is my coach insane??? 20x200 workout

Agree, we never did tempos before intervals and never did more than 8+200 and had a few guys under 4:30. Each was under :30. Getting to a point where you’re just surviving for half the workout isn’t where you want to be during training. You should still feel strong enough to rock the last one or two. Your times just don’t reflect the workout, which indicates you’re not at a point where that workout is going to help you more than something shorter and faster.

1967 wrote:

We did this in early 1966 except it was 24 of them, with jogs straight across the field and right into the next one.

Allen1959 wrote:

Yeah, ten years later, we were still doing the same workout in high school. Start line was center of the straightaway (same as races at the time), and coach stood with a stopwatch at the center of the back straight. Recovery was jogging across the football field 50-yard line back to the start.

Yes, that's how we did them too, with the start line in the middle. Races started and ended at the end of the straights (in junior college), but these 220 workouts we did from the middle.

We did a bunch of workouts at Oregon that were (20-30) 200s at 30 sec with 30 sec. recovery but our PRs we a lot faster. I agree that you should be running these at 34 pace for your PR. Solid work out!

tarckstar wrote:

We did 20x400.

this

some kid out in DE wrote:

We have conference meet coming up in a couple of weeks and our coach is wanting us to do a 20x200 workout this thursday. Is this a good speed building workout? I've never had to do so many 200s especially much faster than my mile race pace. Seems like a worthless workout to me.

10 minute warmup

20 minute tempo (no pace, just hard effort but not close to going all out)

20x200 @32s (my mile PR is 4:38) - rest is just jogging across the infield back to the start line and then immediately doing the next 200

10 minute cooldown

I ran a similar 24x200m workout in college, stayed between 28s and 30s. Ran 1:51 (800m) and 2:24 (1000m). For me, this was faster than mile pace but slower than 800m pace.

My thought at the time was to focus on form and relaxing while running fast. If I wasn't feeling the best, I would've had no issues running slower and staying smooth.

Not at all. Your coach knows what he is doing.

That's a great workout!!!

That's only half of what I witnessed in Albuquerque, NM in March of 1996 just before the Crescent City Classic 10k U.S. Road Championships. Matt Giusto and Yobes Ondieki did two sets of 20 x 200m @ 31 seconds w/30 secs rest with a 400m jog between sets.......at 6,000ft altitude!!!!

Matt went on to win the Crescent City Classic in 27:59, six weeks later he ran 3:55 in the Prefontaine Classic Mile and then went on to make the Olympic 5k team in June. Yobes was preparing for his marathon debut.

I was able to train with both of them on and off for a couple years. Great guys to hang out with!

some kid out in DE wrote:

We have conference meet coming up in a couple of weeks and our coach is wanting us to do a 20x200 workout this thursday. Is this a good speed building workout? I've never had to do so many 200s especially much faster than my mile race pace. Seems like a worthless workout to me.

10 minute warmup

20 minute tempo (no pace, just hard effort but not close to going all out)

20x200 @32s (my mile PR is 4:38) - rest is just jogging across the infield back to the start line and then immediately doing the next 200

10 minute cooldown

this is a great workout, mentally it will give you balls, its painful, and you'll understand what lactic acid really is

but if you're not used to this type of feeling, its going to be tough to hit the times.

my crazy coach had me doing 30x200m every day , 2 sets of 15, jog across the infield recovery as you say.

eventually you burn out badly, but along the way, you peak like never before.

anyway, if you get your head out of your arse, and get into the workout, it's very good for you, especially learning to dig deep,

so man up.

Yeah, that is a big workout, especially the 200's at 32 seconds for you. Maybe if they were 34-35 secs each, but 20 is probably too many. you only need 8-12

In college we did a 25 x 200m workout to see how many you could do before complete lactic acid build-up happened. The goal was to go as far as we could to test lactate build up because a few weeks earlier we'd done the VO2 max treadmill test and fast twitch-slow-twitch muscle biopsy tests.

25 x 200m, 30 second standing (hand on knees, almost vom) rest.

Goal was to do each one in 30 seconds

I think I hit 20 or 21 of them in 29-5 30.5 range and then my 22nd I did 31.5 and my coach said I was done. It was terribly painful, the most i've ever been wrecked after a workout. took a week to recovery, just easy running.

I ran 1:51 in the 800m and a 4:06 mile that season.

Star wrote:

20 min at a good pace to get your heart rate up is just a real nice warm-up for the track workout.

If it's a 20 minute acceleration run that ends at tempo pace, I'd agree with you but 20min at true tempo pace (1hr-race pace) is a demanding workout in itself. I can't see doing that before 20x200m at between 800m and mile pace.

