We're excited to kick off another wonderful season of training for the upcoming Tar Heel 10 Miler and the Fleet Feet 4 Miler! Whether you are a first-timer or a returning part of the Fleet Feet Fam, a beginning runner, or just looking for some group camaraderie we have a great program for you! Our program will help you cross the finish line of the 10 Miler or 4 Miler race in April feeling strong, happy, and accomplished! This program is great for both beginning and more experienced runners and walkers too! We recommend beginning runners or walkers start with the 4 Mile distance and for those who are ready to take the next step to 10 Miles be able to run or run/walk 4-6 miles on your own.

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Quick Overview:

• Starts: January 31st in Carrboro at 6:30pm and February 1st in Durham at 6:30pm
  
• Ends: RACE – Tar Heel 10 Miler & 4 Mile on April 22nd, 2023. We will share a discount code for your race registration upon registering for our program!
  
• OPEN HOUSE: Join us for a Training Group Open House on January 21st at 7:30 am at Fleet Feet Carrboro. We'll have a short run, run/walk, or walk for the group followed by snacks and coffee! RSVP Here.
• If you're interested in training for the Double Down Challenge, please reach out to our Training Program Coordinator, Lizzie (lizzie.sager@fleetfeet.com).
• Season Logistics: Program up to three group meetings a week for 12 weeks 
  • Tuesday nights at 6:30pm in Carrboro
  • Wednesday nights at 6:30pm in Durham
  • Saturday mornings at 7:30am (alternates between the locations)
• Program costs $120. (Goes up to $130 after January 1st)
• Ideal for runners, run-walkers and all levels, ages, abilities 

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, and the Saturday morning workout. You are more than welcome to come to both weeknights if that works for your schedule! 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 Slack 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 community partners, 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. 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 (Run/Walk Interval Group)
• 12:00 - 13:00 training pace (Run/Walk Interval Group)
• 13:00 - 15:00 training pace (Run/Walk Interval Group)
• Walking Group for the 4 Miler

If you are training for the 10 Mile Distance, we recommend coming into the training being able to run or run/walk 4-6 miles on your own. For participants under 18, please contact the Training Program Director, Nora (nora.ayers@fleetfeet.com) before registering.

Run/Walk Interval Running:

There are many benefits to using a run/walk method in your training. We encourage beginning runners to start using a Run/Walk interval in our Beginner 5K training programs. But using a Run/Walk interval is not just for beginners - it’s an excellent tool to help you build endurance and help you cross the finish line of your distance race. Our Coaches will help to modify the workouts to support our interval runners - they will assist with pacing, workouts, racing strategies, and much more. Some of the benefits include:

• Decreased chance of injury. The run-walk method causes less wear and tear on the body, decreasing the chance of injuries. Continuous use of muscle will result in fatigue much quicker. This method will allow a runner to go farther and/or longer before fatigue sets in.
• Quicker recovery. With less wear and tear on the body also come quicker recover after a run.
• Breaks up distances into manageable units. Running is as much mental as it is physical – especially when you get into the distance races. Using the run-walk intervals will help with those long distances. Running 9 miles just seems impossible. But breaking it down by running for a set number of minutes, it’s much more manageable.
• Motivating for new runners. This method allows just about anyone to run any race they want. It doesn’t matter your age, weight, gender, or physical ability. You can be a runner. As you start off slow, you can work your way up to running for a longer amount of time and having fewer walk breaks.

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