RW X-Country Training Schedule

I saw the training schedule in this month's RW and thought I'd do it... cos my running recently has involved too much plodding and not enough speed, effort or committment. I'm doing the 'advanced' version which is probably a bit excessive but we'll see ... anyway, I'm nearing the end of week #1 and all is OK so far. Anyone else trying it? How are you finding it?

Where did you see this?

This month (October's) Runners' World - UK edition.

First week completed and still alive!

Yes!
I found myself stuck between the intermediate and advanced so have started with the easier of the two and figured that I now have ten weeks of training mapped out for myself.
The first week was pretty easy and I set off with my heart rate monitor on but have given up with that and judge the pace by how hard I am breathing and how it feels. My easy runs are getting much faster already (just getting to the end of week two). I have NEVER run five times a week before and I have never enjoyed my running so much.
My only concern is running when the clocks go back as I can only run in the evenings during the week and have nowhere off-road and well lit to run. I am trying to introduce some road running into the programme a bit at a time now but really want to stay injury-free with this. Bright ideas?
PS Good to see messages from other girls!

Hi! Good to hear from you. I'm really enjoying the programme too ... it's the first time I've used a heart rate monitor properly (it's spent most of the five years I've owned it stuck in the back of a drawer) and at the start of week # 3 I am feeling so much fitter and faster (so it IS working - hurrah!) ... walked up a 900 metre mountain yesterday and didn't even break into a sweat!

Doing the intermediate followed by the advanced is a good idea as I'm wondering what to do when I reach the end of week #5 ...

Dark is going to be a problem for me too soon as I live in Iceland! But here a lot of the forest and park trails are lit with streetlights, so I'll run on them to stay off road. If I was still in the UK I'd have the same problem as you though - I guess I'd try and find a football pitch or park which I could run round the endge of, hopefully well lit and near habitation/a road of some sort. But thinking about it, there was nothing like that where I used to live anyway! I guess I'd just try to keep my course as hilly as possible - even if it meant circling the same part of town for an hour.

Weather is going to be my biggest problem here - it's not so bad when it's crisp and still and -20 degrees, but I'm not looking forward to the days of 100 mph winds and driving sleet - ugh!

Hi Lizzy
It makes the xcountry season here in Scotland sound really tame! Here its only mud and snow usually. How do you manage to run at all - is it icy on the ground? Do you have to have special shoes?

Hi Saran
This will be my first proper winter here (I visited a couple of times last winter but didn't run) so everything is going to be v. new and exciting....

Apparently it's SO cold from December to March that most of the time the snow is lovely and crunchy and not icy at all - so you can run in normal road shoes. When it's icy (which happens when the temperature rises to -5 degrees!) I'll just drive to the local forest (on studded tyres!) and run on the X-country ski trails in my fell shoes (or that's the idea at the moment).

My husband says that I'm very optimistic expecting to run every day - apparently one day last year it was so windy he couldn't even walk along the road!

But at the moment we're basking in 15-17 degrees so I think it's warmer than the UK!