Spartan Season Training Plan

I was in the midst of overhauling my training plan in preparation for road race season to slow down here in Florida when things started getting canceled due to COVID-19. As of right now, Star Wars weekend is canceled and my May Spartan race is postponed to a date TBD and my next race that is still on is not until July. I've been focusing the last few weeks on just making sure I'm still working out while I juggle all of the life changes that are going on right now and I can nail down some new fitness goals.

Since it seems like things are going to be volatile for a while, I'm trying to keep my plan flexible so I can pivot when things become no longer an option. My next race is currently the Asheville Spartan Sprint at the end of July with the possibility that the postponed Jacksonville City Sprint could occur early in the summer. So it's OCR training time.

Running

I'm going to be starting my summer off season early. Last season, I had two easy midweek runs with a long run on the weekend. My long run schedule will be 4 miles one week and then alternate 6, 7 and 8 mile runs on the other weekend so I can stay in 10k shape over the summer. I'm also planning on doing one of my two midweek runs over the causeways as long as that is allowed by current quarantine restrictions and I feel that the crowd level is low enough to be safe to run there. I'm still running my winter 60/30 intervals but I'll switch over to 45/45 once we start getting lows in the 70s.

Strength Training

The majority of my fitness focus for the next few months will be on strength training with a minimum of 3 strength sessions a week. My gym is currently closed so I'll be using the community fitness center in my neighborhood (as long as it stays open) as well as some home fitness equipment in my garage. I know working out in a nonclimate controled environment is not going to be fun but hopefully the hot weather conditioning pays off!

My big focus for Spartan training is to continue to work on grip strength. I do have a pull up bar at home so I'll be doing loads of dead hanging on it. I'd love to be able to go out to a local park and try monkey bars some times but we'll have to see if that pans out as a viable option. I'm also going to do deadlifts and famers' carry as long as the community fitness center is open.

I've also got a few more obstacle specific things I'll be regularly adding into my workouts. For the barbed wire crawl, I'm adding in bear crawls and rolling. Let me tell you, bear crawls are a lot harder than they look! It's not going to be a hard obstacle but having my body used to it will mean that I have energy left for other things. I'm also going to be doing a lot of carrying around my neighborhood. I have a sandbag as well as a 5 gallon bucket that I'll fill with my hurricane sand bags that I can use to carry. I don't have to carry heavy things in every day life so I'm just wanting to get my body used to doing it again.

I still want to keep a strong focus on my core strength. I really slacked on core exercises last summer and I regretted it when fall race season came around. So the planks, sit ups and Russian twists are staying. There are also plenty of body weight exercises I'll be doing like squats, lunges and pushups. And, of course, burpees! You can't do Spartan training without burpees!

Spartan has a lot of resources for training on their Youtube channel and they've also been featuring at home workouts on all of their social media outlets to help everyone stay fit during this pandemic so check them out if you are looking for inspiration and ideas.

Adventure

I had a lot of fun putting in a regular adventure day last summer where I did something different and fun with my workouts once a week. I'm not sure how much adventuring I'll be able to do until the corona virus goes away but I have been thinking about what adventures I'd like to do later this year. The place that was hosting free yoga once a month has gone out of business so I need to do some research to find out about other yoga options in my area. I would also love to start doing rock climbing regularly. There is a local rock climbing and ninja warrior course place that I want to check out (again, probably once things calm down over the summer). I also want to add in some trail running miles. The terrain here will be nothing like Ashville but it's better than nothing.

Recovery

I've done a great job of building up a foam rolling habit over the last year and I can tell it really helps. Right now, I'm focusing on making sure I drink plenty of water and get enough sleep. Those are two things I really slack on when life gets busy or stressful so I want to make sure those parts of my fitness aren't being neglected just because I'm not in my normal routine.

Shoes

I'm coming up on my one year anniversary of Vibram fivefingers! I plan on doing a whole post about them to let you know what I did and what my long term goals are with them but I do think they are really helping me build up my foot muscles and force me to focus more on my running form. Right now, I'm currently running 2-3 miles in them once a week as well as wearing them or another pair of zero drop shoes for day to day activities. I do want to get a pair of running Vibrams as well as a pair of trail ones for the Asheville race since the terrain is going to be rougher than I'm used to.