From Coach Greg:

MILEAGE VIA EASY AND OVER-DISTANCE RUNS:
Building up and maintaining your mileage for overall stamina and cardio fitness (…hoping everyone is able to run at least 20-25 miles a week, Varsity Boys = 45-60/wk range, Varsity Girls 35-50/wk); important everyone brings in a foundation of base miles to build from to start the Track & Field season! …If you don’t do ANYTHING ELSE, at least do this! -Try to fit in “over-distance” run once-a-week (trust me, you’ll miss these long runs mid-season when we’re doing multiple competitions each week…)
TEMPO RUNS (a.k.a. Threshold Training):
Keep a Tempo intensity run (~85% of your max effort) in your routine once a week to help in maintaining moderate intensity training, both for physical improvements and to boost psychological endurance. Tempo intensity is an “in-between” easy pace and max effort and pretty forgiving, so you’re not too exhausted the next day after a Tempo run. It’s also great for getting athletes prepared for the rigors of interval track training and builds a good sense of maintaining a strong pace. You can break-out Tempo workouts by time or distance, steady longer tempos (15-20 minutes) are great for this time of year (Tempo runs up-hills are even better for optimizing strength benefits); adding a 2nd tempo each week of a shorter duration can be a good balance (i.e. 3-4 x 5-6:00 with 2:00 rest in between).
CORE:
By now, hopefully everyone understands the HUGE IMPORTANCE of maintaining core strength year-round to maintain proper running posture, enabling efficient running form and overall running economy, it just makes your running easier; if you’re not doing Core training, you’re just making it harder on yourself to run! Core strength improves balance and increased stabilization in the torso and drastically reduces injuries! YOU SHOULD BE DOING CORE 2-3 TIMES A WEEK AND YOU’LL NOT REGRET IT, THIS IS TIME VERY WELL SPENT! Beyond the standard sit-ups, crunches, planks, here’s a good minimal 6 exercise routine that will take only 6 minutes (start with 1 set, then progress to 2 sets by first day of practice) and do 2-3 X a week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRcRPU8ZpTg
MOBILITY:
This is always very good to include in your pre-run warm-up routine (i.e. form drills) to improve your overall running mechanics, loosen tight joint connections (especially hips and ankles), injury prevention and definitely a prerequisite if you are going to pursue speed work during Winter break. I’ll post a routine later, but assuming most are familiar with the basic routines we do to get “loosened-up” (contact Greg if you need some assistance here), more TBD…
STRENGTH TRAINING: UPPER BODY/LEG STRENGTHENING:
...If you’re interested in getting in on this, stay tuned and we’ll have a Winter Conditioning program available right after the Holiday Break at MCHS (we’re re-organizing the storage shed on the track to include various weight training apparatuses); most strengthening can be done for distance runners with body weight and progress to using weights, general rule is doing each exercise 10-12 reps x 3-4 sets without breaking form is good for building “lean mass” strength; sprinters need more power/explosive training so they will more weight and less reps (i.e. 5-6 reps x 3 sets)
SPEED DEVELOPMENT AND TRUE SPEED:
I’ll be posting more on this later, but this activity should be done, only if you’re already doing #1 +#2 +#3 above. …Remember, track distances are much shorter than XC, so spend some time this Winter “getting rid of your Cross Country legs” and getting acclimated for speed. …Speed starts with speed development, you don’t just jump right into sprinting! …You can do fartleks and intervals at a lesser intensity than “all-out” for speed development. A solid workout for speed development and speed endurance is doing 150m repeats, start off 50m at 80%, then accelerate 50m at 90-95%, then decelerate 50m at 80% with 1 full lap recovery jog. Once you’ve done a few workouts developing your speed, you can work on “waking up your inner sprinter” by working your way to running 50-60m sprints to “knock the rust off” or to “waken-up your inner sprinter”; this is important to work on/develop your speed mechanics and stimulate and reestablish the neuromuscular connection for optimizing your speed mechanics and getting your body ready for racing… Remember, don’t do true speed work until you’re ready and keep in mind, this training involves very short duration at higher intensities with lots of rest in between and you can easily hurt yourself going too hard, so please connect with Greg for guidance first if you are planning on doing any of this!