Pre's 30-40 Workout

Before Montreal, Viren did 5km (sometimes more) of 50m flat out, 50m stride. His "striding" got to be pretty fast, as just before those Games he did 5k of this in just under 13:40. The segments were untimed and the goal of the workout was sustained pulse of 190, developing the ability to change pace while in pain.

High school kids can sprint 50/stride 50, whatever pace they run at - and it's a lot less "mental" than trying to hit exact times for alternating 200's.

Use to do a 33/43 over 5k workout back in college and I was in 15:00 race shape. Its a great workout when you don't have training partners. The hardest part is not the 33 its the 43. After 3000 meters you desperately want to rest on the easy 200, but you must maintain the 5:44 pace.

does anyone know if there is supposed 2 b recovery between the 200s or if its just one whole thing. If there is recovery how much?

Its a continuance run. The recovery is the 40 sec 200.

It's CONTINUOS. However many laps you can handle alternating 200s in 30/40/30/40... No true recovery jogs.

This is one of my favorite workouts, although for my ability, it's more like 38/48. For me, the hard part of this workout is not hitting the 38s, it's keeping on the 48s. After 2.5 miles of this, your body really wants to rest a bit.

Pre definitely did 26 or 27 laps of 30-40. Can't remember exactly if it was 26 0r 27 that Dellinger said.

I heard Pre went 18, Al Sal hit 14 and several others were below that. Nick Rogers dished out these numbers (he hit either 11 or 12 himself). Also, the workout is simply mile pace and 15k pace. No mystery. If you're a 5 minute miler run 2-3 miles of 37/48. Simply multiply your mile pace (for 200m) by 4/3 to get the float pace.

I'll second the benefit of 35/45s for high schoolers training for the 2 mile. My coach had us doing those back in the early 90s...can't remember for sure how far we went...they were one of the workouts that we actually looked forward to as it wasn't overly taxing, we had a good core group that could complete quite a few laps together so there was the team building benefit that went along with the individual fitness benefit...

Funny timing of this thread as I'm just coming back from an injury and wanted to test my fitness without blowing myself up on tonights run. Ran a 20 minute warmup, did a mile at 45/37 which ended up feeling fairly comfortable and then did another 15 minutes cool down. Think I'm going to use this type of workout as a way to test my fitness as I return to form, gradually increasing the distance on the track and eventually trying to bring the 37 down to 35....

Smunderdog:

That's good that you are getting it going again.

I coach at Klein High School. It's funny that I started this earlier in the week. One of the guys that did the w/o at 3 x mile of 45-35 with 400 jog between sets just ran 9:55 for a 18 sec. par and one of the others PR'ed in the 1600 (4:39). As the kids often tell me, "I really got in shape this week." ha ha

Next time I think we will just got as far as we can with the 45-35.

thanks

PR...not par. Although I am a golfer, that was the wrong term!

hey wrote:

Sal did 16 and Pre did 18. It is quoted in one of Marc Bloom's books..."Greatest Distance Runners" or something like that. On average, OU athletes run around 12 or so. 30/40's that is!

So, they did it at Oklahoma, too?

I did 10 of them, two more than I usually managed, with with Art B. one time. He ran 12 of them, and won the LA marathon a week later.

Yeah I did them as well... We always did the session sometime around february or march as a sort of test for the upcoming outdoor season. The best one I ever had was 10 laps. We had two other team mates go 12 laps and another one go 10 with myself.

By the way, it should be 40/30's, not 30/40's. Dellinger always had us start with a 40 second 200, which was always hard to hold back on. You can kill the whole session with a 35 second 200 to start when you have to kick into 30 seconds.

Also, Pre did 18 and Alberto did 16. Dellinger may have said Pre did 26 or 27 but don't believe everything you hear - especially if you heard it at the Oregon Track Camp back in the day.

Runcoach,

Not sure where Klein is located...did a quick Google and there is one in TX...so you kids are probably running those times outdoors?

I went to high school in NW Indiana, so this time of year we were just finishing up indoors...never did this workout until outdoors, probably in mid April at the earliest.

I ended up with 4:21, 9:27 PRs in high school...am pretty sure I remember us saying the same thing ("got in shape this week...") :)

What I do remember si that we always did them continuously, not in sets like you describe. Not sure it really matters as long as you do more volume when you do them in sets...from a mental training standpoint, I think they were great for demonstrating to the athlete that they can mentally focus on pace for a longer period of time than a typical workout of repeat 400s or 800s or something would do...

