Good workouts for my middle-distance runners

firstyearcoach0 wrote:

ashworth wrote:

Your kids are correct. This is way too much hard stuff right now.

Should I go with more easy and aerobic runs on some days instead? The thing is I don't want my 400m guys to be doing 3-5 mile runs that they dread and hate because they're not very good at endurance. But I also don't want to incorporate all speed and have my 1500m guys dread these workouts fearing they'd lose endurance.

At what point should I increase the intensity of these workouts?

Generally, 400m people and 1500m people shouldn't be doing the same training. I don't know anything about training sprinters. That said, the 400 people would probably be better off doing something like 12 x 200m, 200m jog, aiming to keep the 200s relaxed. They would probably find this better than a 3 mile run.

High schoolers often race a lot. Instead of jacking up the workouts, aim to have them fit enough to start racing their way into faster shape at the start of the season.

break it down wrote:

Here's a idea, break up your group into two groups. One group 400m/800m runners and the other group 800m/1500m runners.

For the 400/800 group a base week probably should look like:

Monday easy run 3-6 kilometer+ strides and drills+ weight

Tues short hill sprints

Wed 400m specific workout

Thurs easy run 3-6 kilometers + strides and drills

Fri easy run + drills and strides + weights

Saturday diagonals 30 minutes

Sun rest or easy run

800/1500 group base week:

Mon hour easy according to feel+strides and drills + weights

Tues 30-45 minute progression run + 10 x short hill sprints

Wed intervals or tempo run

Thurs easy run + weights

Fri easy run

Sat Diagonals

Sun off or easy

Hmm, I like the idea but it’ll be really difficult for me to manage two groups at once. As well, what are diagonals?

Hm that is true, but for the whole indoor season, I tried to not throw in that many meets. We had a meet this past Tuesday and our next meet is January 6th.

What workouts would you recommend?

firstyearcoach0 wrote:

Hmm, I like the idea but it’ll be really difficult for me to manage two groups at once. As well, what are diagonals?

Run across a field, (like a soccer field or something) diagonally like a stride, and than run across the short end of the field to do a diagonals across the field.

Mikey B:

I'm an older coach. I retired from coaching in the early 2000s. I had success by using long runs, and more traditional

interval training. Now at seems like coaches are straying from the old 12 mile run type stuff. To me coaches find

that smarter because not many kids stick with the sport all four years. So they feel they have to speed them along

by doing faster stuff. But instead of intervals they disguise it as "tempo training." In your post you refer to

doing 3-4 x 1 mile @ tempo pace.

My question for you is did you come across this at a clinic in the early 2000s? I never heard anyone talk

about this and I always went to 2 clinics per year or more. Is the idea in doing this is it's just more efficient

than running lots of miles?

I just read about it online and heard the cross country coach tell me about how great the mile repeats were. How should I train my 400/800 kids then who aren’t really a big fan of these longer runs?

Unless the kids come to me from XC and have been training through Nov and Dec, I start them with tempo pace runs in the form of 3-4x1 mile. I'd prefer them to run 3 miles consec at tempo pace (5k pace +:50-:60), but many can't. We generally progress up to that point during season, by adding more (i.e. 3x1, then 2x1.5, then 2x2, then 3 miles consec, etc). That's just one part of it. I do traditional VO2 max work, but in limited amounts. I incorporate multi speeds in workouts (LT, CV) and really like to use long and short hills. I coach 800m to 3200m, so all of my athletes run long. I have a talented young lady who routinely does 10-12 mile long runs. All of the runners are required to work towards a 60 min run a week. I've heard of some coaches using mile repeats in lieu of long runs, but I can't get behind that.

I think coaching philosophies evolve but the same things get recycled, some times with new fancy names. In the end, as you have coached, there are no shortcuts. A good mix of all are needed. Just try not to break or overtrain the kids in the process.

Even my 400/800 kids? I hope I’m not overtraining my kids, I’d hate to peak them too early

I don't train 400m runners, but yes, my 800m runners will run up to 6 to 7 miles very easy. Yes, they do tempo running as well during base phase. I mix in the CV work as was discussed. A few times a week, have them run 8-12x100m at ~1600m pace with a 300m jog. I then later transition to more hills at 1600m effort and maintain the CV and stamina work. Slowly increase the distance of their faster efforts (i.e. 4-6x300m@current 800m race pace and slow 400m-500m jog). As the season progresses and you begin to race, you can increase the distance of their main workout (4-5x400m@800m w/600m jog).

I recommend researching different training approaches and find what fits your program. Jack Daniels has many books regarding this. As I said earlier, Tom Schwartz AKA Tinman has had success with his training methods.

I don't think in over training the kids you will peak them too early, but rather prevent them from reaching a peak or getting them injured. Take their background into account. You can't throw someone that has no running background into the weekly grind of tempos, CV, LT, etc, etc. Many will improve off of easy running and some faster work. If in question, allow the races to serve as race efforts/training.

Along w your distance runs in the roads, hills, or trails incorporate "fartlecks," or variable bursts from 1/4 to one mile. Once or twice per wk. (Just one of a set of variation patterned workouts.) No need to walk or stop, but good to check for improvement in recovery/heart rate.

jamese1045 wrote:

Along w your distance runs in the roads, hills, or trails incorporate "fartlecks," or variable bursts from 1/4 to one mile. Once or twice per wk. (Just one of a set of variation patterned workouts.) No need to walk or stop, but good to check for improvement in recovery/heart rate.

