Stupidest Workout Ever? - 4x 1600m w/2:30 recovery - 4:52, 4:55, 4:55, 4:57

I firmly believe that if I had the same fitness I had when I ran my 5:38 PR at The Simplot Games Community Mile back in the 80’s and you threw me into the second or third rep here with Mrs. Brown that I could easily break 5:00!!! Very impressive work from a very impressive young lady!! However, I think I could whip her in an 800m back in my peak haha!!

-The5:38Miler

As others have said, it just seems like a dumb workout. Based on the amount of rest that was needed and the slightly slower splits it probably was current 3k pace. Long rest allows you to hammer the next reps and makes it harder for your legs to recover the next day. Taking longer than 90 sec on mile repeats is dumb. A 5-6xmile should be on 60-90 sec rest.

Isn't this how girls burn out? idk her mileage

The5:38Miler wrote:

I firmly believe that if I had the same fitness I had when I ran my 5:38 PR at The Simplot Games Community Mile back in the 80’s and you threw me into the second or third rep here with Mrs. Brown that I could easily break 5:00!!! Very impressive work from a very impressive young lady!! However, I think I could whip her in an 800m back in my peak haha!!

-The5:38Miler

Good point. Her progression in middle distance races:

800 Meters

2018 Outdoor 9 2:19.7h *

2019 Outdoor 10 2:23.75

2020 Outdoor 11 2:18.74PR *

1600 Meters

2018 Outdoor 9 4:53.23 *

2019 Outdoor 10 4:48.37PR *

2020 Outdoor 11 4:50.77

Seems like they are mostly focusing on her aerobic development with hard long runs and long VO2MAX and somewhat ignoring speed training. Wouldn't it be good in younger athletes to develop the basic speed so she is not just going to get outkicked everytime in NCAA? Based on her 800m time, in connection with her incredible endurance, she only has 63-64s 400m speed. Sure, she is 90%+ slow-twitch, but still I don't think that weaknesses should be neglected like that.

Obviously, she has progressed well endurance-wise and her 3k/5k times are absolute top-tier.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

Good point. Her progression in middle distance races:

800 Meters

2018 Outdoor 9 2:19.7h *

2019 Outdoor 10 2:23.75

2020 Outdoor 11 2:18.74PR *

1600 Meters

2018 Outdoor 9 4:53.23 *

2019 Outdoor 10 4:48.37PR *

2020 Outdoor 11 4:50.77

Seems like they are mostly focusing on her aerobic development with hard long runs and long VO2MAX and somewhat ignoring speed training. Wouldn't it be good in younger athletes to develop the basic speed so she is not just going to get outkicked everytime in NCAA? Based on her 800m time, in connection with her incredible endurance, she only has 63-64s 400m speed. Sure, she is 90%+ slow-twitch, but still I don't think that weaknesses should be neglected like that.

Obviously, she has progressed well endurance-wise and her 3k/5k times are absolute top-tier.

I would take that 800m time with a grain of salt unless you know it was close to a max effort. I bet though. if she posted a workout of her doing something like 8x200 fast, there would be a ton of posts asking why she wasn't working on developing her aerobic strength instead of spending time doing this fast stuff that will cause her to burnout.

In the end it isn't an either or. She should be working on speed. But there are 6 other days of the week to do that. You would hope this workout would be paired with things like 400s at mile pace or 200s at 800m at some point.

I'm sorry but you clearly don't seem to comprehend coaching. Have you done any coaching yourself?

If you watched the video, she didn't look strained or out of control on that last rep. This is especially impressive considering the short rest she was taking.

I wouldn't even say that she went to the well during this workout. Again, hard to say how difficult it was for her without having other physiological metrics. Regardless, nothing seemed wrong with the type of workout prescribed given how she physically looked throughout all of her reps.

ExPhys wrote:

I'm sorry but you clearly don't seem to comprehend coaching. Have you done any coaching yourself?

If you watched the video, she didn't look strained or out of control on that last rep. This is especially impressive considering the short rest she was taking.

I wouldn't even say that she went to the well during this workout. Again, hard to say how difficult it was for her without having other physiological metrics. Regardless, nothing seemed wrong with the type of workout prescribed given how she physically looked throughout all of her reps.

