door and running.

8) Illness. Some people, however, can get too enthusiastic about their running and try to train through illness, like a cold or flu. Unfortunately, this well-intentioned effort to maintain fitness can really backfire, because if training through sickness can make that sore throat or runny nose linger up to an extra 2 weeks. This will just make your training fall further behind, so just take the time to really take care of yourself and you'll be back at it in no time. In fact, the best way to keep your training consistent is to avoid sickness altogether. If you are able and willing, Vitamin C supplements and other health products can help you avoid sickness and have a productive winter.