CoachB, it was/is a pleasure reading your posts and following the progress of your athletes. Reminds me of the old days of LRC when coaches such as Joe Rubio would post regularly.
I’m “the athlete in question” and don’t know if y’all will see this but just wanted to thank everyone who has been supporting this blog and giving encouragement, it’s meant a lot to me to see all your input this season, Nike nationals was disappointing but I’m so satisfied with the season and can’t wait for the next steps in my career. Thanks again for all the support!!
Hi Joe
Last update on this thread.
NON was disappointing. If I had to go back and do a few things differently, I'd have started with not going to Iceland. (This was not a possibility, my wife is Icelandic and we booked the trip to see relatives back in 2020, but that was canceled. This was the first chance we had to go since then and I want to stay married). I feel like if I was around the last 2 weeks, I'd have been able to help modulate the workouts to how things were progressing. As it stood instead, Joe was very good at doing the sessions that I emailed. He might have been a little too good....going a bit deep in the well to hit times that were kind of ideal.
That being said, the 3 week plan between state and NON might have simply been too aggressive. I thought for sure Joe would smash his PR at NON, but it didn't happen.
Monday 6/12 - 2 mile WU + drills + 3 x 50 + 3 x 1k with full recovery (6 min) 3:12, 3:08, 3:00
Tue: 3 mile warm up, drills, 3 x 50 acceleration + 2 x 150 accelerating every 50
Wed: 2 mile WU + drills + 4 x 300 with 2:30 rest (45, 46,46,46) + 4 x 200 with 2:30 rest (26.5, 27.5, 26.5, 25.5)
Thu: Travel day, 10 minute shake out on arrival
Fri: 3 miles easy on Pre's trail + 4 x 30 second stride outs.
Sat: NON 800 1:54.69
In hind sight, there are a few things I likely would have done differently. I titled the thread "elite 800m training" because I truly believed Joe was going to be top 10 in the US by this point in the season. As it turns out, he PR'ed by 2.2 seconds in the 400 but only 0.5 seconds in the 800. In the end, he DID end up in the top 10 in the US on the list of 400/800 combo guys. Maybe I should go back and change the title of the thread ;)
If I had the season do do over again, almost everything would be the same, but I would have liked to have him race less and be able to do some more VO2 max type sessions. My original plan had him running more VO2 max type sessions as fartlek runs, but I think I got a little over cautious and ended up emphasizing the less stressful CV intevals and Tempo intervals a lot more.
To be sure, Joe was probably the most aerobically strong 400/800 guy in the country, but just being aerobically strong isn't enough.
What was his 400 PR? I don't recall you mentioning that.
Yeah, thanks, I just had a text conversation with him about an hour ago. He's really pleased with the result and feels like he made some tactical mistakes that cost him a faster time. He was surprised by how hard it is to move up the field on an indoor track and thinks he should have gone out harder
We've been talking a lot about his training.
While in high school, he did lots of low end aerobic, threshold development type stuff and lots of high end sprint type stuff and we tried to let his races take care of the VO2 max paces and lactate tolerance parts of fitness. At BYU, he's doing VO2 max type fartlek stuff (about 5k pace, or slightly faster) on a weekly basis. He's doing hill repeats once a week, which wasn't really an option in high school, but he really likes them.
Yeah, thanks, I just had a text conversation with him about an hour ago. He's really pleased with the result and feels like he made some tactical mistakes that cost him a faster time. He was surprised by how hard it is to move up the field on an indoor track and thinks he should have gone out harder
We've been talking a lot about his training.
While in high school, he did lots of low end aerobic, threshold development type stuff and lots of high end sprint type stuff and we tried to let his races take care of the VO2 max paces and lactate tolerance parts of fitness. At BYU, he's doing VO2 max type fartlek stuff (about 5k pace, or slightly faster) on a weekly basis. He's doing hill repeats once a week, which wasn't really an option in high school, but he really likes them.
Been a while since I've looked here. If I recall correctly, you had your guy doing something like 20–30 miles per week, correct? Curious if he's doing more at BYU or if they're keeping it in the same ballpark?
I do recall you said one of your biggest reps was not enough VO2Max work and too much tempo style work. Looks like it's working for him with that solid season opener. What type of sessions is he doing there? Simple stuff like 1 min on/1 min off, 3 min on/1 min off, etc?
