5x60m w/ full recovery

These definitely fit into base phase, and at least to me, its one of the most important times to emphasize this type of work. How often it fits in depends a lot on how you set up your micro-cycles and what your event targets are. If you're a 3k-5k-10k runner on a weekly or 10 day cycle plan, I would do it every 7-10 days. A pure 800m runner, and maybe a 1500m runner who doesn't respond as well to volume I would think about doing it every 4-5 days. A 10k-1/2 Marathon-Marathon runner, once per 14 days might be sufficient.

I'm a bit concerned about how you're seeming to use the term aerobic threshold, and what that means for the other terminology you use above, but for the sake of staying on topic: If in your pre-competition phase you are consistently also running workouts at 15k-1/2 marathon pace, 3k-5k-10k paces, and 800-1500 paces, I would turn the frequency of these sessions into the once per 7-10 day range for everyone besides that 1/2marathon/marathon crew. As you get into the true competition phase, you would probably want to turn down the frequency of these workouts to once in 12-15 days or so. As a general concept, I believe if an athlete isn't getting a certain stimulus at least once in 15 days, their ability to work at that stimulus range is probably going to start diminishing. For that 1/2 Marathon/Marathon crew, diminished performance in this range is quite acceptable as you get prepped for the race itself and not getting prepped for hard training sessions.

Just because handling the volume of the workout isn't a challenge the way it is for other training elements, you should still have some sense of progression in what you do. 8s is about the limit you can hold top speed for, before the workout turns into a speed endurance session, which has different parameters and goals. Reps in the 3-5 second range will focus more on acceleration and acceleration mechanics, which is a good starting place, then after a few sessions like this, you can work up into the 6-8 second range.

Keep in mind that while hills are an awesome addition to this type of workout,I wouldn't do only hills for every session in a given phase, One of the main points of the workout is to hit your absolute top end speed, and if you're running every session on an uphill, you will never actually hit your top end speed, or even run with top speed mechanics, since hills make you run with acceleration mechanics. I have my athletes alternate these types of workouts between on a track, and on a mild-medium incline hill as well. In Track, once we get to the competition phase we'll stop doing them on the hill, while in XC season, we'll continue doing some work on hills, and some on the flat all the time.

Thanks some advice, I use the term aerobic threshold taken from Tinman. I take 5k min/mile pace + 1 min, give or take a ~10s depending on how I feel, and will run 6-10 miles at this pace once or twice a week on mainly hilly routes. I've read Keith Livingstone's "Healthy Intelligent Training" and took note of Lydiard having his athletes run a 10 mile marathon paced run twice a week (or maybe it was one hour in length, either way.) I use aerobic threshold as basically the same thing (once again using similarities between what I have read From Tinman and Lydiard.) I'm mainly a 1500-3000m runner and am still 6-7 months out from when I want to peak. I've been base building for 4 months and have been more comfortable with these session rather than doing anaerobic threshold (LT) for such an extended period of time. In addition to that, fartleks that touch on 1500-10k paces are run once every few weeks. Lastly, I jump in a 5k-10k race every once in a while for a fitness test.

I feel as though my aerobic endurance was holding me back and have been trying to gain as much strength as possible through upping my mileage, along with these aerobic and anaerobic threshold sessions.

Does this clear anything up for you? Thanks for your time.

Aodiapad wrote:

Does this clear anything up for you? Thanks for your time.

It does clear things up. Many people will do a steady diet of Tempo/Anaerobic Threshold in their base phase, so when you said you wouldn't be doing much Anaerobic Threshold until pre-Comp, and that pre-comp would be adding in AnT/Tempo and vVO2, I was worried you were thinking of AeT as AnT/Tempo, and AnT/Tempo as 5k-10k work. Not that any of this is to push you into doing AnT in base if you hadn't planned on it, I was just making that assumption.

Its why I always prefer using race pace efforts to describe workouts, rather than Tempo, Interval, Anaerobic Threshold, Lactate Tolerance, Speed, Speed endurance, etc, etc. Even people with years of experience use these terms very differently.

I don't think there is a right or wrong way to do this within what you've already described but I'll give you my take.

I like very phasic training where its possible to give my athletes clear lines of distinction between different macrocycles. I think it helps let them see something new requiring them to make a hard adjustment but then also gives them plenty of time to get used to it. In terms of where hills/acceleration/speed development all fit together I usually want these to alternate in some fashion as well. So in a 6 month build-up you might see the following progression of what I emphasize in that general zone:

1 - Hills (acceleration; reps of 30-60m)

2 - Acceleration (on the track usually, and may include things like wicket drills, sled pulls, etc. but mostly focusing on letting them get used to the faster speed of acceleration work when its done in spikes on the track)

3 - Speed Development (40-80m reps, some in-out-in sprints, occasionally overspeed work but I'm hesitant there with most athletes)

4- Hills (60-100m; to change things up and to add a larger lactate profile to the workload, this will also get paired with some speed endurance on the track every so often, I don't want them to forget this stuff at this point in the year)

5 - Speed Development w/ speed endurance (this idea actually came from someone earlier in this thread, but I like the idea of adding speed endurance to replace the last few reps of a speed development workout. It won't diminish the speed development reps at the beginning but still allows you to learn to resist fatigue a bit better

6 - Speed endurance (80-150m reps)

Not exactly what I do but it paints the picture of how I try to make shifts in training to force athletes to adapt without them spending so much time in one area that they're either bored or no longer getting something from it.

