I interviewed 2012 Olympic Discus thrower Jason Young many times a few years ago. He spent hours telling me that "America uses talent, they do not develop it." One year I did a quick study of high school boys 800 meter runners. I do not remember the year but it was around 2018. 4000 boys ran under 2:00. (I did not count multiple sub 2:00 efforts to get the number 4000. Also there were coaches who never reported their times to our company...FloSports.) Yet America has had exactly one 1500 Gold Medalist in the 1500 and one in the 5000.
I think it was Wejo who posted his training from after he graduated from college. He got faster by mostly running double Aerobic runs each day. He did not worry about the speed, in fact often those runs were slow, but he was consistent. He did the training.
The problem with America is that coaches, parents, and kids try to get everything out of themselves in high school because many good kids do not have the opportunity or luxury of running in college and beyond. I have written this message many times but so far I am not sure anyone has listened to it.
Because it is a load of trash😂Seriously you can’t even get the number of US 1500m medalist right.😂 And as pertinent to this topic the US has been the most dominant nation in the 800. We are just in the middle of a 50 year slump😂
but yeah US runners are burning themselves out while guys like Jakob Ingebrigsten, the Kenyans and Ethiopians and the rest aren’t training hard at all as teens….
The US has issues but it isn’t because people train to hard as kids.
Okay I admit that there were USA Gold Medalists in the 1500 in 1904 and 1908. But you were not around then either. You completely missed the point I made in my post.
It's on Page 79 where above Tables 5.11-5.14 which are 800/1500 Interval workouts he says the rest can be anywhere from 45 seconds-3-minutes. Do you think he's suggesting doing the workouts with longer rest earlier in the year then repeating the same workout but gradually reducing rest times as a peak approaches?
I was referring to page 82 where he gives different examples of using 200 meters in speed endurance workouts. He discusses changing either the number of reps, the intensity, or the recovery. My comment was in response to your initial question.
He writes "the goal is to increase the intensity as much as possible once the heavy competition season begins" and before that writes "speed endurance training is designed to produce a quality performance in the presence of the metabolic products, lactate and H ions." I think 4b and 4d demonstrate reducing rest times while using 200s as a speed endurance workout.
You want to progress your workouts some how. So either you want increase the interval distance, reduce the rest or increase volume of the workout. You dont want to do all three at once. So if your doing say 8x200 at goal 800 pace with 3min rest the first time then when you revisit the workout and want to reduce rest then do 2:30 rest at the same pace and still 8x200. Maybe each time you revisit the workout you drop 30sec off the rest til you get to 30sec. Always trying to average the same pace. Which isnt easy.
The problem with America is that coaches, parents, and kids try to get everything out of themselves in high school because many good kids do not have the opportunity or luxury of running in college and beyond. I have written this message many times but so far I am not sure anyone has listened to it.
I had two guys run low 150s last year and neither one of them wanted to run in college. And that's just on my little HS team.. a lot of kids are just not in it for the long haul. They see HS for what it is, and they are more than glad to move on to other things afterwards, even IF they could have performed well on the collegiate level.
They are done, not because they are burnt out or "used up"; they are done because they are growing up and are through with youth sports.
You definitely win the thread for having the best coach name out of all of us, haha; thanks for your input, it truly is appreciated. In Vigil's book he really enjoys doing progressions at a certain percent of the runner's current best speed in their event.
One workout he has is 4-8x800 at 85% of current 800 pace, then 88%, 91% and finally 94%. All of these have 3-minutes recoveries. What is he trying to improve with this workout and do you think it's a good one?
LOL
If you told me to run 91% of x pace I would laugh at you. 94%??? Talk about overthinking and over analysis.. You are taking something very simple and trying to make it sounds complicated so you look like some guru.
It's distance running. There are TWO variables: How far. How fast. THAT'S IT!
You definitely win the thread for having the best coach name out of all of us, haha; thanks for your input, it truly is appreciated. In Vigil's book he really enjoys doing progressions at a certain percent of the runner's current best speed in their event.
One workout he has is 4-8x800 at 85% of current 800 pace, then 88%, 91% and finally 94%. All of these have 3-minutes recoveries. What is he trying to improve with this workout and do you think it's a good one?
These are VO2 max workouts with a high anaerobic component. He'd probably have athletes do 8x800 @ 85% early in the training cycle and 4 or even 3 x 800 @ 94% late in the cycle.
I have athletes do 3 x 800 @ 90% of goal race speed, once their races are coming close to goal times (aka late season). This is a VERY tough workout and I give up to 15 min recovery.
