Predict a 1600 time for my top girl...

5:20 indoors, then injured for a good bit of the Spring. 6400 meters of intervals for a HS girl in December who is a relative newb to distance running is stupid.

POMPATUS OF LOVE wrote:

5:20 indoors, then injured for a good bit of the Spring. 6400 meters of intervals for a HS girl in December who is a relative newb to distance running is stupid.

Since she hasn't done anything to warrant scholarship consideration, a 6 week build up for this race was our best option. After this race, she will have a 2 week break and then back into base work. Doing a normal winter and waiting until spring to try and run fast would have meant that she'd have to end up walking on some place because most schools will be finished recruiting for this class by then.

If you think she can only run 5:20 based on the workouts discussed, then you apparently don't know what you are talking about anyway.

Did a relatively light workout today. TT is going to be Friday afternoon and wanted her to be pretty fresh for that.

800 @ 3:00, 400 jog + 30 secs (total of 3 mins reco), 4x400 off a 200 jog (total of 2:15 reco) 72, 73, 72, 73, 400 jog, 4x200 off 90 secs rest 32,32,32,33.

It was cold and windy today, but the weather looks nice for the TT on Friday. One of my guys who's running in college now is going to pace that for her and he should be able to hit the splits close to exact. Tentatively planning on trying to go out in the first two laps in roughly 72,77 for a 2:29-2:31 800 split. Does that sound too aggressive to you guys? I think she is ready for that based on the workouts, but an argument could be made that taking it out conservatively in 2:35 might be a better idea so as to make sure she runs strong the whole way. I don't want to hurt her confidence 2 weeks before the race, but I'd also like her to go ahead and run fast since it appears she's ready.

Why do you want to split 72/77? Why not 76/76 for a 2:32, let her try to hang on? Or is that your race plan, rather than TT?

Swerving wrote:

Why do you want to split 72/77? Why not 76/76 for a 2:32, let her try to hang on? Or is that your race plan, rather than TT?

My thought on the 72/77 was that I wanted the TT to be as close as possible to what she's going to face in a race which typically means going out aggressively the first lap before settling in. I feel like thats even more the case in girls races as a lot of the top girls in our state go out ridiculously hard and hang on to run fast. Most girls can't sit back off the pace and make up the gap so it ends up working out well for them. Being a TT though, I can have the pace wherever we want it though so maybe 73 high/74 low makes more sense and try to run relatively even splits for the first 2 laps for a 2:30/2:31.

It looks like you're trying to simulate the race instead of having her run a TT. The thing you have to account for is the lack of adrenaline in a practice so getting out as hard as she will once she's in the race might be a bit harder. Having her go out in a 74 or so will allow her to feel under control and perhaps allow her to turn and burn the last lap. I would think you'd want her to feel as though she can GO on the last lap with her speed as that is where it will be more beneficial than going out so hard and not being able to find the legs at the end. Again, this is just my opinion.

I've finally got a girl who runs 5:04 and her big thing is close to even splits, even neg splitting a 5:05 (2:33-2:32) by being a bit more conservative in the opening lap. Now, she only has 61s 400m speed, but she does seem to run better if she opens up closer to 74/75 than 69/70.

I like your thought process re: wanting her to feel like she has something left on the last lap. I definitely don't want this to be a bad experience so being conservative is probably the best approach.

Update...

We did the TT yesterday and it went reasonably well. Murphy's law was unfortunately in play as she fell down a flight of stairs yesterday walking into school and banged up both of her knees. She was pretty sore by the afternoon, but we decided to go ahead and warm up to see how it felt. She decided it wasn't really affecting her while she was running and the weather was ideal so we decided to go ahead and do it instead of waiting until next week. She ran a 5:15 and the splits were 74.0, 75.9 (2:29.9) 83.2, 82.2.

All things considered, I was encouraged. I think her workouts suggest she is ready to run a lot better over the last 800 than she ran yesterday though. Hard to say how much of that was her knees being sore or just that it was her first attempt at running a hard 1600. 515 isn't bad for a first try either way and hopefully this will give her some confidence going into the race in 2 weeks.

Clearly, you should forbid your athlete from going to school or walking down stairs for the next two weeks ;)

lawguy wrote:

Update...

All things considered, I was encouraged. I think her workouts suggest she is ready to run a lot better over the last 800 than she ran yesterday though. Hard to say how much of that was her knees being sore or just that it was her first attempt at running a hard 1600. 515 isn't bad for a first try either way and hopefully this will give her some confidence going into the race in 2 weeks.

I would tend to think that the latter was more of a reason for her slowing down on the TT. If you've never run a really hard 1600 and you've been doing mostly speed type stuff, the second half of a fast time trial is going to be uncharted waters. Actually being in a race and having some race experience will go a long way toward improving her time.

Also, with younger runners, simply having the mental focus to run flat out for 5 minutes can be tough. It sounds like she is physically really close to where you want her right now. Perhaps some longer intervals to increase her mental focus would help

I've been a fan of intervals for time out on the roads. You could have her try something like 6 x 3 min hard, 2 min easy inserted into a 6-7 mile run. This takes off some of the mental stress of trying to hit splits on the track and allows the athlete to focus more on her own internal stimuli. If you could squeeze in a couple of those workouts over the next 2 weeks, I think your girl would race much stronger for it.