Your other question about doing hills later in the season (pre-comp/comp) I wouldn't put any hill work into your competition phase. It's not wrong strictly speaking but unless its cross country I don't think its specific enough for that time of year and it means that you're taking away time that could be spent doing something more beneficial.

The 6-8 week range you gave is a little long to me, you can certainly do 3-4 weeks of short hills then 3-4 weeks of longer hills (or vice-versa which is a little more Lydiard) and that would make sense, but otherwise I would keep your macrocycle to about a month long. 28 days seems to be about the best length of time I've found to introduce a stimulus, adapt to it, then more or less master it before you really need to change things up again.

All of that being said, it doesn't mean you can have a day or two in the 5th macrocycle that I listed that where you run some hills either for maintenance work or even just to keep your athletes from being bored, I just wouldn't make it a heavy session.

V, I have a couple questions.

First off, thanks for answering all of our questions on this thread and sharing your training information.

Now to my question:

I am a post collegiate runner who specializes in the 800 but has a distance running background. My times drop off after 800m and I have a good 400m/500m time despite my background.

My first year post collegiately has been pretty mediocre with looking for jobs / working / not having a team anymore etc.

This upcoming year I plan to have two 'peaks', so to speak. I will start in May and be working on mileage, various tempo runs, and long runs during this time. Slowly adding in 5k work as the summer moves into the fall in addition to a few quick reps at the end of workouts to keep me used to 800-mile pace. I'll be running a race or two in late September and early October just to see where my distance fitness is then I'll be taking a short break before I start my training for track. So basically June-October, then November-May.

During the summer, how often should I include this speed/acceleration work? and should I ever move into speed endurance or should I just continually work on acceleration and speed development since I'm not actually racing anything below 5k until January? When I start in November I'll go through the phases of acceleration, speed development, speed endurance etc, but I was wondering if you think I should do that in the summer/fall as well, or simply just work on speed and acceleration?

Sorry if this is a little jumbled, feel free to ask questions so I can clarify

I wouldn't do any specific speed endurance workouts in those first 3-4 months for your June to October build-up. What you can do to stimulate that zone a bit is set up a standard speed development session, lets say 6x60m w/ 4 minute recovery then add 2x120m w/ 6 minute recovery or 1x150m at the end of it. You'll still get the benefits of a speed development workout (you'll basically have 8 sprints that you're trying to hit top speed in its just that the last reps you'll have a longer period of time where you are falling out of top speed).

It kind of depends on how you want to treat that "off-peak" cycle that ends in October. Some 800m guys who don't do indoors will not really get far into much race specificity and go for more of a traditional base while tryin to maintain their speed capabilities. Symmonds doesn't seem to do a whole lot of speed maintenance year round so there are definitely a few ways to skin a cat.

I'll mention that most post-collegiate runners tend to do a little better with their 2 peaks set up as September/February and March/August if they are middle distance runners. It lets you still race indoors with a proper peak and outdoors as well assuming you have access to some of the championship style races that you can get at the end of the summer. Obviously Europe is a great place to do these (also can be very expensive), but even cities in the US have some opportunities at the end of the summer. The hard part though is that college meets are over by mid may most of the time so if you wanted to really get after some of those last chance meets by running unattached you really won't be in form by then.

Thanks for the advice. I'll probably just add a few speed endurance reps to the end of some speed development sessions like you said towards the end of my first peak.

And I'd normally agree with you and try to schedule my two peaks like that, with the outdoor one ending in August, but there is not very many track meets in the area after May, and I don't have the money to travel often just to run a track meet. Maybe if my times keep dropping and get a bit below 1:50 I'd schedule my peak a little differently and try to run at bigger meets, but until then I have some work to do. I managed to FAT split a 49.9 last year a week before I ran 1:52, so although my speed isn't bad, I would love to improve it so I can at least run sub 50 in an open 400 eventually, if not faster.

I'll likely just do acceleration / speed sessions once a week in my summer/fall peak and lift and do some plyos. Even this would likely help me to build some speed since I've never had a super structured program to work on my speed other than some lifting and hard strides. Then during my second build up as my mileage drops a little I'll add in more speed development and some speed endurance.

