Are you looking to take the next step in your training, but not sure about jumping to a Half Marathon? Or maybe you’re looking to get a little faster on your next mid-distance race? If you’re interested in any of the above, how about tackling the 10th Anniversary Tar Heel 10 Miler or Fleet Feet 4 Miler?!

Presented by Saucony

Quick Overview:

• Open House Information Sessions: Monday, December 19th from 6 to 8 pm at Fleet Feet Durham and Sunday, January 1st from 3 to 5pm at Fleet Feet Carrboro.
• 4 & 10 Mile Specific Information Sessions: Tuesday, January 24th, 6:30 pm at Fleet Feet Carrboro, and Wednesday, January 25th, 6:30 pm at Fleet Feet Durham.
• Start Date: January 31st, 6:30 pm (Carrboro) & February 1st, 6:30 pm (Durham)
• Season Logistics: Tuesdays @ 6:30 pm in Carrboro, Wednesdays @ 6:30 pm in Durham & alternates between the two stores on Saturdays at 7:30 am
• Goal Race: Tar Heel 10 Miler and Fleet Feet 4 Miler on April 22nd, 2017
• Cost: $105 before January 1st (early bird), $115 after. You can also register for the race when registering for the training program and save $10!

The Spring 2017 4 & 10 Mile Training Program is a 12 week program which meets up to three times a week designed to prepare runners and walkers for their first ever endurance event or to help seasoned runners meet a new performance goal. This program will educate on endurance training principles, hydration and nutrition techniques, body awareness, pacing and running autonomy. This Spring 2017 season will be geared towards the 10th Anniversary of the Tar Heel 10 Miler and Fleet Feet 4 Miler on April 22nd, 2016. However, our Coaches can help you train for any spring race you choose! 

You will have an opportunity to train up to three days a week with the group and will receive a week by week training plan to follow during the days we do not meet as a group. We’ll have a Tuesday night workout in Carrboro, a Wednesday night workout in Durham and a long run on Saturday morning that alternates between the Carrboro and Durham stores. We recommend coming to one of the weeknight workouts, whichever one works best for your schedule, but you are more than welcome to come to both! Our weeknight meetings start at 6:30 pm and are held at the stores or other local areas (such as a track or greenway). The Saturday morning runs start at 7:30 am and will be held at the Carrboro or Durham stores on a rotating basis. 

We find lots of great places to run and walk in our community - on bike paths, areas with sidewalks, the American Tobacco Trail, etc. Occasionally, we’ll hold a workout at a local track (such as the UNC, Duke or a High School tracks) to run a speed workout. By alternating our Saturday morning long runs you will be able to balance the hillier, more frequent turns routes of Chapel Hill/Carrboro with the flatter, less traffic heavy routes of Durham’s American Tobacco Trail. All location information will be shared with you each week in our Program Newsletters, on our private Facebook group, and can also be found on our Fleet Feet Calendar. The workouts will last about an hour to an hour and a half as we increase mileage throughout the season.  In addition to the workouts there are educational clinics, motivational speakers, on-site physical therapists through ATI Physical Therapy and Pivot Physical Therapy, nutrition tips from local nutritionists and expert coaching/mentoring to help inspire and motivate you on this training journey.

What to expect at Weeknight Workouts:

The focus of the weeknight workouts is to work on our speed and power when running. Whether you’re looking to finish your first distance race or you fastest distance race - building a speed workout into your training is important. You work different muscle groups (fast twitch vs. slow twitch muscles), build endurance in your legs and lungs, and it helps keep our workouts from getting stale. We’ll cover a variety of workouts such as Speed Repeats, Hill Repeats, Fartleks (Swedish for ‘speed play’), tempo runs, etc. We focus on pace and effort during these workouts. Below is an example workout:

• Welcome/Announcements/Find your pace groups
• 10 min Warmup Easy Jogging
• Hill Repeat workout: on a steep hill we’ll do bursts of a hard effort - 15 seconds (4 times), 30 seconds (4 times), 60 seconds (4 times). You will run your hard effort and walk or jog back down the hill.
• 5 Min Cool down jog
• Optional Cool down stretching/core with your group
• Overall, you’ll have done ~2-3 miles that night, but with recovery included in the workout.

What to expect at Saturday Long Runs:

The Saturday Long run focus is on time on your feet. We use the long run to build up our endurance so that we can finish our distance races healthy and happy! Overall, these long runs should be at a very easy pace. We don’t want to race through the long runs because it will ultimately come to us feeling like we’ve ‘raced’ every weekend - our bodies will be tired and it increases the likelihood of injury. You can expect your Mentors to lead the way and help set the pace. These long runs are fully supported with a Key Drop at the store, Water and Nuun (electrolyte drink) stops on the course, turn-by-turn directions, and access to your Coaches for questions, advice, jokes, etc. A sample route can be found here. Typically, we run loops from a central point so that we can have access to bathrooms/aid stations/coaches. This also allows our 4 Milers and 10 Milers to train together, while doing different distances. For example the 4 Milers may be running 3 miles while the 10 Milers will do 6 miles - both groups will run 4 together, and then the 10 Milers will continue on for another 2 miles. We’re also going to have opportunities to run portions of the course so that we’ll be ready on race day!

Pace Groups:

Our groups are open to anyone! Yes, anyone. We group everyone based on a timed mile at the beginning of the season (don’t worry it’s not your gym class mile from middle school) and use that to help match you with similarly paced people. Your coaches will help give you suggested training paces once in your group! A general breakdown of our groups are as follows:

• 8:00 - 9:00
• 9:00 - 10:00 training pace
• 10:00 - 11:00 training pace
• 11:00 - 12:00 training pace
• 12:00 - 13:00 training pace (Run/Walk Interval Group)
• 13:00 - 15:00 training pace (Run/Walk Interval Group)

We recommend coming into the training being able to run or run/walk 3 Miles (for the 10 Mile Distance) and 2 miles (for the 4 Mile Distance). For participants under 18, please contact the Training Program Coordinator, Nora (nora@fleetfeetcarrboro.com) before registering.