Been a while since I've looked here. If I recall correctly, you had your guy doing something like 20–30 miles per week, correct? Curious if he's doing more at BYU or if they're keeping it in the same ballpark?
I do recall you said one of your biggest reps was not enough VO2Max work and too much tempo style work. Looks like it's working for him with that solid season opener. What type of sessions is he doing there? Simple stuff like 1 min on/1 min off, 3 min on/1 min off, etc?
His mileage is about what it was in HS or maybe a little more (35ish)
I don't want to give away the secret sauce without permission, but they're doing VO2 max stuff via fartlek running. When he was home for thanksgiving, I rode along on the bike while he did 5 on, 5 off, 4,3,2,1. Paces were nothing crazy, probably pretty close to what his 5k pr pace is.
They do hill repeats weekly. They've got access to a few more hills in Utah than we do in the central valley ;). He actually did do a fair number of hill sessions in high school, but the workout wasn't really hill repeats per se. I've been thinking about posting a video of our hill workout we do during cross.
It seems like leading into the season opener, they were doing a fairly large volume of R pace type stuff (or slightly faster). When he was home, he did 20 x 200 @ 29 ish.
His mileage is about what it was in HS or maybe a little more (35ish)
I don't want to give away the secret sauce without permission, but they're doing VO2 max stuff via fartlek running. When he was home for thanksgiving, I rode along on the bike while he did 5 on, 5 off, 4,3,2,1. Paces were nothing crazy, probably pretty close to what his 5k pr pace is.
They do hill repeats weekly. They've got access to a few more hills in Utah than we do in the central valley ;). He actually did do a fair number of hill sessions in high school, but the workout wasn't really hill repeats per se. I've been thinking about posting a video of our hill workout we do during cross.
It seems like leading into the season opener, they were doing a fairly large volume of R pace type stuff (or slightly faster). When he was home, he did 20 x 200 @ 29 ish.
Coach B, can I bug you for some feedback on my training? I'm training myself for the 800. I'm old and washed up for an 800 guy but think I might be able to pull something off one last time. I've always trained more like a traditional distance runner but I'm giving the more speed-oriented approach a try and I've been heavily inspired by this thread and think you've got the right ideas.
I'm all around pretty athletic and strong, naturally kind of fast, but not blazing fast—I think/hope I could run 48 high on a good day this spring. I'm definitely aerobically stronger than your guy. Lifetime PRs are 51 flat (very rarely run open 4, split a lot of 49s back in the day), 1:53 low, 2:26 low for a 1k, and 4:16 on the roads, and a 15:57 the one time I ran a 5k on the track (hated it). I actually did some proper speed development last summer and jumped in a dinky 100m and ran sub 12 on a whim, which was a huge confidence booster. I would have never run sub 12 from a standing start when I was in 49 relay split shape.
I'm looking to run some fast times this spring. Here's two weeks of my winter training:
Week 1
Mon: 1.8 mile jog, drills, 4x50m hill, 1.8 mile jog + weights
Tue: 12 min jog, 4x5 min on (~5:40 pace), 1 min off (~8:00 pace), 1 mile jog
Fri: 10 min jog, drills, 5 min on, 5 min off, 4, 3, 2, 1 (thanks for this one), 10 min jog + weights
Sat: 7 miles easy (~7:30), 3x150m stride + weights
Sun: 10 min jog, drills, 3x(2x~200m hill, 2x~400m). Jog 60s between reps, a few minutes between sets.
Lots of distances are approximate as I'm running from like "This sign to that tree."
I'm around 40mpw now. Want to get to 45 and maybe up to 50 for a week or two. The plan is continue this style of training until ~February before I start to introduce more specific sessions. I'm also in a cold, snowy place, so getting on a track in the winter isn't always a given.
Just spoke to him in the phone. He did 10 x 1 min on 1 min off today, averaging 5:07 pace for the "on" and 7:01 pace for the "off". Averaged 5:55 pace for the whole workout. He probably would have struggled with that session last year. So, I'm encouraged.