Loud Asian Neighbor Kids wrote:

Rudisha800 wrote:

I did a similar workout this week but 4x40 & 4x50 while holding your breath.. tough workout tbh I was sore

holding your breath makes no difference

its anaerobic and so short

Er, umm, an all-out effort over 40 or 50 meters (unless you're pushing a piano or the like) is too short to be anaerobic. Such an effort is analactic or alactic, if I understand correctly.

But I think your other point, that breath-holding makes no difference in such a scenario, is correct.

Strength is the easiest thing to develop.

Endurance is harder to develop than strength.

Speed is the hardest of all to develop.

That is why one must work on speed every day of the week.

I know of teams who do strides before and after every workout or long run.

(This is really speed endurance but it does help maintain what you have.)

Like anything else you must be consistent in what you do and unlike developing distance running ability you will have to concentrate more on form. I recommend consulting a sprint coach on a regular basis. There is more to it than just hammering 50 meter dashes!!!

Commonsenseaintsocommon wrote:

Strength is the easiest thing to develop.

Endurance is harder to develop than strength.

Speed is the hardest of all to develop.

That is why one must work on speed every day of the week.

I know of teams who do strides before and after every workout or long run.

(This is really speed endurance but it does help maintain what you have.)

Like anything else you must be consistent in what you do and unlike developing distance running ability you will have to concentrate more on form. I recommend consulting a sprint coach on a regular basis. There is more to it than just hammering 50 meter dashes!!!

I appreciate the input.

Strides don't fall into speed-endurance unless you're using a different definition that most track and field coaches or unless your strides are being done at a full sprint. For the sake of playing in the same sandbox as everyone I try to make every effort to talk like a sprinter when I'm using sprint terms. Speed-endurance workouts are maximal sprints held for 80-150m and need full recovery. Strides are great, but they are none of those things.

Our nervous system doesn't understand submaximal very well. In a lot of ways its like the "all-or-none" principle that action potentials follow; if you aren't running at your top speed or doing something to adequately stress your system it isn't going to translate to improved maximal speed. Strides are just too slow to improve "speed."

Don't get me wrong, it can definitely improve your efficiency at running at submaximal speeds (which is massively important) but it isn't going to move the needle on your top speed if its been half decently developed. If you have an 800m runner who can go 11.7 in the 100m then doing strides even at 13.5-14 which is fairly quick for most coaches definition of strides it still won't change anything to improve the 11.7.

I don't know any coaches who do strides before and after every workout and run. It seems excessive to me, but I certainly don't know everything, if they have found success with it then more power to them.

Why would you ever do sprint training without a coach present?

Form, relaxation, and acceleration is crucial.

Never do you want the athlete to just hammer and that is what some

will do without a coach there to watch.

"You can work too hard."

The above statement is the most neglected advice in America

when it comes to working with distance runners.

Bumping up this excellent thread for your reading pleasure!

Why don’t more elite runners do stuff like this? I’ve looked through dozens of training logs of the best distance and middle distance runners. I’ve seen Canova use short hill sprints. I know Jake Wightman does short speed sessions. Aside from that, it’s just strides and hill strides of around 100m in length with relatively short (jog back in 90s, often less than 60s) recovery. The closest I’ve seen, besides Canova, is a few top middle distance programs tacking on short 80-90m sprints at the end of a workout with full recovery.

Ramp up

Think Mr Tanner does 40m sprints with full recovery and he goes ok

Most middle-D/distance coaches don't fully understand sprinting and speed and lean away from addressing these elements directly. Top 400/800 programs have their athletes working with either just the sprint coach or going between the two.

The poster "V" in this thread shows good mastery of the subject.

Although a lot of pros don't do pure sprint training, they mostly DO do lots of plyos and drills, which are a less "risky" way (but more ineffective unless done right) to address the biomechanics and

A coach who conveys the proper philosophy that will allow speed to come out organically without straining or overtraining is Tony Holler with "Feed The Cats". He is on twitter and YT. Like all great coaches, he conveys concepts more than cookie-cutter reps/rest/sets and fancy schedules. He is very fundamental but very effective in keeping the love of the sport in the forefront.

Such a great thread. 👏👏👏

Hi everybody.
My raw speed @400m is about 60s,100m - 14.0-15.0s all without spikes. Can I develop it up to 56s and 13s respectfully, do I have a chances? Not young (39), started to run seriously only at 37y.o. with 3 years amateur cycling background, but still feel some fire in legs and able to train hard...
Last valuable PBs is 10km is 34:00, 200m in training @29-30s without spikes.
Lets say, if I will start for the next season to indroduce speed development workouts like 5x60m /full rest + weight training during base building for 4 to 6 weeks and others. How much for the year can be shaved realistically, 1-2s down from 400 and 1s for 100?
Thanks for response.