I think this workout is very questionable. The fact that a lot of you folks did something similar in the past does not mean that it is a good workout. A 4:38 mile equals a pace of 34s for 200m, thus the objective of doing the 200 reps at a faster pace should be to improve speed. Therefore the number of repetitions appears to be a bit high (4k faster than your mile pace???) and the rest is too short.

Option 1: Improve speed, then keep the 32s pace, reduce the number of repetitions and consider longer rests

Option 2: Improve strength, reduce the pace, keep the number of repetitions and the short rests

I have to admit that this is a road racer's opinion, and 1500m was my shortest distance with a weak PB of 4:02, but I couldn't have done 20x200 at that pace.

Bob Schul Country wrote:

tarckstar wrote:

We did 20x400.

this

Zatopek would do both, in the same workout.

3hr-marathoner wrote:

Star wrote:

20 min at a good pace to get your heart rate up is just a real nice warm-up for the track workout.

If it's a 20 minute acceleration run that ends at tempo pace, I'd agree with you but 20min at true tempo pace (1hr-race pace) is a demanding workout in itself. I can't see doing that before 20x200m at between 800m and mile pace.

The OP indicated it was the former not the latter.

"20 minute tempo (no pace, just hard effort but not close to going all out)"

Sounds quicker than a jog but slower than anything you'd put a watch on.

Like others have said - it’s only 4km of volume. Not too unreasonable.

The prescribed pace seems a bit much as no one does 20x400 at 800m pace.

We used to do 5x5x200m. 100m jog between reps and 200m job between sets. Started at 5k pace and worked out way down to 1500m pace. With 6km of warmup/cool down it was only 14 or so kilometres for the workout.

Dave Moorcroft World Record Holder for 5,000 meters, would do 40x200 at 30 sec or faster. Then he was a world class distance runner. So don't think 20 is too insane, just depends on how much recovery time before your race.

20 minute tempo might be 3 1/2-3 3/4 miles, so that is a tall order to run 20x200 after, which would be fine on its own.

If his speed is decent at that age still, 32s might not be that hard. With a pr just under 4:40 but not close to that in recent years, I typically will do 34-35, with the odd 32-33, for the 20x200 workout with 100 jog, and that is with very little ability to run much faster all out at this age. With the tempo, I'd change 20x200 to 8x200. But it will not be a complete killer and will be beneficial if you just get a lot of sleep before and after.

zxcvzxcv wrote:

20 minute tempo might be 3 1/2-3 3/4 miles, so that is a tall order to run 20x200 after, which would be fine on its own.

If his speed is decent at that age still, 32s might not be that hard. With a pr just under 4:40 but not close to that in recent years, I typically will do 34-35, with the odd 32-33, for the 20x200 workout with 100 jog, and that is with very little ability to run much faster all out at this age. With the tempo, I'd change 20x200 to 8x200. But it will not be a complete killer and will be beneficial if you just get a lot of sleep before and after.

Yea - if his aerobic system is not super developed, 20 minutes of tempo may be killer on its own (especially when high school kids tend to blast tempos too hard).

We’d often do 15-20mins of tempo before workouts, but it was at a real tempo effort and years of miles help manage the longer workouts. If he’s freaking out, this is probably out of his usual workout volume.

Great workout because 20 years from now you'll be able to call some HS kid a p*ssy for asking a question about a workout.

I had a college coach who was coached by Mihaly Igloi for a few years in LA. He had me do a few of those types of workouts. Physiologically speaking, I don't know if it did any harm or good to me. However, it did teach me how to run fast when I was tired, so I can't see it being all that bad.

Workouts that I did and enjoyed:

--30x200m with jog back recovery (done on a rolling dirt trail by myself, in late february. i put broken sticks in the mud near my finish line to count). 4 mile run to spot, workout, and 4 mile jog back to my car.

2M warm-up

15x100 in 15" with 15" standing recovery, on grass in spikes.

400m jog.

10x200m with hurdles, done on half the track, jog across 50 yard line recovery (me, steepler; 1500 guys did another 15x100)

400m jog

15x100 in 15 with 15" standing recover, on grass in spikes.

15 minute "jog" cool down. we could barely jog and it was more of a jog/ shuffle.

some kid in DE: if you can finish your workout successfully, you'll be able to run under 4:20 for 1600m. Or, you can do what you think is right, and continue to run 4:45 every time you race. If you want to race and run a time in a way you've never done before, you have to train in a way you've never trained before. Man up!