Also, this might be a bit of a pipe dream, but I tell our sprinters that they should be able to hold their top speed for 30m.....so, I'd be really excited to see a 30m fly in sub 3 seconds. He ran a session of 30m flies about 10 days ago and averaged 3.18, so it might be a stretch. Maybe if we get a really good tailwind one day.....;)
Also, arrogantly, he and I both want him to get the school record at every distance from 200m-1600m, including the 300IH. Our head coach holds the hurdle record, so there's some smack talk around that one already. The 200m record is only 22.77, so that's possible too. The 1600 record is 4:21.5, set by a meth head in 1985, so I'd really like to see that one go down. He already has the 400 and 800. Getting all of those records was not my idea, but I support it, as long as it doesn't detract from the overall goal.
CA Fan.
He beat all the CCS guys last year.
Careful about the "every record" stuff. I have a girl who could set every record from 400-3000, but we won't. That can sometimes cloud good sense with training and injuries. Esp when you start throwing in Hurdles. But you know that.
His mileage is about what it was in HS or maybe a little more (35ish)
I don't want to give away the secret sauce without permission, but they're doing VO2 max stuff via fartlek running. When he was home for thanksgiving, I rode along on the bike while he did 5 on, 5 off, 4,3,2,1. Paces were nothing crazy, probably pretty close to what his 5k pr pace is.
They do hill repeats weekly. They've got access to a few more hills in Utah than we do in the central valley ;). He actually did do a fair number of hill sessions in high school, but the workout wasn't really hill repeats per se. I've been thinking about posting a video of our hill workout we do during cross.
It seems like leading into the season opener, they were doing a fairly large volume of R pace type stuff (or slightly faster). When he was home, he did 20 x 200 @ 29 ish.
Coach B, can I bug you for some feedback on my training? I'm training myself for the 800. I'm old and washed up for an 800 guy but think I might be able to pull something off one last time. I've always trained more like a traditional distance runner but I'm giving the more speed-oriented approach a try and I've been heavily inspired by this thread and think you've got the right ideas.
I'm all around pretty athletic and strong, naturally kind of fast, but not blazing fast—I think/hope I could run 48 high on a good day this spring. I'm definitely aerobically stronger than your guy. Lifetime PRs are 51 flat (very rarely run open 4, split a lot of 49s back in the day), 1:53 low, 2:26 low for a 1k, and 4:16 on the roads, and a 15:57 the one time I ran a 5k on the track (hated it). I actually did some proper speed development last summer and jumped in a dinky 100m and ran sub 12 on a whim, which was a huge confidence booster. I would have never run sub 12 from a standing start when I was in 49 relay split shape.
I'm looking to run some fast times this spring. Here's two weeks of my winter training:
Week 1
Mon: 1.8 mile jog, drills, 4x50m hill, 1.8 mile jog + weights
Tue: 12 min jog, 4x5 min on (~5:40 pace), 1 min off (~8:00 pace), 1 mile jog
Fri: 10 min jog, drills, 5 min on, 5 min off, 4, 3, 2, 1 (thanks for this one), 10 min jog + weights
Sat: 7 miles easy (~7:30), 3x150m stride + weights
Sun: 10 min jog, drills, 3x(2x~200m hill, 2x~400m). Jog 60s between reps, a few minutes between sets.
Lots of distances are approximate as I'm running from like "This sign to that tree."
I'm around 40mpw now. Want to get to 45 and maybe up to 50 for a week or two. The plan is continue this style of training until ~February before I start to introduce more specific sessions. I'm also in a cold, snowy place, so getting on a track in the winter isn't always a given.
Thanks in advance!
threshold and everything else less than 200m. I suspect many would argue for at least a day of 300-800m VO2 training.
Coach B, can I bug you for some feedback on my training? I'm training myself for the 800. I'm old and washed up for an 800 guy but think I might be able to pull something off one last time. I've always trained more like a traditional distance runner but I'm giving the more speed-oriented approach a try and I've been heavily inspired by this thread and think you've got the right ideas.
I'm all around pretty athletic and strong, naturally kind of fast, but not blazing fast—I think/hope I could run 48 high on a good day this spring. I'm definitely aerobically stronger than your guy. Lifetime PRs are 51 flat (very rarely run open 4, split a lot of 49s back in the day), 1:53 low, 2:26 low for a 1k, and 4:16 on the roads, and a 15:57 the one time I ran a 5k on the track (hated it). I actually did some proper speed development last summer and jumped in a dinky 100m and ran sub 12 on a whim, which was a huge confidence booster. I would have never run sub 12 from a standing start when I was in 49 relay split shape.
