Has anyone ever attempted Quenton Cassady's famed 3x (20x400m) workout and come out alive?

I did 20x400 once in high school. It was august. Took a very long time.

What would the purpose of 60 x 400 be? At what pace would this make sense? You could possibly do this as a long "cruise interval" workout or even slightly slower.

Another question...what if you went completely old school and did nothing but interval based training while still keeping decent mileage? This would be quite a good experiment. Very old training methods were either time trials or extensive intervals. They also included off days or recovery days of walking. I think one could still be quite the runner on 5 or 6 days of actual training. Runners have a tendency to never really recover or actually adapt to a training stimulus.

Alan

Well, in the book the session was a test of Cassidy's willpower moreso than physical preparation, thus the exchange

"Bruce, nobody does stuff like this anymore. Arthur Lydiard said--"

"Screw Arthur Lydiard. This is how you'll know. This is how I knew"

(I don't have the book with me but it went something like that)

So maybe the FTC did this at some point as a gut check, but I can imagine it was their bread and butter. More of Zatopek's thing

I think this is a challenge type workout, and an extreme example of training to "disassociate" from the pain.

Certainly a significant event in the book.

I've done 30x300 on numerous occasions. Also 40x200 and 16x1000

Back in the 80s there was a marathon workout plan that featured this: 26x 1mile with 400 rest at marathon pace. It was lunacy. A couple of guys in AATC did it, I know. They had invited me and I very nearly showed up, but, came to my senses at the last minute. I can't remember how they did in the race now....

York's teams did 25x400 with a 1-min interval every other week in summer cross. Newton would claim the guys in the 70's would do 40x400 and that we were all pansies. Some of the time we'd trick him into losing count so we'd end up doing more like 23x400. Every Soph-Senior was doing that workout, probably 60-70 guys. Tough workout, probably as painful as anything we did. It would seem to me that an elite athlete should be able to handle 36-40 without issue if a bunch of HS kids can tolerate 25 regularly. 60 is ridiculous if run at the intensity mentioned in Once a Runner. All in all, however, nothing matches the pain of miles 20-26.2 of a marathon.

At HM pace that would be a doable but boring workout.

there was a HS in Michigan that would do 40 x 400 beginning on the 4th of July every year and continue it the rest of the summer (girls) at cruise interval pace 80-84ish. Gotta get ready for the long 5K HS races you know.

I don't recall him rehydrating during the workout, either - even worse.

Well, John L Parker did that workout. That's where the story comes from.

And if you recall it was really 3 x (5 x (4 x 400m)) because of the recovery structure.

People do 20 quarters all the time. That's only 5mi of interval work, which should not be too much for an experienced runner. Now, sixty...that's something else. JLP makes it clear the point is not fitness.

Quenton Cassidy is a fictional character. JOhn Parker fantasized about running the workout. So, a fictional workout was created by Parker that was intentionally off-the-charts, but not so much that it was deemed entirely impossible.

dsfafadsfsdf wrote:

And if you recall it was really 3 x (5 x (4 x 400m)) because of the recovery structure.

I could be wrong, but precisely because of the recovery structure (100m jog within set, 400m jog between sets) I believe it was actually 3 x (4 x (5 x 400)).

But maybe I'm confusing it with something else.

Did 30x400 in college as 10x400 (1 min recovery) and 400 jog between each set of 10. Averaged 71.5 for the 30 quarters. Good strength workout. I recall Jim Ryun used to do 40x400 workouts in HS or was it 60x400. Can any of the historians elaborate?

Fiction.

We did 20 x 400 w/1 min recovery in college every early Spring and it was an awful experience. 1/3 of the participants would not finish.

20 x 400 is not that hard. 1/3 of your team shouldn't have been dropping out. I did the workout Tuesday and it was no big deal. Avg 66. Mo has avg 57 at altitude. It's really more mental just because of the number of intervals not necessarily the volume or intensity.

I would do 25x400, 100m jog recovery on occasion. The 100m jog was supposed to a quicker jog than normal. Always liked that workout.

Would break the workout into sets of 5.

First 5 at 80

2nd 5 at 78

3rd 5 at 75

4th 5 at 73

5th 5 at 70

I always felt this was more a tempo run than anything. I would do this as a 14:45 type 5k guy.

Other options wrote:

20 x 400 is not that hard. 1/3 of your team shouldn't have been dropping out.

You lost all credibility with your opening sentences. We ran them @ 1500 race pace: 60-63 depending on your 1500 time with 1 min recovery. Go do that, then come back and tell me it is "not that hard." 5 miles @ 4:00 to 4:12 pace is a back-breaker workout and anyone who says different is 1) trolling or 2) has not done it.

First of all, it was 440y, which as we all know is about 8 ft longer than 400m.

The more interesting question is:

Have any of you done something like this clockwise, or switching directions every 5 or 10 intervals, or just all of it counter-clockwise?

In an interview with Harold Abrahams, Emil Zatopek said that he used to run "up to 100X400" in a training session. He started with 20X400 then 30X400 increased it year on year. 30 seconds recovery in between each.

"No-one ran as much as me but they were all running better than me".

He did this until a coach explained the the benefits of a "quality over quantity" approach.

Source: 'Great Lives' podcast 9th Dec 2014.