jamin wrote:
Around this same time in your life, what could you run for whatever your best distance was?
I am assuming your question is aimed at figuring out what someone should run if they do that type of workout. I was a case of someone who "fell through the cracks." I was 22 when I ran that workout, just coming back from a year of rehab after an arthroscopy for a torn medial meniscus. I was doing lots of swimming, cardio and stationary cycling (the later stage of therapy for the cycling) to keep my fitness during rehab. I did run an 800m race, just to test my knee, maybe a month before doing that workout and ran 2:05 at around 85% effort so that doesn't really give any insight. I stopped running for good not long after that workout. A coach I know says Seb Coe use to do that same 12x200m workout averaging :26 with the same recovery. I would think Coe ran the 200s faster than :26, I would expect :24-:26 from him.
At that time, I didn't realize I was a natural sprinter. So that workout is confusing in terms of figuring out where I was at in terms of my "best event." Back then I never really ran my best distance, but really enjoyed doing long runs so everyone assumed I was a distance runner. My high school times were medicore, yet attracted the attention of some very good coaches because there seemed to be "something more" and my times were run on little training. I ran XC and track my sophomore and junior years in high school, ran a couple of XC races at the JC, then was accepted as a walk on at the D1 school I attended. Got injured my first season at the D1, the coach left for an AD job elsewhere, I focussed on career training and that was it for my running. But wouldn't trade it for anything, it was a great experience. While inconsistent and with large gaps in my running, there were periods I was able to run for maybe 4 months strait and I got to train with some very strong runners. My staple workouts were 8-10 mile road runs, 400m intervals on the track (sometimes 1200-800-400 cutdowns) and an occasional 20 or 25 mile road run, and occasional fartlek on dirt trails. I tried to cobble together a system from what I read here and there. My best progress came when training with a group using Bowerman's principles but they were far away and I couldn't train with them as much as I wanted. I would say I overtrained, because I would get in shape fast then ramp up my distance and intensity and burn out every couple of months.
But that 12x200m workout is deceptive. I would expect someone doing that workout, if they have the physiology of a middle distance runner, to be under 4:10 for the mile. But I was better suited for sprinting, and had decent natural stamina, so I could do that workout yet not be able to run 4:10 for the mile (one of my coaches at the time thought I could go around 4:10, but I didn't pursue it.) I will say I found racing middle and long distances to be very difficult in terms of getting enough oxygen and tying up. Because I didn't train as a sprinter nor even know how to sprint properly, I ran 100m in only 11.5. I also matured late physically, so even with the regular gym work I did, I was considered buff for a distance runner but not buff enough to be seen as a sprinter (the muscles started popping out at 29 years old.) So my college coaches weren't quite sure what I was suited for; at one point they suggested the steeplechase because it was easy to score points in the steeple back then. The field events coach thought I should concentrate on the Marathon (no college points for that, he just thought I had to "go long." Not sure what the field event coach's qualifications were for distance coaching, but he was a very nice guy and I appreciated his kindness.) Our head coach was a sprint coach and it seemed he was starting to pull me into the sprint squad (inviting me to the sprinters meetings,) but then he left. The distance coach really didn't care, he just had the squad do road runs and would time an occasional interval workout (he was an unpaid assistant.) So it was all very strange and confusing but a great experience. The D1 school had a track, weight/cardio rooms, swimming pool, training/therapy room and grass fields all in one location so it was a paradise for training. Just being in that environment taught me a lot about training, injury and proper recovery from injury.
So the bottom line here is that it can be difficult if not impossible to predict performance based on a single workout, without knowing all the other parameters. And to answer your question, I guess I would consider 11.5 for 100m to have been my best time when I did that workout, since I consider the 100m my best event. I've since run 10.65 with some actual sprint training and learning better sprint form.