I'm looking to run some fast times this spring. Here's two weeks of my winter training:
Week 1
Mon: 1.8 mile jog, drills, 4x50m hill, 1.8 mile jog + weights
Tue: 12 min jog, 4x5 min on (~5:40 pace), 1 min off (~8:00 pace), 1 mile jog
Fri: 10 min jog, drills, 5 min on, 5 min off, 4, 3, 2, 1 (thanks for this one), 10 min jog + weights
Sat: 7 miles easy (~7:30), 3x150m stride + weights
Sun: 10 min jog, drills, 3x(2x~200m hill, 2x~400m). Jog 60s between reps, a few minutes between sets.
Lots of distances are approximate as I'm running from like "This sign to that tree."
I'm around 40mpw now. Want to get to 45 and maybe up to 50 for a week or two. The plan is continue this style of training until ~February before I start to introduce more specific sessions. I'm also in a cold, snowy place, so getting on a track in the winter isn't always a given.
Thanks in advance!
I don't think you need as many speed sessions. I think you can do a good job addressing top speed with extensive drills and lower intensity activities. We only do 1 true speed session per week, and during the preparation period, we never do speed endurance.
Big Mig is right. An easy VO2 session once per week would be beneficial. It looks like you've got that in there with the 5-4-3-2-1. Doing those around 5k effort is pretty beneficial. You can start with intervals of 1-3 minutes, though. To run a fast 800, you need to get really good at going hard for 2 minutes. Joe really thrived off of the 2 on 2 off fartlek stuff he was doing during his soccer season. I'm still kicking myself for not continuing that during the actual track season.
Joe ran his 47.85 off of zero reps of longer than 150m at 400 pace (he never approached a sub 24 second 200 in training). But he was still able to split a 47.3 relay leg on his 8th race in 3 days at our divisional meet.
Here's the stuff we do
Daily sprint development drills. Feed the Cats Atomic warm up is a staple. This always finishes with a 30m top effort sprint. We have a second warm up series that we do before hard sessions, where we finish with 3x50, each faster than the last, with the last at top controllable speed.
We run wickets at least once per week do develop stride mechanics. I'm not asking kids to hit top speed during the wickets, rather, to focus on ground contact and quick, efficient front and backside motions.
We'll do agility ladders. We do these more in the early season and drop them out once the peak comes around
My MD kids do a lot of under distance racing. This is why you don't see any speed endurance stuff in our training schedules. It was not uncommon for my good 800 guys do run a 400, 200, 4x4 in a dual meet last season. After all, the best training for racing is, racing. Since you probably won't have as many opportunities for racing, you could add in true speed endurance work once you get into your actual racing season.
I'm all around pretty athletic and strong, naturally kind of fast, but not blazing fast—I think/hope I could run 48 high on a good day this spring. I'm definitely aerobically stronger than your guy. Lifetime PRs are 51 flat (very rarely run open 4, split a lot of 49s back in the day), 1:53 low, 2:26 low for a 1k, and 4:16 on the roads, and a 15:57 the one time I ran a 5k on the track (hated it). I actually did some proper speed development last summer and jumped in a dinky 100m and ran sub 12 on a whim, which was a huge confidence booster. I would have never run sub 12 from a standing start when I was in 49 relay split shape.
I'm looking to run some fast times this spring. Here's two weeks of my winter training:
Week 1
Mon: 1.8 mile jog, drills, 4x50m hill, 1.8 mile jog + weights
Tue: 12 min jog, 4x5 min on (~5:40 pace), 1 min off (~8:00 pace), 1 mile jog
Fri: 10 min jog, drills, 5 min on, 5 min off, 4, 3, 2, 1 (thanks for this one), 10 min jog + weights
Sat: 7 miles easy (~7:30), 3x150m stride + weights
Sun: 10 min jog, drills, 3x(2x~200m hill, 2x~400m). Jog 60s between reps, a few minutes between sets.
Lots of distances are approximate as I'm running from like "This sign to that tree."
I'm around 40mpw now. Want to get to 45 and maybe up to 50 for a week or two. The plan is continue this style of training until ~February before I start to introduce more specific sessions. I'm also in a cold, snowy place, so getting on a track in the winter isn't always a given.
Thanks in advance!
