Getting Better at Tempo Runs and Building Aerobic Strength

This kid can casually run 39 then 38 in a workout and you've never put him in a 400? He can only run 4:51 and you're completely ignoring his speed, which is the only thing about him that is actually decent.

Will you be modifying his paces for weather conditions and terrain each day or is it a set in stone thing?

Like someone else said, this kid has some good leg speed for someone with his mile PRs. Kids like the need to keep some turnover and pop a little more than the true gas tank guys.

wait a sec wrote:

This kid can casually run 39 then 38 in a workout and you've never put him in a 400? He can only run 4:51 and you're completely ignoring his speed, which is the only thing about him that is actually decent.

So, let me give a little context. This was the first season since 2014 that I was directly responsible for a training group of distance kids. I gave up the track head coaching job in 2012 and have mostly been coaching the horizontal jumps and the vault since then. We've had a few different distance coaches come through in that time and they've all been quite capable.

Our distance coach the last 2 years really didn't believe too much in differentiating training and most of the kids trained for aerobic strength. Only in the last few weeks of the season did the 400/800 kids do any kind of specialized training. I'd occasionally try to give advice, but advice un-asked for tends to lead to animosity.

As far as our 400/800 group, we had a pretty big hole there. For the most part, our truly fast sprinters ran the 100/200 and if they did other events it was usually a jump. Our distance kids ran really well at 16/32. So, this year when I took over the mid distance group, the goal was to develop kids around the 800, with the ability to step down to the 4 and up to the 16 if needed.

We had 110 kids on the track team (school population of 706) and 72 of them had run cross. So my first order of business was to peel off some of the cross kids that had shown good speed. The kid that this thread is about had run, I believe a 55 on a relay split last year, so he was one of the guys that grabbed into that group. I tried to get him onto a relay this season, but the sprint coach was like, "he's not going on a team until he has a time". So the workout with the 38 and the 39 second 300 was to show the coach that the kid should indeed be on a relay team at the meet that we were gearing up for when everything shut down.

To answer Southern Fried Realists question....yes, of course the paces will be modified based on surfaces. We're going to work out on the all weather track at our school on Tuesday. He'll probably run a few seconds faster. We may do some workouts on a section of our cross country course in the community arboretum or some loops on the athletic fields. If we go there, the paces will likely be slower. Sometimes he'll feel good, sometimes not....sometimes he'll have to slow down and sometimes he'll be able to speed up a bit, but he should generally be close to the target paces, IMO, until he runs another test to establish a new vVO2 max.

Update on the sessions since we began formally training again

5/20 - 1200 WU, drills, strides, 6 minute test - 1830m on crappy dirt track, 1200 cd

5/21- 8 miles @ 62:43

5/22 - 8 miles @ 68:02

5/23 - 1200 wu, drills, 3 x 1 mile on track @ 80% vVo2, 1 min rec (6:12, 6:22, 6:23), 4 x 100 stride, jog turns, 1200 CD

5/24 - AM 6 @ 45:48, PM 2 mile shake out at 15:59

don't know the mileage from 5/18, 5/19. Weekly total probably in the mid 30s.

5/25 - AM 3 @ 23:10, PM 4 @ 30:33 (102 degrees, so 2 small doubles)

5/26 - AM 2 mile wu, Drills, 5 x 1k @ 85% vVO2, 1 min rec ( 3:47, 3:47, 3:48, 3:44, 3:48), 3 x 100 @ 17 sec, 800 CD PM - 2 mile shake out, push up, sit up, lunges. High of 106 today, had to go EARLY then again late.

5/27 - AM 4 miles @ 32:30 + 3 x 50 FAST, walk back recovery, PM 2 miles shake out

5/28 - 6.3 @ 49:21

5/29 - 1.5 miles wu, 4 x 1 mile @ 80 % vVO2 on slow cross country course loop (6:21, 6:20, 6:22, 6:16) 1 min recovery, 4 x 150 @ about 25, jog back recovery. PM. 3 mile shake out at 24:08

5/30 - Off, tight calf

5/31 - 6 miles at 42:36, said it felt easy.

Total - 42.3 Solid first week and a half. The day off yesterday was probably a good thing. His overall volume came up a bit and he added threshold stuff once every three days, The fact that today the easy run was so much faster, but felt easier is a good sign. I'm mostly going to stick with 1 threshold session every 3 days. We might throw in a longer recovery vVO2 session once every 2-3 weeks just to shake things up a bit.

the strides and the 3 x 50 sessions are in there just to keep from completely losing touch with his natural leg speed

So, he's responding well, but has had to take a day off this week with a sore achilles. I should mention that his teammate, who ran 4:40 to open the season and was probably in 9:55 shape at the time of shut down has been joining him. It's working out really well, because the teammate is a pure aerobic type guy who really thrives off of temp stuff.

Today, we did broken 1200s. (600, 400, 200) @ 95% vVO2 pace. Quick 200m recovery jog < 60 second s between reps, 3 min between sets. First time we've tried something faster (other than strides) in the past 3 weeks. It went pretty well.

1 mile WU, Drills, 3 x 50 build up, 1x150 FAST, change to flats.

Set 1 - 2:00, 82, 40 (5:54 for 1600, including the recovery jogs)

Set 2 - 2:00, 80, 40 (5:54 for 1600)

Set 3 - 1:58, 79,37 (5:52 for 1600)

1 mile CD.

I honestly thought they'd have a tough time keeping the recovery jogs under 1 minute, but they were all between 54-58 seconds.

