Move over Mark Coogan, Rojo and John Kellogg share their 3 favorite mile workouts

"There are no magic bullets"

Weldon 'wejo' Johnson 2022

"There is no magic sauce"

Robert 'rojo' Johnson 2024

Can we talk real Biology instead of broscience please? There is no magic metabolism either in exercise or recovery, that's not how metabolism works.

So please keep moving forward with the debate instead of staying stuck in the 1970s mentality. We owe it to the young athletes.

If some people can't move on, don't let them project their insecurities onto young people, that's abusive.

WOW. didn't realize Horwill advocated for that. In my mind I always think to try to hit those paces within a two week period. I went a long time thinking this was THE way to go. And of course the last several years of Ingebrigtsen success has shown how well gobs and gobs of the lower end stuff works.

As far as Seb Coe goes, who I saw mentioned a post or two up, I can remember being shocked at the amount of intense work he packed in during the period he was in LA for the 84 games.

Here's are two separate 4 day stretches with some amount of quality. I can't imagine!

Wed 11 July: AM Tempo session to ease into faster pace and couple this with some speed endurance: 3×1600 m @4:40 pace, 3 min recovery, cool-down of two laps @90 sec pace followed by easy jogging.
Thu 12 July: AM easy recovery run of 6 miles; PM a tempo session to turn Wednesday’s AM tempo session into a continuous run: 3 miles in 14:30
Fri 13 July: Introduction to race pace, but not deeply anaerobic. after warm-up, 30×200 m @27/28 seconds; cool down of two laps @ 9-sec pace followed by easy jogging.
Sat 14 July: Lengthening the short-distance intervals and speed, but keeping good recovery: after warm-up, 2x(3×300 m) @39 sec, with 2 min recovery, 9 min between sets, cool-down of 2 laps @90-sec pace followed by easy jogging.

Sun 29 July: Not as fast as Wednesday, but shorter recoveries ? after warm-up, 400m/600m/400m/300m/200m in 55/82/53/36/25 sec; cool-down of 2 laps @ 90-sec pace followed by easy jogging.
Week 4 ? 24 miles
Mon. 30 July: Interval pace maintained, but recovery reduce; AM 4 miles easy; PM after warm-up, 6x300m @38/39 sec with 2 min recovery; cool-down of 2 laps @ a 90-sec pace followed by easy jogging.
Tue 01 August: AM 4 miles; PM a first session to maintain the feeling of 800m pace ? after warm-up, 10x200m @27 sec with 2 min recovery; cool-down of 2 laps @ 90-sec pace followed by easy jogging.
Wed 02 August: A second session to maintain the feeling of 800m race pace ? after warm-up, 3x400m @52/51/51 sec; cool-down of 2 laps @90-sec pace followed by easy jogging.

Your workouts emphasize going slow to fast and explicitly say the goal is to spend maximum time at an intended effort level. Wouldn't that have the opposite effect as you combine running faster with accumulating fatigue likely exponentially increasing stress? I thought the whole idea behind the in vogue practice of lactate testing mid-workout was so that you adjust paces (often slower) to do the same thing?

Which leads me to wonder if would be worthwhile to structure a workout like a bodybuilder's drop set, i.e. instead of a 12x400 at pace x, maybe 5x3x400m starting at x and slowing to y?

To be inflammatory, are cutdowns more a psychological practice, ensuring athletes don't overcook the beginning and reinforcing to dig deep and finish strong, rather than a sound physiological approach?

Pure speculation, but that's the kind of schedule that would benefit from frequent blood transfusions.

Your post is interesting and almost every distance person you talk to or read will say that you want your practice reps to be even or progress to faster. I can remember mentioning this in some thread here awhile ago where maybe somebody was discussing a workout where they slowed up as the workout went on. I said what everybody always says about wanting to be even, or get faster.

Malmo made a post that just said "why?" I don't recall if he discussed the thought any further, but I always remember that. If nothing else, I respect Malmo's experience and knowledge. There is definitely a lot of dogma out there that isn't necessarily hard science.

Mark Coogan I don't want to alarm you...