I don't think you need as many speed sessions. I think you can do a good job addressing top speed with extensive drills and lower intensity activities. We only do 1 true speed session per week, and during the preparation period, we never do speed endurance.
Big Mig is right. An easy VO2 session once per week would be beneficial. It looks like you've got that in there with the 5-4-3-2-1. Doing those around 5k effort is pretty beneficial. You can start with intervals of 1-3 minutes, though. To run a fast 800, you need to get really good at going hard for 2 minutes. Joe really thrived off of the 2 on 2 off fartlek stuff he was doing during his soccer season. I'm still kicking myself for not continuing that during the actual track season.
Thanks CoachB!
1) When you say "speed sessions," are you referring to the speed development days I have on Mondays? If so, I'm doing that once a week. Or are you talking aboutthe hill sessions I'm doing?
If you're talking about the hill sessions, would you suggest I replace that session with another threshold/tempo style day? I'm a big fan of hills and have had a lot of success with them in the past. I would like to do some longer hills, 60+ seconds, but most of the hills around here are too steep for that long of a rep so it really turns into a lactate tolerance type of session unless I jog up it very slowly or take very long rest. The other hill session I like is a 120m hill on a slight incline, I'll do them in bulk, 20–30 of them with jog back, maybe broken into sets, around mile effort—it's a similar effort to diagonals if you've ever run those. I'm curious, if you had more hills around you, how you would implement them in this style of training?
2) Doing the 5/4/3/2/1 will be my first VO2 session in a while. For the past month or so I've just been getting baseline fit and back in the swing of things I plan on keeping that type of work going all throughout the winter and into the spring, getting more specific with it as time goes on. It will likely all be minute based until I get steady track access, where I'll start doing more 600-1k reps.
3) You are correct about me not being able to race much. I'll have to do more speed endurance work than your guys. I plan on using 30–60s hills as a bridge between offseason fitness and the more specific track work.
In my mind, your hills are speed endurance (1k effort, 400m effort) . I just don't think you need that AND a top speed session (which looks like your 4 x 50m hill). However, if you do longer reps, it becomes more of a VO2 max stimulus.
His mileage is about what it was in HS or maybe a little more (35ish)
I don't want to give away the secret sauce without permission, but they're doing VO2 max stuff via fartlek running. When he was home for thanksgiving, I rode along on the bike while he did 5 on, 5 off, 4,3,2,1. Paces were nothing crazy, probably pretty close to what his 5k pr pace is.
They do hill repeats weekly. They've got access to a few more hills in Utah than we do in the central valley ;). He actually did do a fair number of hill sessions in high school, but the workout wasn't really hill repeats per se. I've been thinking about posting a video of our hill workout we do during cross.
It seems like leading into the season opener, they were doing a fairly large volume of R pace type stuff (or slightly faster). When he was home, he did 20 x 200 @ 29 ish.
I’ll totally snitch on BYU because they have a very interesting way of training their 800m athletes and it mostly only works with a certain type of middle distance guy too, that’s why they are particular with who they recruit to be 4/8 8/15 guys.
Here’s a few key off/preseason workouts they do:
4-5x1k, but it’s 200m on 200m float. Roughly 29-30s for the ons, 5:30-6:00 pace for the offs.
5-4-3-2-1 workout as mentioned, you take whatever rest the previous rep was in length at a steady jog.
Here’s an interesting one: 100m repeats with a shuffle jog recovery back to the starting point, you start slow, like 16-17 seconds per rep, and keep chipping away at it until you can’t get any faster, usually the workout will end at 11.5-12 second reps.
For 800m guys they will also do workouts like 5x800m @vo2max which is usually 2:20-2:25 for the guys on the team at this point in the season.
Lots and lots of fast strides too, almost every day.
As far as your race pace training, I think Eyestone takes a lot of influence from Seb Coe, 20x200m slightly slower than 800m pace, 6x300m starting at 1000m pace and ending at 600m if possible, all with pretty short rest.
This is probably my favorite thread I've found on this forum. Just coaches sharing info and having open discourse about training and ideas/philosophies, the way the sport should be. Thanks CoachB for putting such a great post out there openly.
Where does one find the Fast8track plan? Aside from Following Rinaldi on Insta, I can't find any info about it? There was an 8 week build-up that he posted on the 2014 1:44's that Alex Rowe put down, but that's about it.
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