Fartleks with my kids are a mess. They don't really like the idea of going slower so they bust out as fast of a mile they can then they get a brief slow part of the Fartlek and then the fast part again. Except, they used all their energy on their first fast part of the fartlek (usually a mile) that they end up slowing down significantly

One more thing in general about my team.

These guys don't know when they need easy days and hard days. They take interval training like 400m repeats and easy 6-7 mile jogs as hard as they can thinking it'll make them better. I constantly tell them that running every workout and run hard is not the way to go and improve but they always disregard my comments and say that their old coach told them to always go hard everyday and to put all effort into whatever you do, which might work since these kids say they saw some pretty drastic drops in their times from beginning of indoor to end of outdoor.

Thoughts?

Hey coach will give you my view for what it is worth. I am a private coach in Australia. My training group includes at times up to 40 runners both young and old. Here are a few successes: 21 year old new to running ran 49.5 and 1:55 for 4/8 after 6 months of training, 16 year old ran 1:55/4:02 and 18 year old ran 1:54/3:51. I also had a 15 year old boy run 16:07 for 5k on track off 40k per week. We only do 1 track session per week.

Our standard week during prep for track season

Monday easy run 30-40 minutes

Tuesday 1600/2k threshold 3 min recovery 2x4x400 at 3k/5k pace on 2 min cycle 3 min between sets

finish w/3x200 or 150 with lots of recovery

Wednesday 40-60 minutes of easy running (3:51 1500m runner regularly runs 7:30-8 min miles for this)

Thursday 6x3min at 5k/8kpace with 90 seconds rest 3 min rest 5x100m with 100 walk all on grass

Friday OFF

Saturday this varies sometimes 10k progressive which starts off at 5 min k pace and goes down to 3:20/15 pace or hilly 9-12k circuit surging hills which includes 2x900 and 1x700m hills

Sunday easy 50-60 minutes

We are also big into alternations which when they are recovering it is more of a float. We sometimes do this over 800-1200 meters ex 1k repeats as 400 at 3-5k pace with 200 in 45 followed by another 400 at 3-5k pace.

For your shorter distance runners have them regularly do 150's or flying 80's to work on speed. We also do short hill repeats regularly throughout the season. Ex 8x 6 second or 10 100m after this we do solid run of 2.5 to 5k depending on athletes.

Good luck

I like my 3×(8×100m @ 800m pace) with 40s rest, 4 min between sets. Hard to do too fast.

firstyearcoach0 wrote:

One more thing in general about my team.

These guys don't know when they need easy days and hard days. They take interval training like 400m repeats and easy 6-7 mile jogs as hard as they can thinking it'll make them better. I constantly tell them that running every workout and run hard is not the way to go and improve but they always disregard my comments and say that their old coach told them to always go hard everyday and to put all effort into whatever you do, which might work since these kids say they saw some pretty drastic drops in their times from beginning of indoor to end of outdoor.

Thoughts?

Assign pushups for each second they're too fast in an interval

On behalf of all people who had crappy coaches growing up, I want to thank you for doing your homework to learn more about training

No point, kids’ll just half-ass the push-ups or just not listen to me. Since I don’t have much credibility in my coaching because it’s my first year, most of the kids don’t buy into my workouts and what I tell them

I was in the same situation you were in when I was a first year coach. The mid distance coach prior to me focused too much on long sprinter Work and the athletes would end up running something along the lines of 50/2:00 or 58/2:27 (for 400/800). Even though the kids were improving year to year they vastly underperformed in the 800 relative to their 400 times. The following year when I took over I tried to get them to do more base work and was met with resistance from the athletes.

What I had to do was bite the bullet and find the handful of athletes who believed in my approach and let the other kids suffer. A handful of them were seniors so it was hard to make that decision but in the end I had a freshman boy run 53high/2:00 and a senior girl go 62/2:20 after running 64/2:27 the previous year. That made the subsequent years much easier for me, as Kids will only respond to results, especially if they have been with the prior coach for a couple years.

Good luck and make sure you’re thorough in your preparation because kids will question everything and ask “why” every chance they get, and they only need one day where you can’t answer their question for them to lose all faith in you and try to get the old coach back, in my case the old coach was still on the team in another role.

Sounds like my exact situation haha. The seniors could either care less about their times or do their own things completely ignoring whatever I tell them since they’re seniors and I’m a first year coach.

However with the other kids, they mostly don’t listen to me especially the fast ones. I have a sophmore who ran 57/2:11 as a freshmen outdoor season with the old coach on minimal miles maybe 5-10 a weeks. My faster sophmores and juniors completely don’t buy into what I say and it’s extremely difficult to persuade them. But at least the freshmen listen since they don’t know any better.

That sophmore kid recently ran a 1:15 (500m) compared to his 1:24 (500m) last freshmen year after following my workouts for a little, but is extremely convinced in his own work ethic after practices doing intervals and repeats at max effort until he dies. He also saw a decrease from 2:32 in the 800m indoors down to a 2:22 now but was upset at me and my “horrible” workouts since he claimed he was capable of a 2:11 as seen from last outdoor and my base training was taking away from his speed.

Any tips on how to get my sophmore and junior kids to buy into what I’m doing, these kids have so much talent and could do so much better with more mileage but they think slow miles are the devil.

Must be a troll. How can one be a coach and dont know track workouts for middle distance?