There are many runners who can run REALLY hard / at their limits but don't show it. Look at world record holders, like El Guerrouj or Bekele after setting a WR. They look like it was no big deal and are immediately recovered.

Fact is, Brown's PRs are 2:18, 4:48 and 9:57. The 4 x Mile on short rest were barely slower than her track PR in spikes (and she was running through grass in some parts and had to dodge some runners and dogs), and faster than her 2-Mile PR. Based on her track PRs, she was suffering a lot inside.

Also as I said, she is 90%+ slow-twitch, and can't produce much lactate. Salazar and Radcliffe were similar runners. This shows very high potential for long distances, like marathons in the future.

I agree she looked extremely relaxed, but to me it doesn't mean much. Two people can race similar times, one looks like he is dieing the whole race and does heavy breathing that you can hear from wide distance, the other one barely breaths, and looks super relaxed. The guy who looks like he was dieing outkicks the other one easily at the end. Both raced at 100% of their maximum, just different muscle fiber distribution.

If she was truly dying on the inside as you claim, it would be highly impossible for her to complete this workout not on a track and with minimal rest.

This proves she:

a) was primed for massive PRs this track season

b) she wasn't running near 100% of her VO2 max, despite what her previous times on the track were.

Maybe this was actually her "CV" pace and she can run at 4:55 per mile for 30-minutes.

Too many of you are hung up on her past PRs. These would not be her PRs if she had a season this year. She would have dropped a 9:05 3000 or 9:40 3200 by now. Don't think that girls can't improve just because some of the phenoms like Tuohy or Ping or Cain don't. The true elites have made tremendous progress. Schweizer dropped 3 minutes from her 5k and 1.5 minutes from her 3000 after high school. She did it sometimes in 30 second chunks. Brown is definitely in 15:30 shape, no question. She is probably going to be even better at 6k and 10k.

run more not less wrote:

Too many of you are hung up on her past PRs. These would not be her PRs if she had a season this year. She would have dropped a 9:05 3000 or 9:40 3200 by now. Don't think that girls can't improve just because some of the phenoms like Tuohy or Ping or Cain don't. The true elites have made tremendous progress. Schweizer dropped 3 minutes from her 5k and 1.5 minutes from her 3000 after high school. She did it sometimes in 30 second chunks. Brown is definitely in 15:30 shape, no question. She is probably going to be even better at 6k and 10k.

That's true, but that's kinda my point.

Schweizer is a great example - she ran 30 mpw in HS, without gut-busting workouts. Was she as fast in HS as she could have been with more mileage and harder workouts? No, she was a 5:03/~10:25 mile/2-mile girl. In fact, she was mostly focused on speed, and did some 400s even, but mostly 800/1500 in HS and only 3k in the last year.

That left an insane amount of improvement for her college coaches, who kept building her up on a fully matured body and made her a strong contender for the Olympics now.

Brown seems to be working VERY hard already in HS (15 mile lr in 6:11/mi pace, 4xMile in sub 5 each on low rest, etc.), which will make it much harder for any college coach to keep developing her and constantly progress like they were able to do with Schweizer. Mary Cain, Claudia Lane, etc they all worked very hard in HS and might not have developed as they could have been with a more relaxed progression.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

Fact is, Brown's PRs are 2:18, 4:48 and 9:57. The 4 x Mile on short rest were barely slower than her track PR in spikes (and she was running through grass in some parts and had to dodge some runners and dogs), and faster than her 2-Mile PR. Based on her track PRs, she was suffering a lot inside.

Based on her track PRs this workout is basically impossible. So either those track prs aren't remotely valid (see the double where she she the 3200m pr this year) or this training loop isn't 1600m.

You do realize she lost 2020 track season, right? So her 9:57 could easily have been 9:45, etc. Wake up and stop hating.

No development is required. She can run 15:30 today. She will be a top 10 XC finisher in the NCAA as a freshman. Most coaches are okay with somebody who will finish 10th each year without improving.

Preach it brother!!!! Words of wisdom.

Oh. Now we have two idiots on the thread.

What is it with LRC that half the posters think you should only train low mileage in high school, never do hard workouts, and just generally take it easy? Maybe good advice for hobby jogging, but doesn’t reflect the requirements of high performance development.

