Bored X coach, willing to give unwanted advice

Here's a question coach.

High school athlete out due to injury for the past three months with aerobic activity limited to cross training (swimming and biking).

From your perspective, can the athlete salvage the season and perhaps race in late May/June?

If the athlete can't (return to racing by late May/June), then what would your recommend for competitive racing in the summer? Road Racing? Summer Track? Or should the approach be to get back to training and prepare for fall XC and indoor 2012/2013?

I have an achilles problem that refuses to completely go away. It is getting better though, so I am able to run consistent 20 mile weeks. Before my achilles problem I would run 60 mile weeks at about 6:45 for a normal run. Now I run at 7:10 pace normally. Right now I have biking, rowing, swimming and water running as ways of cross training while I'm injured.

My point is I want to build my mileage back up to at least 40 miles per week. How would you recommend doing this?

Run a few races in the summer, but focus on getting back for cross country. Long term thought process

massrundad wrote:

Here's a question coach.

High school athlete out due to injury for the past three months with aerobic activity limited to cross training (swimming and biking).

From your perspective, can the athlete salvage the season and perhaps race in late May/June?

If the athlete can't (return to racing by late May/June), then what would your recommend for competitive racing in the summer? Road Racing? Summer Track? Or should the approach be to get back to training and prepare for fall XC and indoor 2012/2013?

With the Achilles it kind of depends on how old you are and what your goals are to give you advice on that beast.

Day 6 advice

Everyone looks at mileage when they get hurt, look at more then mileage. See how you set up your week, how many rest days did you have? Where those rest days in the right place? Did you do injury prevention 1-2 times a week? Were workouts too close together? Was your week mileage heavy In a 3 day period? One week rarely gets you injured always look 12 weeks until the injury to figure out what went wrong.

I'm 20 years old and my goal is a sub 2 800 for short term. Long term is 1:55. I've been running track inconsistently, because of constant injuries, for 2 years (played soccer before running track). I'm at 2:03 for the 800 and 53 for the 400. I have only ever been not injured for 4 months and during that time I ran in between 55 and 65 miles per week. 6' feet tall and 155 lbs. So far I'm self coached, but my training is pretty standard.

X.coach wrote:

Really depends on the person. I've been around 1:46 guys who never walked in a weight room, and then been around 1:49 guys who spent a lot of time there.

Plyos, what do you consider plyos?

It depends really if you are more of a 400m runner or 1500m runner

I'm more of a 1500m runner than a 400m runner, I suppose.

My plyo workouts have typically included the following (sorry, I don't exactly know the widely used names for most of them):

1) Jump squats

2) Jumping lunges. Basically going down into a lunge position, jumping straight up, switching legs to land in a lunge position with the opposite leg forward, and repeating the process several times.

3) Long jumps where we basically do a bunch of standing LJs in a row

4) Single leg hops

5) "Speed skaters." Basically jumping side to side landing with the outside foot forward.

why strides? wrote:

Again, speed is NEVER the issue with a kick. Never.

This is silly. At very least, it is tautological that you can only kick as fast as you can sprint. A guy who can't run a 25 second 200m is not going to kick in 25 seconds. Ever.

Any advice for injury prone runners? I would like to at some point in my life break a 5 min mile, but every time I get close I seem to get injured (knees, ankles, Achilles tendinitis). And this is all on 30 mpw or less. I've tried minimalist running, orthotics etc. and nothing seems to prevent the injuries. I am 26.

My PRs are

400m 62 (2010)

800m 2:17 (2005)

mile 5:05, (winter 2011)

3k 10:36 (winter 2011)

5k 18:48 (spring 2011)

8k XC 31:46 (fall 2011)

My typical strategy is to do a build up from 15-30 mpw of mainly easy running and fast relaxed reps over a month. Then the next month I add in a day per week where I alternate between a 20min tempo run (at 10k race pace), and longer repeats with shorter rest (typically something like 4x1600m at 5:55 each with 2-3min rest between reps).

What would be examples of "injury prevention" to do 1-2 times a week?

What injuries have you had?

The wild wrote:

I'm 20 years old and my goal is a sub 2 800 for short term. Long term is 1:55. I've been running track inconsistently, because of constant injuries, for 2 years (played soccer before running track). I'm at 2:03 for the 800 and 53 for the 400. I have only ever been not injured for 4 months and during that time I ran in between 55 and 65 miles per week. 6' feet tall and 155 lbs. So far I'm self coached, but my training is pretty standard.

I'd spend more time working on tempos and coming back and doing 200s tired then plyos. What's your mileage at, what's a normal week look like.

Sand pit walks. Core work (plank and prone routine), the ladder, and form drills.

