Hey guys, I’ve been trying to figure out how to plan my training through next May, when I’ll be doing a 10K obstacle course race. For 10 weeks leading up to the race I plan on doing a running program called Ease into 10K, which requires running 3x/week. I’ve done a race in the past, and I feel like the biggest key is being able to run a decent 10K, which I’ve never done and certainly can’t do right now.
Initially I figured the Endurance template would be a good idea leading up to the race as well, because of not only the running but the upper body obstacles. But I don’t know what the Endurance template looks like, so to those that do: do you think it provides any unique benefits in training for the OCR over the other templates?
Also, if I’m running 3x/week how should I expect to adjust my lifting days? Have others gone down to lifting only 2x/week when focusing on running or a similar sport? The current plan I have laid out would mean for most of the HLM template I’d be doing the 10K training, as well as the Endurance template (race would be after week 5, then I’d move on to another template).
For the record, I’m not competing in the race, I just want to be able to complete all the obstacles this time, jog the entire race, and not get cramps in both calves for the last mile. Also, I don’t compete in Powerlifting meets, so I can afford a little bit of a loss in gainzzz but would certainly like to keep that minimized.
Hey Keith. I have tons of experience competing in many OCR races in the past. That was kind of my jam back in my late 20’s-mid 30’s. Training for OCR is “nuanced”, but I think I can help point you in the right direction. First a couple random pointers: 1. Obviously, running is important. Running up hill is even more important. Doing some running in a hilly area, stadium stairs, or doing some incline intervals on a treadmill as the event gets close is a great thing. Hiking some uphill trails also helps, and is probably a good place to start your uphill conditioning if you have access to any uphill mountain trails.
2. Pull-ups, pull-ups, and more pull-ups. You have to climb a lot of things, so pull-up strength is huge. If you can get access to a rope to practice rope climbs, I would include that as well (as the skill with the rope is most peoples bottleneck on that obstacle at least). But yeah, any template you are running I would really increase the volume of pull-ups you’re doing drastically. If you can get yourself to be able to do 25-30 pull-ups or more in a set you’ll be in a pretty good spot.
3. Farmers walks. There’s always some sort of excruciating farmers walk type obstacle. One that comes to mind from the last race I did was giant water jugs (no idea how much they weighed) and having to grab one in each hand and carry them like 1/4 mile uphill and back. The better you can get with farmers walks, the better. Most people lose a ton of time on these obstacles, as they have to keep dropping the weight and resting every few feet.
4. Jumping. This depends on how good of a jumper you are. You will have to jump some large hurdles, and scale some large walls, both of which benefit from a good vertical jump. So if you’re not naturally a good jumper, doing some jump training is probably a good thing.
5. Don’t completely punt on strength training, as there are strength based obstacles. You’ll have to flip a giant tire for instance, and deadlift strength greatly helps there.
6. Look online and see if you have any obstacle courses of any kind near you. We have a couple here in AZ that I would do on the weekends leading up to it. They are both fun, and help give you a bit of real world, out of the gym experience.
7. Look online at the Crossfit boxes near you. I have one near me that has a free workout every Saturday morning. I used to go there for the free workout often to get some more random full-body HIIT conditioning in. The random metcons of Crossfit do kind of help. Just don’t drink the Kool-aide while you’re there, haha.
8. Burpees. I probably don’t even have to mention this, but at least building yourself up to being able to easily do 30 burpees unbroken is highly recommended I think the Endurance template is indeed a great place to start, especially if you’re not used to running on a regular basis. This template has you lift 3 days and run 3 days (so you can either do the running in the endurance template, or sub in the program you selected on those days). After running the endurance template you could move on to alternating the 3 day hypertrophy and Bridge 2.0 while keeping the 3 days of conditioning in (as you will be adjusted to the conditioning at that time). At this time, you could start to adjust what you do for GPP and conditioning to add in some of the things I mentioned above. Obviously, as in any training, the further out you are the more general your training is, and the closer it gets the more specific you want it to be. So do keep that in mind as you plan out your GPP days.