As we head into the cross-country season, the Harriers of all ages are starting their cross-country sessions. The juniors were training on Saturday at the Showpark and now it is the turn of the seniors at our regular location at Brancumhall. Cross country is a key part of winter training, building strength (because you get no rebound off the soft ground, all forward motion has to come from muscle strength) which makes us stronger runners on all surfaces, whether it is road, trail, track or cross-country. The surface is also kind on the legs, despite being hard and at least I generally find I have fewer aches and pains the day after a cross-country session than I would after the same session on a firm or hard surface. By the way, Brancumhall is rarely anything but soft for those who have not run there before!
For the logistics of the Brancumhall sessions, ideally you need your normal road shoes to run to and from Brancumhall and something more suitable for soft ground, such as trail shoes, fell shoes or cross-country spikes. Usually someone will put all the off-road shoes in the boot of their car and take them from the Sports Club to Brancumhall.
The session is 5 x 1 lap of Brancumhall at 4k to 5k race effort with a 90 seconds recovery. Each full lap of Brancumhall around the outside of all the pitches is approximately 800m, so this is 5 x 800m. Remember that the pace for each lap is the pace that you could hold for 5 laps continuously. So don't go too fast on each rep. It should feel relatively comfortable to run one lap at a time with a 90 second rest afterwards. The biggest mistake that most of us make is going too fast during reps because we get the benefit of a recovery after each rep. That's not the way to do it. Run under control and feel that when you get to the end of each rep, you could keep going for multiple laps at the same pace.
Alan
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