Right now my injury is an achilles problem that I can run on for about 20-25 miles a week before it acts up. My old injuries are a shin stress fracture, minor achilles problems from the start that went a way, it band issues, something odd on the top of my foot that kept me out for a month and a couple pulls here and there. My non running injury is a weird shoulder thing that keeps me away from any intense upper body injuries. When that acts up my shoulder get locked out overhead and I can't bring them down without a large amount of pain. No doctor knows what it is though...

anyway those are my injuries from the last 2 years.

In a fast race it doesn't matter what A or B's 400 pr is since they won't be able to utilize that speed. So now it seems that your 'advice' about doing strides all the time is only useful for those expecting to do a slow race with a sprint at the end.

You're right, I'm just going for the local road race and not a meandering kicker's championship race. We're not all in college here.

Anyway, thanks for the insight. I'm going to bail on strides now as I've asked this question a dozen times and no one can really seem to grasp the concept of the specific endurance aspect and how it relates to actual races that are run hard. Since none of my races are slow tactical ones it's apparent that the speed aspect is pointless when the specific endurance limits the speed I can run at anyway.

Thanks again.

I will add that I will start adding sprints to my regiment the day I close the last 50/100/200m of a 5k/10k in the same time I can do in an open 50/100/200m, so that's something I haven't considered before.

Thanks!

Like I said when your trying to break 18:00 for the first time and you are 30, you probably don't need to worry about strides.

With the little time you have to train, you are better off running the extra 10 minutes.

I have been very lucky that the people I coach are on the track every year or trying to be in championship races on the road.

A lot of my advice will not be good for someone who only has an hour a day to run. I have never coached anyone with a wife and kids or a full-time job. When I talk about doing injury prevention, strides, sprints, weights, you have to have time to do them.

PS Strides and sprints are to improve your overall speed, this is so that you can build on that speed and run faster in the 400,800,1500,5000,10000, etc... You think they are for an all out kick, its so you can take that speed you have improved with the endurance that you are also improving, to become an overall a faster runner.

Endurance is no doubt a more important factor for you. But there's no reason not to do something short and fast.

X.Coach suggests that a 30yr old 18:00 guy might not need strides - I agree with pretty much every piece of advice he's given here, but I'd say approaching top speed is important no matter what.

Running fast (I'll refrain from saying 'sprinting' since barely any distance runners ever 'sprint' in a race) is something your body has to learn. Doing something short (50-150m) with lots of rest ensures that you're not going to be fatigued and you can practice maintaining form and efficiency while running 'fast'. You do need to practice this to be good at it. Just like you need to practice maintaining form while tired - no one does it naturally without some form of coaching.

Another angle I look at 'fast' running from is that your top race speed and overall race speed are limited by your top speed. Say you're an 18:00 guy, your average 100m in that race is 21.6s. Let's also say your overall top 100m speed is 15.4s. This means you're capable of running about 71% of your top speed over 5km. If you can work your top speed down to 14.8s, you might not see an exact extrapolation on your 5k time (71% of 14.8 for 5km is about 17:18),but you're certain to see some improvement provided you're not sacrificing endurance-building work to work on your speed. Strides don't sacrifice anything.

I'm very limited on time when I train on my lunch break at work. I build strides into the last few miles of my runs 2-3 times a week. Basically fartlek for 10-20s, rest as long as I want, usually end up getting 6 or 8 in no problem. I look like a maniac on the public trail, but they help.

Saul Goodman wrote:

Another angle I look at 'fast' running from is that your top race speed and overall race speed are limited by your top speed. Say you're an 18:00 guy, your average 100m in that race is 21.6s. Let's also say your overall top 100m speed is 15.4s. This means you're capable of running about 71% of your top speed over 5km. If you can work your top speed down to 14.8s, you might not see an exact extrapolation on your 5k time (71% of 14.8 for 5km is about 17:18),but you're certain to see some improvement provided you're not sacrificing endurance-building work to work on your speed. Strides don't sacrifice anything.

Yep. I'd look at it this way: faster top end speed means that running a given submaximal pace feels easier. If a 59 second guy and a 52 second guy run 61 flat for the first lap of the mile, the 59 second guy is basically sprinting while the 52 second guy is nowhere close to redlining. They aren't really limited by their sprint speed per se since they aren't trying to run faster than their all out sprint pace, but the faster guy will have an easier time hanging with the pace.

Personally, when I race early in the season before doing any real speed work, I feel like I'm sprinting the whole race. I have to really push just to stay on pace. I haven't done anything much faster than race pace in training, so race pace feels really hard even though I'm not running any faster than my aerobic fitness allows. A few quicker workouts, and suddenly the same pace feels comfortable.

So speed helps even if you aren't going to be in a kicker's race. A little practice running fast will make your race pace feel easier.