Get Strong
The way I train now has progressed from when I first started trail running. Back in 2012 I wasn't concerned with stretching nor working on my 'core'. Heck, I didn't even know I had a core. My how times have changed. Several years ago Olaf, a friend of mine who is a beast of a long distance road runner, running 24+ hours around a high school track among many other ultra-road races told me this story about the importance of core strengthening. As he neared the end of a big race on a track he couldn't keep his upper body upright. When I asked him why his reply was that his core wasn't strong enough to keep his body in an upright position. His legs could still kind of move, but nothing like when he could keep his trunk upright. Can you imagine trying to run while bent at a 90 degree angle? Yea, me either. So I started to work on my core. I would encourage everyone no matter how young or old, new or veteran to trails to have some sort of stretching and strengthening routine, and there is a difference between stretching and strengthening.
What I've learned is that as a runner I've got to keep my hips and abs strong, no I don't have a 6-pack. So my workouts drop into 2 categories, what I do everyday and what I do at the gym twice a week. Everyday for me means every morning; this involves push-ups, planks, bridges, single leg bridges, clams, side planks, side plank dips, squats, lunges, Russian twists, crunches, bicycle crunches, Superman's, calf raises and drops, toe crunches. I don't do these all at once, but I pick and chose based upon how my body is feeling and how much time I will have in the morning. At times I do these with weights and exercise bands as a part of my strength training. The basic is I pick 5 or 6 to do in a sequence and do 10 of each for several rounds. I try to increase the number of rounds as a week progresses and then after a week or two pick different exercises.
The gym is a bit different than the home. Here I end up spending about 15 to 30 minutes with 3 different cardio machines bike, Jacob's Ladder, and rowing sometimes depending on where I'm at with race training and injuries I'll sub out either Jacob's Ladder or rowing for the treadmill. After that I have a 30 minute workout setup by a trainer at my gym that focuses on overall strength. It's important when working with a trainer to let them know what your goals are, if those change, and any injuries/acute pain that is happening. That meant I told them that I need to work on my running form, which was apparently not quite the most efficient, and over all strength. It was amazing to me just how much improvement I had gotten all around in 6 months.
I know you saw that thing about injuries, that's it's own little space.
My Daily Workout
I do a combination of clams, bridges and planks 5 days a week. With the clams I'm using resistance bands. Including the above exercises I have a full set/series that I go through almost every day. It takes me about 45 minutes each morning to do them; I do Monday through Friday. Here is a brief list of what I do: squats, toe crunches - a must!, calf stretches - both straight leg and bent leg, hip rotations in which I'm bent over standing on one leg with the other out behind me, side steps with an exercise band, lunges, quad sets - for my knees. I also spend about 5 minutes with a stick called an Add-A-Day stick rolling my calf.
Something else I've learned is that most of my issues come from overly tight calves and hamstrings. So ANYTHING I can do to keep them loose will pays off for me in huge ways.
My Schedule
So with all this exercise you might wonder when I find time to run. My base run days are Tuesday, Thursday with a long run on Saturday or Sunday or both. When I'm focused on my A race for the year I add Wednesdays and both days on the weekend. As my distances have gotten longer so have my training distances.
When I started out I ran 3 days out of the week and the distance covered wasn't as important as the amount of time I was spending running. The basics were that however long I was going to run on the weekend I would make sure I had that much time during the week. Yes, I trained to time not to miles and I still do. Then each weekend run would increase by 30 minutes for 3 weeks then on the 4th week I would drop back to the amount of time I was doing 2 weeks prior and build up again. Depending on how far off the race was I would plan this idea for 8 or 13 weeks. Following this idea I have never felt under prepared nor unable to finish the race. When I haven't followed this basic plan I haven't performed as well as I wanted at a race.
Tapping Into Local Resources
Early on I made a relationship with a local Results Physiotherapy through my local FleetFeet store. Both the FleetFeet and Results Physiotherapy have been incredible resources for how to do stretching and strengthening correctly. I think it is important to keep a PT close by because you never know when their knowledge will come in handy.