I never have used the 30/40 specifically but every single run I do I finish with 1-2 minutes dead hard; and then a short cooldown jog. I once did something a friend called "sun up to sun down ladder"; 800 @ mile pace + 3 seconds then 800 in the same time + 30 seconds, then rotate and keep rotating until can't hold it, then drop to 600 and repeat, then 400, then 200, then 100, then rest for a 400-jog, then allout 200m. I managed 2 800's hard, 3 600's, 4 400's, 4 200's, and I said screw the 100's and just did the 200m allout. That workout kills!! I personally prefer just killer hills; I run a 5mi tempo over a hilly course and sprint the uphills and keep a strong but around hm effort on the flats and downhills (about 2mi really fast, 3mi steady)

malmo wrote:

Kind of close wrote:

Like someone just said... the 30-40 workout was not used much as a main workout. I think I only did it maybe five times in all. the 30/30 workout was done during track season only and once a week on Saturday AFTER our regular workout and AFTER a 5 mile jog. .

What years was Dellinger doing this?

I remember Dellinger doing this several times in the mid and late 90's.

As for the 40-30 drill. Nick Rogers, Oliver Wirz, Karl Keska and Matt Davis all got up to at least 12, Das Nevas may have gotten up there too. Most of the rest of us could get to 9 or 10 before we would start going 39-31 or 38-32 (instead of 40-30) and Dellinger would yank us.

After a while the 40's start feeling like 35's, then 33's and you can't shift as fast. That's about when you're done.

Rob

This is similar to a session set by Alan Storey I saw Mike McLeod and Jon Solly do separately in their prime in the early/mid 80's - one at Gateshead and the other on the Durham Uni track at Maiden Castle. They would alternate 200's for 4 miles and average sub 5 miling. I think Alan used it as a relatively easy session in the lead up to a race. Easier certainly than his 10x1k at 10k pace off 30 secs I also witnessed/dropped in and out of as a student linking up with his Tuesday night sessions for the Sunderland boys at Gateshead.

A session I used to like was alternating 50m hard / float for 20 minutes. I remember this was said to have a link to Lasse Viren's training.

That workout was one of my all-time favorites. Except I never did the true drill where you went as many laps as you could. Damn that sounds tough. You know going in you will have an incredible crash at the end!

I would do 3 times 3200. Starting at 34/40 and working it down. Its so true that after blasting a 30, the 40's start to feel like a walk. But I have to confess that I used to cheat a little and start my 30 200 a little early and finsish it a little late so I could slow down a little more on the 40 and give my self a cusion.

I always thougt it was a fun workout too, that anticipation you get right before you get ready to drastically shift gears. And it mentally was easier for me than doing a flat-out even paced 3200 repeat.

I wrote Kenny Moore to ask him if the 30/40 numbers put up here about Prefontaine were legend or evidence of Dellinger genius. The Olympic marathoner, Oregon Duck, Bowerman biographer, and scribe of our sport without equal responded:

Dear John,

The 26 laps of 30-40's for Pre is legend, but the 30-40 workout itself is something Bowerman had us do, so Dellinger's refinement and greater emphasis on it was not genius so much as exploration. It grew out of Bowerman being fascinated in the 1950's with Parlauf relays, where teams of two guys alternate 220's and after you hand off, (in the middle of the stretch) you have to jog across the infield and be ready to run again while your partner makes it around the curve. Bill would see how many of those 220's with (30 to 33s sec. recovery) we could do. Of course it was always more complicated than that. He loved to pair a distance guy and a half miler, such as me and Archie San Romani, to keep Archie from going 26's at first, and to prove to me that fast guys could be overcome by slower running and faster recovery.

Then, when one of Pre's many gifts was the ability to surge and recover in racing, Dellinger strengthened that strength even more with the 30-40 workouts. So we're all together here, as usual, standing on the broad shoulders of those who have gone before.

Cheers,

Kenny

I asked his permission to post this here and about his new book. He responded:

And of course you may post the 30-40 stuff on LetsRun. And tell the world I plan to show up at the Rodale booth at the Boston Marathon and keep signing books as long as this old marathoner can avoid the shakes. Maybe longer.

Best,

Kenny