Welcome to the new 26.2 RRC virtual league schedule. This has been designed to alleviate the pressure and workload on the league organiser and will give us a simple weekly structure, rather like how the club nights were run pre-lockdown. In the same way as before, the sessions have been designed for members to run alone and share their progress with other club runners. There will again be a ladder league format competition to keep you motivated and striving to improve each week. We aim to be inclusive for all, so feel free to take the league as seriously as you wish.
Similarly to the current format, members will be required to submit their sessions each week via an online form, with the results being discussed during the 8:30pm Wednesday night 26.2 RRC Virtual Club Zoom call.
There will be two scheduled sessions each week; an intervals session and a tempo run. This will provide runners a mix of speed sessions, hill work, and threshold based efforts. There will also be a fun activity planned each month, with more details to follow.
It goes without saying but for every session I encourage you to build in a gentle 10-15 minute warmup, drills and strides, and end with a warmdown, as well as looking after your muscles and ligaments with a post-run stretch, at the very least focussing on the calves, quads, hamstrings, and ITB.
The training week will run from Tuesday to Monday.
Week 1 intervals – 8 to 12 reps of 1 minute on / 1 minute off – looking for consistency in distance covered for each effort.
Week 1 tempo – Run for 26.2 minutes (26:12) – based on distance covered.
Week 2 intervals – 4 to 6 reps of 1k/ 50% jog recovery time – looking for consistency in time recorded across each effort.
Week 2 tempo – 5k effort – this will be based on % improvement versus seasons best.
Week 3 intervals – 3 to 5 reps of 5 mins / 3 mins jog recovery. Looking to increase pace consistently throughout the efforts.
Week 3 tempo – Adhoc (June = Imber Court Relay, July = Handicap, August = Scavenger hunt).
Week 4 intervals – Hill session – find a reasonable gradient and length hill and run as many reps as you can in 30 minutes. Hard effort uphill, slow jog recovery down. Focus on form; driving those arms forwards and lifting the knees high.
Week 4 tempo – 10k effort OR another 5k – based on age-grading.
Points are also available for the number of days run on each week (up to a maximum of 5).
Good luck to everyone taking part and if you have any questions please email website@26point2.co.uk