The reality is the most important races for many kids will be in high school, for a much smaller group college, and for almost none post college. No one is going to care if Jamin slowly develops to a sub 15 5k runner at age 30. Now if he did that in high school he might have some actual memories.

Galen worked very hard in HS.

Webb worked very hard in HS.

Hall worked very hard in HS.

Solinsky worked very hard in HS.

Ritzenhein worked very hard in HS.

All of these dudes worked insanely hard at a young age and ended up being American Record holders.

If we want to continue this, Haile, Bekele, Eliud, Paul Tergat, etc. all worked hard as teenagers.

Real Human wrote:

What is wrong with many of you? There is no season. This girl would have run 30 races across 3 months if there was a season. Many would have been all-out 9:40 3200 races. Some would have been 4:40 miles. One may have been a 15:30 5k. Take all of that away and you can do a bunch of simulated race efforts. This wasn't even that because she wasn't sprinting to the line. She looked the same at the end as she did on the first rep. I think this girl is going to demolish many records and you will be asking who Cain or Tuohy are.

First, Real Human, she could not sprint at the end of each rep because she was too busy dying the last 800m of each rep after going out the first 400m and 800m in 4:40 pace which she can’t even run spiked up and fresh! She does not even have the speed to go sub 4:45.

Second, she does not have the foot speed to go sub 9:05 in the 3000m. Saying that, she is in shape to go sub 9:55 in a two mile and sub 16:00 for a 5k. She is a very one dimensional runner. She is a straight up 3200m up to 5k elite high school runner. Will go down as One of the best in high school history at those distances. But she will in no way ever make anyone forget Tuohy or Cain. Heck, she is not on the same level as Tuohy, Starliper, Hart, and Dudek.

Which leads me to number three.......the majority of people on this thread have crowned her as an all- time great because of a workout, she is not. That’s look at how impressive the top 4 recruits in the nation are compared to Brown (since most of the words by the majority on this thread indicate she is better than these four). Brown would get smoked by Tuohy, Starliper, Hart, and Dudek in the 800, 1500, 1600, mile, and Cross Country 5k on real courses (times on flat, short, and dirt tracks in Texas that she runs on are a joke). In these track events she would not just get smoked by these four but but by many others like Parks, Whittaker and Starcher. She’s not even in the same league as these runners in these events. It takes all this insane mileage and workouts for her just to be competitive in the 3200/2 mile with the top four recruits. Brown is an elite runner in one event, but the top four recruits in 2020 are great in events from 800m and up. These four will not get there senior year of Track and they still will go down as all-time greats because of their incredible range!!!! These four are on so many all time list in many different events over their CC, indoor, and outdoor track seasons over the years. They are prepared for the next level. Brown’s coaches are doing her a great disservice right now. I honestly feel sad for her, because she obviously has great talent.

Finally got a chance to watch the video.

1) Wow!!! Very impressive workout.

2) People were talking about the slow course, but it was mostly on a bike path, very few turns and when it was off the bike path, it seemed to be very firm ground. Faster than if she did this on a track.

3) I believe even more that the OP is just like his name says, nonsense.

4) For those that don't think she could run 9:40 and 15:30 right now cleary do not follow running too much. Any male runner I have ever coached that was in similar workout shape as what she did, would definitely be able to run 9:40 and 15:30. I have never coached a girl that could do that workout, as very few of us have.

5). It was clear that this was a very hard workout for her, but not all out like a race and yes, she absolutely got better as a runner after doing that workout, both physiologically and psychologically.

this is not news wrote:

7empest wrote:

Preach it brother!!!! Words of wisdom.

Galen worked very hard in HS.

Webb worked very hard in HS.

Hall worked very hard in HS.

Solinsky worked very hard in HS.

Ritzenhein worked very hard in HS.

All of these dudes worked insanely hard at a young age and ended up being American Record holders.

If we want to continue this, Haile, Bekele, Eliud, Paul Tergat, etc. all worked hard as teenagers.

High school girls are very different than guys. Coaches and parents need to be much more cautious with girls. It is much more complicated with female physiology. Training and nutrition was much different with my daughters than my boys.