The article was just picking a few. I think it was good and agree basically with the workouts. I think part of getting faster though is progressing the workouts and not always doing the same thing but thats not what the article was about. When I coached high school we would do one week of a bunch if reps at mile pace and the alternate week a workout alternating mile pace reps with 800 pace reps. Basically progressing the distance in two weeks cycle but only spent 5 weeks in this phase.

This is a slight oversimplification of what I believe Horwill intended with back-to-back-to-back workouts- those three workout days would be preceded and followed by three easier days. This was his utilization of "crash training", which he adapted from Snell's research. To quote Horwill:

"The scientific explanation for its success revolves around one word: super-compensation. Most athletes train severely one day and have one or two days of easy training to recover. This does get results, but they are far less than putting together several days of intensive training, followed by a 75-per-cent reduction in normal training for the same period that has been crashed. By exercising strenuously for consecutive days, recovery never lasts for more than 22-23 hours, ie, the time between workouts. This results in a heightening of the training
stress, and recovery, once it finally occurs, produces much-greater-than-usual training responses. These raised responses are often called super-compensation."

Coe was also known to utilize crash training in a similar vein, and you could draw very similar applications in Canova's Blocks, and in some coaches' post race workouts (Salazar comes to mind). I acknowledge that there are certainly doping questions around all three of the coaches just mentioned, but I think it is dumb to completely disregard out training concepts just because of doping (Charlie Francis is another frequent victim of this).

Here is a pdf of a recent case study, where a 5-day Crash Block of repeating 3x7x(30"On/15"Off) significantly shifted the lactate curve of a 36yo runner w/ 6years of training and a 19:20 PR.

I think doing 2, 3 ,4 workouts in a row is just a bad idea. I have experimented with doing 2 workouts back to back in a couple situations for high school athletes. Do to the schedule of meets and trying to get stuff in I have done a threshold workout the day after regular season meets. In that scenario I ask them to hit the same paces as normal but if needed they can slow down a little. Then they usually had a 2-3 days (weekend stretch) before our next workout. Another scenario Ive done in indoor track do to track availability, weather etc. done a threshold workout on a Monday then on tuesday done say 8x400 at mile pace. Two days easy and then a meet. I don’t think this worked as good as spreading out your workouts but did try it a few times.

I agree for the context of high school athletes. It's definitely a higher-risk programming technique that should likely be reserved for more advanced college or post-collegiate athletes that

1) require a larger stimulus to improve their current fitness and/or find the final few percentage points of their potential

2) have the structural robustness to survive such intense training

3) have a life schedule and maturity to devote a necessary level of recovery

good stuff here. back to backs are definitely sometimes a reality in high school due to scheduling, weather, facilities, etc. it can work, but obviously be careful with who can tolerate, who can thrive, and who will just not be able to do it.

and if you're a top, top guy; you're going to eventually need to be able to do it. Post season comps with rounds. Distance guys who want to double back between 800/3200/1600. and then the relays.

Sometimes you are just training in the best manner for ultimate fitness, but the specificity relating to competition set up is also important.

We found your post to be very interesting.

Basically, you are saying - Since you are getting more tired as a workout goes on, shouldn't you be slowing down on your reps?

Answer: No. The thing is you shouldn't really be struggling most of the time in training. You need to be able to pick it up. If you are going to hard that you are slowing down, then you are going to fast. By going slower, you make it so you can spend more time in whatever training zone you are working. Now you can struggle on the last rep or two.

One thing I used to tel the guys at Cornell about going to slower is, "You know in your best races you finish and you feel like you could have gone faster?" That's the way we also want to train so your body gets used to that feeling.

or if you go too fast, you get to that zone faster on the first couple rest, and you still stay in that zone, even at slower paces, because you are fatigued.

anyway, i think i am more of a believer in benefitting from the neuromuscular adaptation and economy than the heart rate or whatever zones you are in. obviously that all works together, so in the end it only matter that's it works.

to me, the biggest benefit in running even paces, is that it feels safer.

im not trying to re-invent the wheel. even paces have worked for most people who have ever been successful. so I will stick to that.

but we've all seen enough high school who RACES fast to slow, and eventually race their way into the fitness to maintain that fast first part through the whole race by the end of the season. as long as they are NOT injured.

Cornell you say??

Good read thanks.