Because it is a load of trash😂Seriously you can’t even get the number of US 1500m medalist right.😂 And as pertinent to this topic the US has been the most dominant nation in the 800. We are just in the middle of a 50 year slump😂
but yeah US runners are burning themselves out while guys like Jakob Ingebrigsten, the Kenyans and Ethiopians and the rest aren’t training hard at all as teens….
The US has issues but it isn’t because people train to hard as kids.
Okay I admit that there were USA Gold Medalists in the 1500 in 1904 and 1908. But you were not around then either. You completely missed the point I made in my post.
And what is your point? Nobody thinks people running 2:00 in high school are going to be olympians. And nobody expects 1 country to have a ton of medalists. And nobody thinks hard training dooms people. So what is your point?
The problem with America is that coaches, parents, and kids try to get everything out of themselves in high school because many good kids do not have the opportunity or luxury of running in college and beyond. I have written this message many times but so far I am not sure anyone has listened to it.
I had two guys run low 150s last year and neither one of them wanted to run in college. And that's just on my little HS team.. a lot of kids are just not in it for the long haul. They see HS for what it is, and they are more than glad to move on to other things afterwards, even IF they could have performed well on the collegiate level.
They are done, not because they are burnt out or "used up"; they are done because they are growing up and are through with youth sports.
Which as a person who loves track is hard to accept but reasonable. The rewards of running 4 more years and turning into say a 1:46 guy just aren’t there. It is the same reason a to. If 14:15 5k quit after college instead of trying to get marathon trials qualifiers.
In Vigil's book he really enjoys doing progressions at a certain percent of the runner's current best speed in their event.
One workout he has is 4-8x800 at 85% of current 800 pace, then 88%, 91% and finally 94%. All of these have 3-minutes recoveries. What is he trying to improve with this workout and do you think it's a good one?
LOL
If you told me to run 91% of x pace I would laugh at you. 94%??? Talk about overthinking and over analysis.. You are taking something very simple and trying to make it sounds complicated so you look like some guru.
It's distance running. There are TWO variables: How far. How fast. THAT'S IT!
Actually this is not overthinking or overanalysis. This is a simple way to prescribe pace and to plan for workout progression over the season. You just do the easy math for each pace. Then you know how far and how fast.
For example: suppose you have an athlete who peaked at 1:58 last spring. Coming off summer/fall training, you estimate he is currently in 2:00 shape. Starting in January, let's plan for a weekly session 4 x 800m with 3 min recovery and progress the effort/pace over the season. (This of course is in the context of other appropriate speed and aerobic work each week)
January: Current 800m pace (2:00) is 120 seconds. 120 ÷ .85 = 141 or 2:21. So you tell your athlete to run the first lap of each repeat in 70 sec and then try to keep the pace even from there. They may end up 2:20-2:24, that's fine.
February: Let's say your athlete is now in 1:59 shape. 119 ÷ .88 = 135 or 2:15.
March: Let's suppose he ran 1:58 in an early season meet. Now, 118 ÷ .91 = 130 or 2:10.
April: Now let's say he's run 1:57. 117 ÷ .94 = 124 or 2:04. This is a pretty hard workout for a 1:57 runner. So you tell them to go out in 62 and try to maintain pace for the 2nd lap. They may run 2:05-08, that's ok. If they fall apart on the 3rd repeat, maybe don't do the 4th.
May-June: Now you are tapering & peaking your athlete, targeting 1:54-56.
Just an example of how this can be used. Hope this helps clarify :)
You definitely win the thread for having the best coach name out of all of us, haha; thanks for your input, it truly is appreciated. In Vigil's book he really enjoys doing progressions at a certain percent of the runner's current best speed in their event.
One workout he has is 4-8x800 at 85% of current 800 pace, then 88%, 91% and finally 94%. All of these have 3-minutes recoveries. What is he trying to improve with this workout and do you think it's a good one?
These are VO2 max workouts with a high anaerobic component. He'd probably have athletes do 8x800 @ 85% early in the training cycle and 4 or even 3 x 800 @ 94% late in the cycle.
I have athletes do 3 x 800 @ 90% of goal race speed, once their races are coming close to goal times (aka late season). This is a VERY tough workout and I give up to 15 min recovery.
Right, this makes more sense to me. I was wondering about reducing reps or increasing recovery as the pace increased.
Right, this makes more sense to me. I was wondering about reducing reps or increasing recovery as the pace increased.
I think as you get to the faster reps, keeping 3 minutes of rest would be extremely difficult. Of course, I work with high school kids, who aren't as aerobically developed yet.