Morning tempo followed by afternoon speed session

I've heard of doing them on back to back days, but not on the same day. Guess it depends on how fast you're doing the 300's. I personally wouldn't, nor would I tell anyone that it's a good idea.

Yes, it's been done, and it is a good way to do it, i.e., tempo first.

This is a pretty common for runners in the American Distance Project during marathon training from what I have heard.

In this document

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_zzkn1-wR0dOGVSMXROd0lKRUE/edit

You can see Caleb Nkidu has a "Special Block" of 10k in 30min in the AM then 2x10x300 in the PM.

I've also heard on Jay Johnson's Podcast interview with Phil Wharton about the training philosophy of Matthew Centrowitz Sr. at American University. I seem to remember them talking about doing some sort of shorter tempo in the morning and a speed session in the PM. Worth checking out.

It sounds like it could work. Jack Daniels said that some speed work (about mile pace) after a tempo run is very beneficial. At the Jim Ryun camp, we did a tempo workout and then 8x200 at mile pace shortly afterwards (didn't wait until the PM).

Anyone done this? wrote:

Anyone done a tempo run (4-6 miles) in the morning then done a speed session (10 x 300) in the evening? Or anything similar...

Probably everyone who ran for Oregon.

Bill Dellingers teams did that every week.

4-6Mile Tempo in the morning/ 4-6 miles easy w/ 4-5x200 Cutdowns

Forcerunner wrote:

In this document

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_zzkn1-wR0dOGVSMXROd0lKRUE/edit

You can see Caleb Nkidu has a "Special Block" of 10k in 30min in the AM then 2x10x300 in the PM.

Is 10k in 30 minutes even tempo pace for Nkidu? Seems a bit slow or is he more of a speed 5k guy?

If you defecate AFTER morning session but BEFORE afternoon session you will be faster than if you do it all in morning OR evening.

As someone already posted, Dellinger was a huge proponent of this type of training. Matt Centrowitz Sr. at American University continues to use this all the time, with 5-6 mile 'tempo' runs in the AM and then 200s, 300s in the afternoon. I would think that Pat Tyson uses this system at Gonzaga- ran at Oregon as well in the same era. Even though he is a HS coach, Bill Mcchesney was also there around this time, but I dont know how he trains his high school teams.

I did something very similar almost every Tuesday of March/April this year. If you're used to doubles, its just one step more, and I think it really helps with running rounds at a champs or doing more than one race in a day.

I would do a hilly 10K acceleration run in the AM (around 11 o'clock) in anything from 40 - 43 mins, with a final 5K in close to or under 20 mins, and a final km in close to or under 3:20, maybe followed by some sprints or strides. Then, in the PM (around 6:30) , I would do a 1500/3K Session of 200s - 800s, adding up to about 3k of hard running, and usually followed by a set of hill sprints or fast 200s. I would usually hit 29 - 31s for the 200s, 64 - 68s for the 400s and 2:15 - 2:25s for the 800s, though this obviously depended on the session.

I quite liked this, but make sure you don't burn it too hot in the AM run. If I ever really put the boot in before 6 or 7k I would suffer in the evening. Made me strong, and doing the acceleration run with others is a lot of fun.

This got me to a 15-second 1500 improvement over the season (4:08 in a championship race, closing in 60 for the final 400 from a 4:23 even pace season opener) and kept me improving throughout the track season. I would have run faster but doing all my sessions in track spikes came back to bite me and I got a minor foot injury.

I will definitely do something similar next year, and expect it to continue to work very well.

regularly and with longer repetitions ...

almost every thursday of my college career

mix afternoon ranged from 200s or 300s to 1000s/1200s

Sounds stupid to me. If you want to do a killer workout, do something like 8k tempo on the track. Change into your spikes and jog a lap then do some short fast stuff like 3x400 all out with full recovery.

If you want to hit both on the same day. Do it in one session. Don't be stupid.

For the Oregon doubles the milers did short Tempos at 3 miles at around 5 minute pace on firm trail.

Tuesday

7am 4 x 1000 3:10 cut down to 2:50

3pm 9 x hill sprints, 8 x 60m in spikes

Thursday

7am 3 miles in 16 min

3pm 1x800 at 2 min, 2 x 600

agc5k wrote:

Sounds stupid to me. . . .

If you want to hit both on the same day. Do it in one session. Don't be stupid.

And yet tempo AM/speed PM evidently seems to have worked for some people. Perhaps you're different from them, and it would be stupid *for you* to do what they've done; but if they're being successful with it, I don't think they're being stupid.

Gee, you might think that different things work for different people...

my big day each week during spring i ran 800/miles PRs was something like:

a.m. - a mix of 200/400/600s @ mile pace (no more than 2000m total volume)

OR

200/300s @ 800 pace (no more than 1200m volume)

(pretty much complete jogging recovery between reps during both sessions to make sure each rep was of good quality).

p.m. - 20-25min straight tempo

love this order because:

1) i was fresh for the speedwork. could really focus on form/turnover.

2) being a little tired in the p.m. would force me to keep the tempo under control & not go too fast.

i also like doubling up like this because it consolidates your training stress into 1 day. thus you can fit another recovery day into your schedule.

did a similar thing for my 'big' weekly session the fall I ran my 10K and HM PRs:

a.m. - mix of 200/300s @ mile pace

p.m. - 6x1mi @ HM pace, or 4x2K @ 10K pace

Stanford & The Farm Team did this.