My coach may be wanting me to do an IMPOSSIBLE workout

""Both "The Greatest" in their own fields of athletic endeavor.""

"Impossible?" That shows an unwillingness to consider doing the workout. But your skepticism about the workout is not unwarranted. Looks like you're doing the mileage (barely) to sustain this hard work, but my question is, wouldn't a less monotonous, more varied pattern be better, especially at this point in the racing season? I believe in longish fartleck days followed by 400s(× 5) interspersed w 200s with continuous jog of same distance for all. But the point is greater road miles, more varied interval work...at this point.

More road miles, more variety on track. Too early for 10x400.

Could be a time trial test workout to determine current fitness???

With your PR's I'm not sure why this is a hard workout

This isn't even mile pace for you (66 low per 400m). Now I'm not saying it's easy by any means, but it's not "impossible" and shouldn't have you "vomiting"

Y’all are probably right, I could do it. But given my fitness is less than 4:26 ability, I don’t know if I could finish the whole workout at 70s pace.

You would be better served doing 4 1000s at race pace goal around 3:15-3:25with 3-4 minute rest.

Giving your coach the benefit of the doubt, he probably views this as a little fitness test for you. You could definitely do this workout at your peak and so he probably wants to see how well you handle it right now. It'll help determine how he sets up your training for the fall.

More reasonable would be 10X400 at 73 with 60-secnd jogging recoveries, Assuming you are in your best mile pace now

Hi fellow Texan!

jamese1045 wrote:

More road miles, more variety on track. Too early for 10x400.

I understand the principle behind not doing too many hard intervals early but you can’t say ANY workout is misplaced based on only knowing ONE workout. People do this all the time. “Oh X and Y teams are doing fast 400’s or hard mile repeats already, Coach doesn’t know what he’s doing”. But you need to know the team’s whole training plan to make a valid comment about the knowledge of the coach. Those 400’s could be the only workout that slightly touches the anaerobic system in a two-week block. In the case, you SHOULD be doing a workout like that. Yes, most of the runs should be focused on easy aerobic running, building miles, with some higher end aerobic workouts like tempos or threshold intervals. But you can’t just totally neglect speed and the other energy systems for months.

Eh just have at it. It'll be fine. It'll feel hard immediately, but since when does it matter what it feels like?

ugh some coaches just have nothing going on upstairs I swear

It's absurd to do a workout like that in summer base training. Your coach is not bright.

That's too tough of workout.

If you have a 4:16 mile, then it'd be okay.

If you're 6'3 150lbs why aren't you playing football?

Anyway.

I think you're wussing out, do you have a

massive overbite, with gaping teeth and wear

coke bottle glasses, humming "Funkytown"

while you walk down the street?

Then you must be punished.

3-4 minutes rest?? Dude more like 90 seconds to 2 minutes I mean come one he's not a chick

Its a manageable session with your abilities but I'd echo the comments that it doesn't seem all that appropriate at this stage - intensity is probably a shade high and the recoveries a bit short for early season.

Its actually a similar session that I've done a lot of in early season over the years (as an adult runner) and typically it'd be 16x400 and we'd do it every third week gradually reducing the recovery by 5 or 10 seconds each time (and naturally speeding up a bit as we get fitter) until we'd be doing something like 16x400 in 65 off 30 seconds recovery, which would coincide with the key races of the season.

The key thing is that this is by no means the toughest session of the week (it isn't designed to be) and would be done against a background of at least one more tough session a week (e.g. cross country race or repetitions) and high overall mileage.

Jones 12uns wrote:

Well, he already has a dirt road to run the workout on, which means I would run in my flats (Brooks Ravenna 9), not spiked up. He does seem to love hard, quick, track-like intervals. Last year his favorite interval workout was 6x800 at 2:20-2:30 with 60-90sec rest, which wasn’t terrible but probably would’ve been more beneficial doing 7 or 8 a bit slower or with more recovery.

... and if it makes you feel better, 6’3” 155lbs

I am 6' 3 1/2" and raced in college at an average of around 153lbs (fluctuated between 150 and 155). I knew guys the same height that were heavier, and I knew guys the same height that were lighter, and all of them were very good runners, so I'd say you're fine as long as you feel you have good energy levels.

To the person that asked why you aren't playing football as if that is some massive/ideal build for the sport... LOL

How about this for a crazy session then, as glowingly written up by this Runners World piece about "London's coolest running crew":