Why No Love For 100m Repeats?

The Progression thread and this thread are different subjects. In this thread I ask "Why not 100m as a staple? Not as a mere starting point."

I'm trying to remember the 80s Marathoner who swore by weekly 100s - maybe Treacy?

As a 1500m guy, I swore by weekly 3x1600m, 6x400m and 12x100m. For me those 100m were "icing on the cake".

In this thread these 100m are NOT sprinting.

Strides are different than run-thrus.

As mentioned earlier, strides are a constant 75% effort.

Run-thrus are a warm up method where you PRESS from 30m to the other 30m on a football field. This is what I was taught by my coach in 1991.

I would actually love making a video on this and incorporate it as part of the "how to properly warm up" informational process.

If someone is doing a legitimate 12x100 workout, by God they better be DEATHLY sore the next 3 days. The only person who would be less sore than others after this workout would be a 100m specialist. Of course, these guys do more core and strength workouts than anything.

The only smart thing that I ever heard Carl Lewis say in 50 years was the statement "sprinting is not about speed. It's about power. Not speed". I really dont like Carl Lewis as a person, but this statement shows why is an Olympic gold medalist and he is fully qualified to be the head coach at university of houston.

I would sometimes do 3 miles of 100m fast, 100m jog. I think Emil Puttemans would do sessions of 50m fast/50m slow. Maybe Brendan Foster too...

World 800m record-breaker, Ralph Doubell, would do 50x100m with a brisk 40 sec walk recovery

48x100?

Ya. No thanks.

The overwhelming majority of the workouts that 800m guys do are going to be longer ones. 300s, 400s, 600s. They even hop in 1600m races as part of their training. There's alot of talk about different 800m guys that ran high mileage, but the only one with a recorded history of that is steve cram. You aren't going to see David rudisha training aside eliud kipchoge.

You're new here, I see. Welcome to LR.

No. That's 24 x 100 with 100 meter rests.

If you ever had success coaching anyone above the 1500 you would know that.

800m race pace is by definition a sprint

but again, you're not likely going even that fast on just 30 seconds rest. I can do it on 60 seconds, but not 30. World of difference.

What is the point of it? You could do 100 reps but when you race, as soon as you're past 100m nothing will be like those reps were. You have to run entirely differently, at no point in the race do you get a 30 or 60 second break.

But there is a point to working top speed. It will naturally speed up all your slower paces.

Mark Coogan has his ladies do 8-10x100 meter strides almost every day. Roughly 15/16 seconds, So between 800/1500 pace.

Sorry Dude, but 800m pace is NOT sprinting.

And by the argument you make, 400m reps would also be useless, because as soon as you are past 400m in a race....

Interesting. "Formal strides." 😂

Anyway, it is clear that there is a history of some world class runners doing 100m runs as a staple of training. (Thank you to those who provided examples.) I think it went out of fashion though. This thread perhaps illustrates why!

I think many associate "100m" with "sprinting". !!!

Peter Snell ran a marathon in base phase at one point, and also won the NZ x-country championships.

Putting both "training threads" together, the progression discussion partly answers the 100m staple question -- it doesn't make sense to maintain it as a staple without some form of progression.

Whether it makes sense or not, you have to answer what is the goal of this staple session, in light of the targeted race. You would also need to be more precise about the intended recovery in between the 100m repetitions. Is it meant to be partial/active recovery, or a complete passive recovery. This makes the workouts quite different.

I just remembered....

In that Ovett doc, after his church railings incident, there's a scene where Ovett is doing some runs on a stretch of grass - Wilson comments that this is one of his favourite locations / things to do in training. They sure look like "100m ish" runs.

Well, I think 800m pace (or maybe even 600m pace) is quite doable off 1min rests - and I would argue that the rests can be just you walking 100m. (ie the turns.) But many variations have been touched upon in this thread - perhaps (likely!) with the 100s at slower pace.

The GOAL is to do some 800m ish pace! (In a multipace training program.) Because some fast (not sprinting!) running benefits us all - even Marathoners.

Sorry - I like SIMPLE!!!

A most profound insight.