When I have my athletes do these (or when I've done them myself), the focus is running hard enough on each interval so that you are just starting to feel some discomfort for the last 30-40 seconds of each interval, then keeping the pace fast enough on the 2 minutes easy so that you go into the next interval a little tired still. This is great for teaching kids how to focus while tired. Another bonus of this type of session is that if a kid gets really good at focusing for 3-4 min hard efforts, the first part of a mile race goes by really quickly and the athlete finds himself in the later stages of the race still feeling really mentally in to it and ready to kick down at the end.

I'm genuinely surprised by this result. I thought she'd run under 5:00 based on the 400 repeats but, as others have pointed out, she may lacking in longer intervals to build strength.

Does she need to run the 1600 for this scholarship effort or would a strong 800 be enough? It seems that her speed endurance is her strength and that you don't have time to build 1600 endurance for the indoor meet.

I'm rooting for her.

Thanks man. I'm really not disappointed with the result though. First, her mind set wasn't great before we started. She was unsure about whether we should go ahead and run or postpone it until next week. When you're unsure about something going into it like, I think it makes it a good bit tougher mentally. Beyond that, this was her first hard 1600 effort so while her workouts indicate she's ready to run a good bit under 5:10, 5:15 still isn't a terrible result. I think 5:05-5:08 is doable in two weeks and I'd be really pleased with that.

On the 800, there's going to be a 16 and 8 at the meet later this month. The 800 is several hours after the 16 so I'll probably enter her in both so if she feels ok after the 16, she can run the 800 also.

Definitely don't have her go out in 72! If all the leaders run off a cliff, will you encourage her to run of a cliff as well? Have her go out in 75, which will actually be 74 with her excitement. Tell her to expect the leaders to go out crazy fast and to ignore them. There is no prize for your place after the 400.

You want her in the best place mentally? How will it help to be dead by 1000 and falling off the pace?? Mentally she'll do much better if she knows she has to control the beginning, feels great going into 800, then sets her sights on the leaders who are struggling because of how quickly they went out. Mentally it feels so much better to be powering through people than falling off of them.

She will run her best in the race if she is set up to run her very best time. She is going for time, not place.

If she runs a 5:05 going out in 72, I guarantee she could break 5 if she went out in 75. Why would you set her up to run anything other than her best?

lawguy wrote:

Since it appears you don't have anything to offer, why don't you find another thread where you can berate people who are trying to carry on a constructive discussion?

I am offering advice: Don't say "200 jog rest" when the rest was in fact 2:30 as you later acknowledged. That has a massively different implication for the questions YOU are asking here.

Cheers,

rupp-certified saladbar wrote:

lawguy wrote:

Since it appears you don't have anything to offer, why don't you find another thread where you can berate people who are trying to carry on a constructive discussion?

I am offering advice: Don't say "200 jog rest" when the rest was in fact 2:30 as you later acknowledged. That has a massively different implication for the questions YOU are asking here.

Cheers,

Just have her STAND for 60 seconds. 200m jogs can be done with a lot of inconsistency.

I'm curious about her experience racing indoors. Does she have any? If not, how are you preparing her for the important differences of short track racing?

Thanks for the updates. I've enjoyed reading them and am pulling for you.

rupp-certified saladbar wrote:

lawguy wrote:

Since it appears you don't have anything to offer, why don't you find another thread where you can berate people who are trying to carry on a constructive discussion?

I am offering advice: Don't say "200 jog rest" when the rest was in fact 2:30 as you later acknowledged. That has a massively different implication for the questions YOU are asking here.

Cheers,

If you want someone to take your advice seriously, you ought to try offering it without being so condescending.

Coach K wrote:

I'm curious about her experience racing indoors. Does she have any? If not, how are you preparing her for the important differences of short track racing?

Thanks for the updates. I've enjoyed reading them and am pulling for you.

Last year was her first season of indoor track so she definitely doesn't have a lot of experience. I don't think the field at this race will be "that" great so there shouldn't be a lot of racing per se. My hope is for at least one sub 5:10 girl there, but its possible that she might be running it solo.

Sorry for the confusion on my handle there. (last 2 replies were from me) I replied to someone's thread asking about admission standards for runners at Stanford yesterday and forgot to switch back to my normal handle for this thread.

Update on today's workout...

After seeing her struggle the last 800 of the TT, I decided to try something new today. I wanted to do something longer than 4s, but also incorporate an element that would work on running fast while tired. The workout I settled on was sets of 600-200 with a 45 second standing rest between the 600 and 200 and a 400 jog (total recovery time of 4:00) between sets. My top boy paced her and the goal coming in was to run close to 75 pace on the 600s and 35 seconds on the 200s. Here's how it ended up...1:53 (74)-34, 1:52 (75)-34, 1:52 (74)-34, 1:53 (76)-34, 1:55 (77) -36, 1:47 (70)-32.

She wasn't feeling great coming into the workout, but I think she ended up running pretty well. I was originally planning on a shorter recovery between sets, but decided to add to it because she wasn't feeling great. She was busy all day yesterday and didn't get her run in until 11pm so I think that threw her off a little. She didn't have school today though so that shouldn't have been a huge issue. She was pretty gassed after the 5th set, so I was really pleased with how strong she finished on the last one.

My tentative plan until the race (a week for Sat) is for workouts this thursday, sunday, and then next wednesday. My thought at this point is to come back with the 2/4/2 compound interval workout on Thursday as our last really tough effort.

You don't understand HS running do you?