On December 1, many of the nation’s best pro running groups closed out 2022 with a final test of their fitness at the Sound Running Cross Champs. The cross-country meet, hosted alongside The Running Event (an annual running industry convention in Austin, Texas), featured a looped course, where elites battled over 8K on grass, dirt, and even a few hay bales.
The men’s race kicked off the event with a victory from Edwin Kurgat, who finished in 23:27 after chasing down early leader Ollie Hoare. The women’s individual title was claimed by long-distance Olympian Alicia Monson, who won a late-race battle in 26:55 against 2015 world bronze medalist Emily Infeld.
Following the standout performances in the Texas state capitol, Runner’s World caught up with four elites to discuss the hardest workouts that helped them reach new levels of success this year. Here are the training sessions that made a big difference for Thursday’s podium finishers.
Edwin Kurgat swears by a long progression run
In his return to health following an Achilles injury, Kurgat found a progression run to be the hardest workout of 2022. The goal of the workout is to help athletes find their “red zone or limits” and learn how to manage it in a continuous effort, Iowa State head coach and Kurgat’s coach Jeremy Sudbury told Runner’s World. Kurgat’s workout was an “11+1,” which includes 11 miles cutting down in pace for each mile plus a 1-mile cooldown. Depending on the athletes’ mileage and where they are in the developmental phase, Sudbury adjusts the length of the training session (5+1, for example). The goal is to start the first mile at a warmup pace—6:50-7 minutes per mile in Kurgat’s case—and get faster.
“The cut down is not structured but rather up to the person to identify where they are at,” Sudbury says.
For Kurgat, who specializes in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters, that meant getting into a rhythm of 5:00-minute miles quickly and sustaining that pace for the last five miles. For this particular 12-miler, he ended the run at a blazing 4:50 mile pace. When Hoare set an early fast pace in Austin, Kurgat used the stamina built from those hard efforts to overtake his competitor and win the race. “Edwin let [Hoare] go and rather focused on his process, which proved successful,” Sudbury says.
After Kurgat’s victory, the 2019 NCAA cross-country champion says he was happy with his performance, especially since it took a year to heal. Now working as a graduate assistant coach at Iowa State, Kurgat says he hopes to earn sponsorship with a shoe company so he can run as a professional.
“This was a big battle for me,” Kurgat says. “This was the best time for me to show that I’m back, and I’m ready to run again.”
Make it your own:
Steve Sisson, head coach and founder of Telos Running, often prescribes similar workouts for his Austin-based group that trains for the marathon and half marathon. First, he examines whether or not the individual can handle the volume of the workout. If so, a proper warmup followed by a 12-mile progression run with appropriate paces can be very beneficial to a runner training for 26.2 or 13.1.
If a runner isn’t quite ready for that level of volume, he recommends starting with a shorter distance (6 miles, for instance) with appropriate pacing, trying to quicken your pace with each mile.
Alicia Monson and Emily Infeld dig deep with kilometer repeats
Monson’s speed at the end of a race has been a major highlight of her 2022 season, which included a 13th-place finish in the 10,000 meters at the World Athletics Championships and several personal bests on the track. In Austin, that speed showed up once again when she pulled away from the lead pack on the final loop.
To hone that skill, Monson worked with her coach, Dathan Ritzenhein of the On Athletics Club, to tackle workouts that focus on VO2 max. Monson says her hardest workout of the year was about two weeks before the Oslo Diamond League meeting in June. In St. Moritz, Switzerland, the University of Wisconsin alum did five sets of kilometer repeats followed by one fast 400 and another fast 300-meter repeat on the track.
Monson started at 2:58 pace and gradually increased her speed with each repeat. By the end, she averaged 2:54 for the kilometers. The 400-meter repeat was run in 62 seconds and the 300-meter rep was done in 45 seconds, she says.
“It was really hard VO2 max stuff, where every single rep you’re trying to focus hard on getting it done and you have to recoup on the breaks,” Monson says. “That workout was really hard every K, and you have to be able to close fast, but I think it really prepared me well for the 5K in Oslo.”
Days later, Monson notched a new personal best of 14:31, the third-fastest 5,000-meter time ever run by an American.
Infeld’s toughest workout was similar to Monson’s, but hers came two weeks before she qualified for her fourth global championship this summer.
In June, the Georgetown alum ran four kilometer repeats with three minutes of rest in between each. All of the kilometers were run faster than her 5K race pace, she says. Infeld started at 71 seconds for each 400-meter split and worked her way down to 67 seconds, which made for a tough progression that left the long-distance runner feeling like she maxed out.
At the time, Infeld hadn’t done much speedwork, so the workout was a helpful reintroduction.
“It was a shock to the system, and I was really thankful to have my husband, Max, with me because I was hurting after the second rep,” Infeld says. “I was like, oh my gosh, I have to do two more. I don’t know if I can go any faster than what we just ran. But I was able to surprise myself, and I feel like those are the days where it's fun and it prepared me well for the last mile at the end of the 5K at USAs.”
At the USATF Outdoor Championships in June, Infeld finished third in an exciting homestretch battle to make her first global championship team since 2017.
Make it your own:
Sisson points out that not only is Monson’s workout beneficial physiologically (she got tons of practice running her race pace and closing even faster), but it’s also “psychologically robust” because the intensity of the workout simulated the demands faced in competition.
For athletes training to race something like a 5K on the road or track, kilometer repeats done at the individual’s race pace are a great tool, Sisson says. Just make sure you’re approaching the VO2 max workout as a big effort with plenty of warmup beforehand and each rest period matching the duration of the interval. For example, if the athlete runs 4:00 for 1 kilometer, Sisson suggests taking 4 minutes to rest before going into the next repeat. “You need to get adequate recovery from that lactate that came in to be ready for the next bout,” he says.
Ednah Kurgat builds her strength with hills
This year, Kurgat has been racing on the roads more often, but found that she hasn’t been able to respond well to her competitors’ moves. To improve that racing skill, the Army WCAP runner who specializes in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters, added another hard workout to her already demanding training regimen and work schedule as a sergeant in the U.S. Army.
The 2017 NCAA cross-country champion says she started doing a hard hill workout during her midweek run. After she warms up for three miles, Kurgat sprints up a 150-meter hill 8-10 times for a total of 30 minutes. After each hill, she jogs down to the bottom for recovery before sprinting back up again. After the hills, she cools down for three miles. The workout is meant to help Kurgat focus on strength and pushing forward against resistance.
“I’m competing against super talented ladies and I want to be among them when they are kicking,” Kurgat says. “I want to be there when they make the move.”
At the Sound Running meet, Kurgat finished third in 27:07. She hopes the training efforts continue to pay off in January at the USATF Cross-Country Championships, where she aims to qualify for the U.S. team headed to the World Athletics Cross-Country Championships.
Make it yours:
Because a 150-meter hill is considered a long distance to maintain biomechanics in a sprint economy workout, Sisson recommends runners try a training session with shorter distances and work their way up.
After warming up, start by “stair-stepping” with a workout that includes hill repeats of 50, 75, and 100 meters and repeat the cycle three times, he suggests.
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Taylor Dutch is a writer and editor living in Austin, Texas, and a former NCAA track athlete who specializes in fitness, wellness, and endurance sports coverage. Her work has appeared in Runner’s World, SELF, Bicycling, Outside, and Podium Runner.
