The Ladder.

Nice Work

Fellas.

It's used for painting your house, screwing in a light bulb, at Rhode Runner we use it to get shoes that are up high and on the track we use a ladder for our activation drills. Well the ladder is also a super effective way to organize intervals at our track Tuesday sessions. Speed work is all about tweaking the length of intervals vs rest depending on your goal. This week we climb down and then up the ladder. Why?  

First lets explain what "the ladder" is, this week our workout is 1600, 800, 400, 800, 1600.  We'll be going down in distance and back up. This is a great workout to build strength and improve aerobic recovery time. Our paces get faster for our shorter intervals and slower for our longer intervals. We want you to be a little tuckered out for that final mile, its a grind but that's what racing is all about. How does it work? 

According to coach Sarah Crouch "Ladder workouts that start with shorter, faster intervals flood the legs with lactic acid and teach your body how to persist with fast running even though they are tired and heavy,” she says. “Descending ladder workouts that decrease in interval length throughout the workout—but increase in pace—teach your body how to change gears late in a session.”  - Runners World. Our workout this week will do a little bit of both. We'll start longer/slower switch gears and pick up the pace then now that we're a little tuckered out begin to build strength for the longer races this fall.  

Ladder workouts build not only physical strength but mental strength as well. With the workout this week the hope is you'll know you can go deep into the well in a race if needed.  Maybe you made a move half way through and feel a little tired...now you know you've still got something left in the tank...boy...now that I think about I wish I did this workout before the Blessing! 

See you on the Rhode! Or the track! 

Eric aka E-Money aka E-$