4:20 is not that fast wrote:
For sure it depends on the runner. In HS, Flatt was about 2 seconds faster than Conor Sahlman, even though there was zero similarity in how they trained.
Who's Conor Sahlman? Is he a good friend or rival of Colin Burns by any chance?
anything? wrote:
Dang there seems to be some very serious repercussions of this type of training. All in all would you say it's worth it? Say I'm a 50.xx, 1:56 guy who already sucks at XC. Would you recommend starting this type of training and dropping XC? ( I'm trying to go in the 1:52-1:53 range next year so I could have the opportunity to walk on to a local school.)
if you're in high school (which it sounds like you are) I hope you decided to stay in XC. the volume requirements for high school 5k training is just way lower than what you're asked to do in college for an 8k and doesn't negatively effect 800m ability nearly as much imo. I was the best kid on my high schools XC team my senior year, and varsity the previous few years. Just could not translate it to the 8k once I moved up. its still important for 800m guys to do strength work, just keep up on your strides/speed dev stuff through the summer and fall
FutureOldHead wrote:
title. I've been looking into new ideas for training the aerobic aspect of 800m training, and thought of how sprinters use these sort of interval style training almost as a recovery day in between hard speed days. from what I understand about them, they're basically a VO2 max workout (3k-5k pace) with a bit more rest than you're used to seeing in traditional distance training. would there be a benefit of just getting rid of lactate threshold work and instead doing something like this? how about using extensive tempos in the place of an easy run? has anyone used this style of training and found success in it? I'm just worried about the overall workload being too much on an athlete.
example week:
m - extensive tempo, 3x4x400 @ 70% (for a 53'' 400 guy, thats 75''/lap)
t - easy run, 4-6 milesw - speed work (short hill sprints, flying 40s and 50s, acceleration work?)
th - easy 6-8
f - extensive tempo or farlek
s - recovery day/easy 2-4
su - longer run of 8ish miles
No but they are useful!
I think lots of 800m runners should be doing something like 4-5x5:00 instead of a flat out 4-6 mile tempo though, it’s a more productive session for someone built for running 1-4 laps around a track fast, and it’s still over distance training with that in mind.
Extensive tempo is great prerequisite work for 800m training though, take a guy that wants to break 2:00, have him do 12x200m in 35-37 or 8x400m in 73-75 and you’ll get him pretty strong without burning him out, and the transition to work like 8x200m in 28-29 or 8x400m in 65-67 will go a lot more smoothly.
FutureOldHead wrote:
title. I've been looking into new ideas for training the aerobic aspect of 800m training, and thought of how sprinters use these sort of interval style training almost as a recovery day in between hard speed days. from what I understand about them, they're basically a VO2 max workout (3k-5k pace) with a bit more rest than you're used to seeing in traditional distance training. would there be a benefit of just getting rid of lactate threshold work and instead doing something like this? how about using extensive tempos in the place of an easy run? has anyone used this style of training and found success in it? I'm just worried about the overall workload being too much on an athlete.
example week:
m - extensive tempo, 3x4x400 @ 70% (for a 53'' 400 guy, thats 75''/lap)
t - easy run, 4-6 milesw - speed work (short hill sprints, flying 40s and 50s, acceleration work?)
th - easy 6-8
f - extensive tempo or farlek
s - recovery day/easy 2-4
su - longer run of 8ish miles
I'm late to the party on this, but I thought I'd weigh in as someone who is a big fan of extensive tempos. I think they're an excellent workout to utilize for less aerobically inclined 800m runners, and can even be used successfully for 1600m training (and upwards). There was a Hungarian Coach from the 1950's name Mihaly Igloi who trained his athletes almost exclusively with workouts that we would recognize now has extensive tempo work. You can also look at the training of Bob Schul and Johnny Gray for the prevalence and effectiveness of extensive tempos for middle distance runners. As for the pacing, I was fortunate to be coached by someone that came from Igloi's coaching tree, but I won't pretend to know how they devised their paces (Igloi's system was reliant on ingrained pace memory and the use of words like "good" pace rather than a time). But for myself and my athletes, I usually do 75% of current 200m race pace, which generally works out to 1-2 seconds per 200 slower than 800m race pace. I also keep the rep distances shorter for extensive tempos, in the 100-300m range with either a 50m walk or a 100m jog as the rest for the majority of efforts. I'd like to say that I've followed Coach B on here for sometime and he definitely knows his stuff. There is also a poster on here that I believe goes by the name "V", and I'm not sure if he's still active but he has posted in the past specifically about 800m training and was quite knowledgeable on the topic.
For 800m runners in the offseason, I think about 2/3 of their total weekly mileage should be at easy and the other 1/3 at anywhere from 5k-800m pace. I agree that extensive tempos are probably better for 800m runners than LT workouts.
I think that it also relevant to note that the same 800m who benefit greatly from extensive tempos are the same type that do not benefit particularly much from easy mileage. If one is to incorporate these sorts of workouts, they should replace easy running and not a workout.
I agree with this to an extent. If the total volume of the extensive tempos is something like 3000m’s or less, you can most likely use them in place of “easy mileage” days. But even then, you would probably have to reduce the intensity a bit. If you’re trying to utilize them as replacements for threshold work, and the volume is in the 2-3 miles range, then I would use them as a stand alone workout. This also all depends on what the rest of your training looks like.