Doing a Workout after a Mile or 800M TT

Anyone, Anyone? Bump

You have a lot of latitude with this as you are a distance guy who is looking at short distances for your trials. You could trial and then do some threshold work to keep your longer distances strong or drop to 100s or 200s to help out with the shorter time trials. One of my favorite late season workouts is the split trial. Maybe a mile time trial, a mile slow jog, then a 400 time trial.

Other options would be 5x1000 (60 seconds rest) threshold (maybe 7 minute pace)

8x200 (200 slow jog) about the same pace as the mile TT, maybe a bit faster for the last few.

The trouble with doing extra work after the time trial is you will probably hold something back for it

If its something shorter you can get away with it, I supppose as long as you have a good recovery.

If I was setting a 1 mile time trial I would just do a recovery run afterwards

No need for more work which will increase the risk of injury. Just a jog warm-down, a few strides and a few miles recovery run is sufficient. Your next hard session should be a tempo run or hill work. Don't overdo the track stuff if it is not your primary event (I'm a masters 400-1500 guy so it would be different for me).

Thanks for the input guys. So it sounds like opinions are mixed on this.

Papa Rotc,

I never ran track in HS or College but have always felt that I am better suited for the 800-1500. The problem is that there are virtually no opportunities to compete in anything under 5K around here so I have focused more on that this last year after getting back to running after 4 year layoff becuase of back issues.

In the future when the kids are older, I would like to get involved in the Masters Track scene but know I would never be remotely competitive above a mile in distance, that is why I am interesed in doing a TT at Mile, 800, and 400. I would like to see if my feeling that I am better suited at mid distance is correct. I guess after I do the TT's over the next couple weeks I will have a better idea.

I have not trained specifically for the these distances so I guess if they predict faster 5K times than what I am able to run I will know I am better suited for shorter distances?

To gauge your potential in these distances, I suggest that if you run solo time trials (no other runners), then plug the results into a WAVA calculator and compare them to about a 20:30 5K. This is due to the additional boost you get from a competitive 5K versus a solo (and untrained-for) time trial. Good luck. I used the same data to influence my shift from the roads to masters track, which eventually earned me national/world-class levels of performance (with a crapload of hard work, of course ;)

Salazar likes to have his guys run longer slower intervals after early season or indoor races. For example he had Webb run the 5,000 as a tempo after he ran his 3:41 1,500 this year. Rupp has often been seen at Dempsey running intervals on the adjacent outdoor track after a quick indoor 800 or 1,500 effort.

Run a regular speed endurance or speed endurance workout right after your time trial. We do this all the time when we don't go to a race. I don't mix speed endurance (400s and longer) with speed (399 and shorter) in my system.

I coach mostly higher level female runners but I coach a few age groupers.

One of them is a 41 year old male who is a cancer survivor and lifetime runner. I've been looking over him since August 2008. He seems near your level because one week ago he lowered his masters pb in 5K from 19:37 to 19:15. His natural talent lies in the 800m and 400m, then 1500m.

This is one of his Tuesday runs when he was unable to run a local all-comers meeting.

1.)10 mins jog barefoot in the grass field with some stretches after.

2.) 10 mins jog barefoot in the track with some stretches when he feels he wants to stretch.

3.) Striders: barefoot in the grass-- runs 4-30 secs striding with 90 secs slower. Then 2 mins more = 10 mins.

He stretches when he needs to. I do not press him. He has problems from cancer and the meds given him such as some permanent muscle damage (now those meds have disclaimers for causing permanent muscle damage).

4.) Time Trial on his own in spikes starting in lane one: 800 metres in 2:26.24. It's his masters pb.

5.) Jogs 2 mins. Then Changes into lightweight trainers. So recovery is about 4 mins total.

6.) Fartlek: He starts from the track and heads out on the roads (and sometimes grass fields) for his speed endurance fartlek but it is very much threshold stuff. His pace is very naturally 6:40 down to 6:20 when he feels good. After this 800TT he ran 4 times 9 mins with one min. jogs. He often carries a water bottle in his hand during this. He does this by how he feels at that moment. This = 40 mins total.

Then he ran back to the track to cooldown in the opposite way he warmed up.

7.)Like #3. 8.) Like #2. 9.)Like #1. 10.)Walk 20 mins barefoot while eating nutritous foods.

We grow up barefoot running here just so you understand that that is our way.

So it was over 100 mins running. He runs by time not kilometres.

So if you fit my system of training then I would have you do something like this. Also we run speed/sprints on other days.

OK plugged 20:30 into the calculator and it gives 67.59 as the age performance %

Ran my first ever 800M TT today and hit 2:36. 400M split was 1:15 so I slowed 6 seconds for the second 400. I was really tying up the last 200M. I know the 800 is supposed to be a positive split but is that too much?

Anyway the age perf. % for the 800 TT was 69.43. Although a higher score, it does not seem like much difference.

I am pretty sure that I could improve the time next time just on the experience of running this one and would further improve it with some 800 specific training but does a 69.43 score for a first time, untrained 800 vs. the 67.59 for the 5K indicate I am relatively better at 800?

Planning on doing a mile TT and a 400 TT next week.

Instead of adding more work on the track, just go for an extra long cool down at slightly faster than you would typically run. If you typically do a 20 min cooldown, extend it to 30-45 minutes depending on how you feel at the end of the trial. By doing this, you ad a bit of an aerobic component to the end of the workout, while maintaining all the benefits of a traditional cooldown. It will also help you recover more easily on the following day during your recovery run. However, you must listen to your body. Let it tell you what it needs. If it needs rest, then rest. If you feel like you can pick up the pace for a slightly longer run, then do it.

One of the time trial type workouts my track workout group likes is:

1600m warm-up

400m at interval pace (<90% effort), 400m slow recov

800-1000m at target mile pace, 1600m easy jog

1600m at ~5 secs slower per lap than 800m (which for me is close to 3k race pace), 800m easy jog

400m rep pace (2-3 secs faster than 800m)

1600m cooldown

Total is around 5 miles, and it works well with a second easy run of ~5 miles the same day.

I appreciate all the advice. Still seem to be two different opinions of just run easy mileage after and doing some extra work can be beneficial. Yesterday I did a mile of jog the corners sprint the straights. That was all I could do after about a 1200 recover jog. I felt like I could do more but not knowing how much soarness the 800TT might put into my legs I did not want to overdo it. Surprisingly my legs are not soar today, they actually feel really good. It's kind of weird to say but they almost feel stronger like when walking up the stairs, I feel like they have more pop in them.

Thanks for all the ideas guys.

How is your training going?

I have my runners do a light tempo run or work out. 3-5 x 1000 at 10kish pace or a 20 minute tempo at 15k-half marathon pace. With 5-10 minute jog warm up and cool down.

ehhhhhhhh wrote:

I have my runners do a light tempo run or work out. 3-5 x 1000 at 10kish pace or a 20 minute tempo at 15k-half marathon pace. With 5-10 minute jog warm up and cool down.

What is your name coach and how fast are your runners?