Here's the rest of the week

6/1 - 1 mile warm up, drills, 2 x 2 miles on the road with 2 min recovery (12:27, 12:40) Slowed second one down on purpose because I said 6:20 pace) 1 mile CD, Core, Lunges, PU

6/2 - 6 miles easy

6/3 - 6 miles easy

6/4 - 2 hours on bike, 1 hour hard (sore achilles)

6/5 - AM 4 miles easy, PM 5 miles easy + Core, Lunges, Push Ups

6/6 - 5 miles easy + Core, Lunges, Push Ups.

6/7 - Workout described above (5 miles total)

37 miles total, plus a long bike ride

This is the end of our first 20 day training block. He's got a day off tomorrow, then an easy day on Tuesday.

Should do the letsrun summer running camp thing.

Coach you really ought to consider building aerobic strength through longer continuous efforts aka Lydiard style. Instead of breaking it down cruise interval style give them 6-10 mile progression runs where they are finishing faster than marathon pace. A kid with his leg speed can fake his way through your workouts.

I'm trying for a balancing act with this kid. He's currently at or near his lifetime high in training volume and has tended to break down with more volume in the 2 years I've been coaching him.

I recognize that he needs to increase his volume and that he needs to be able to do longer continuous sessions. If you've noticed, he's gone from 3 x 1 mile, to 4 x 1 mile, to 2 x 2 mile at the same speed. He would have done a 3 mile continuous tempo on Wednesday, but rode the bike instead due to a sore achilles. The goal is to slowly progress him out to 5 miles of continuos tempo by the end of the summer, but since it's only June 7 right now, I'm in no hurry.

Program looks great. Is he doing (anything other than resting) for the sore achilles? Have you had him try the Alfredson eccentric calf exercises?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoCuDAkIdnM

In my experience, doing them barefoot like the gal in the video is key as it strengthens the foot as well.

SFM, Thanks. That's a great exercise. I used to do them back in the day when I had achilles problems, but had forgotten all about those. I'll pass it along.

A bit of an easier week this week, then we'll put in another good 27 day training block starting Monday. He doesn't start working out with the JC until July 15, so we have an extra 2 weeks to get him ready that I wasn't anticipating.

I'll post his workouts a day early today, since tomorrow is an easy recovery day.

6/8: Day off, planned

6/9: 4 easy + Core, Push Up, Lunges

6/10: 8 miles progression. about 7:30 pace for the first 4 then turned around and averaged 6:50 on the way back. Last mile close to 6:00, so in reality most of the way back was slower than 7:00.

6/11: AM 5 easy PM Bike 30 min easy

6/12: 4 miles easy + drills + 4 x 50m sprint. Walk back recovery

6/13: 1 mile wu, drills. 3.17 miles in 19:39 + 4 x 200 @ 32.4, 33.0, 33.4, 32.1, 1 mile CD

6/14: 5-7 easy, depending on feel.

So, the week will be less than 30 total. This was a planned cut back week. Back into the mid 40s for the next 3 weeks.

Today's session was really good. The instructions were to go out at the feeling of 80% vVO2, which we've done a lot lately, in one direction for 10 minutes then turn around and come back at the same speed without dying. I told him that if he had to struggle the last 10 min to make the return time, the workout was no good. We went on an unfamiliar route from a school near my house, rather than in Hughson so he wouldn't have any check marks and would have to go solely by feel. He averaged 6:12 and said it felt really comfortable. I think the down week did him some good. The 200s were almost full recovery with a walk/jog back across the infield

I'm going to bring some long runs back into his training. He was doing a 10-12 miler once a week before we started working together this summer, but I cut those in favor of extra threshold sessions. Based on the 8 mile progression, it's clear to me that he will benefit from bringing some long runs back into the equation.

So, we're going big efforts still once every 3 days. We'll do, threshold, threshold, long and repeat that 3 times over the next 4 weeks.

Really good session today. I wanted to go back and try to touch on threshold pace again today. On 5/26 we did 5 x 1k at 85% vVO2 max with 1 min recovery. Back then he said it wasn't too tough, but that it got a little harder with each rep, which told me at the time that 85% vVO2 max was a little past his theshold.

Today, I wanted to come back and run the same paces from 5/26 and see how it went. The session was 4 x 1200 with 1 min rest and the paces were supposed to be 90-92 seconds per lap. He went

4:18

4:32

4:34

3:59 (splits of 86,82,71)

First one he went out in 78, I told him to relax and stick to 90-92s, ran 90,90 for the next two laps

2nd and 3rd, looked uncomfortable trying to keep his pace down. Obviously his fitness had improved to the point where the predicted paces were too slow.

Last one I told him to go out comfortably and see if he can pick it up on each lap

I don't think I want to do another test yet, but It's clear that Sub T work is no longer in the 6:20s, rather in the low teens and T pace is now maybe 5:50 pace. For he next few weeks the volume is coming up, so I don't want to bump up the intensity or the volume of his T pace and sub T pace stuff, but he's certainly made some improvements.

From that workout, he seems to have progressed to the point of being able to run 4x1200 closer to 5:20s, maybe 5:30s with ease. Try targeting low 80s with an early target of 4:10-15 and then bringing it down to 4 again.

5:20s 1600m pace.

Weekly Summary. 6/15/2020 - 6/21/2020

Really solid week. I told him I wanted to bring his mileage back up into the low to mid 40s after the down week. Also, we dropped on of the threshold days in favor of a long run. The rationale was that he really struggled when I asked him to go 8 miles progression, so we're going to incorporate more long easy - steady runs during this training block.

6/15: AM - 5 miles easy + 6 x 35 uphill sprint, walk down recovery (stadium ramp) PM 4 easy

6/16: 2 mile wu, 4 x 1200 (described above) 1 min recovery, 4:18, 4:31, 4:34, 3:59. 800 CD

6/17: 6 easy

6/18: 10.7 miles at 77 minutes. This was pretty tough for him

6/19: 6 easy + core, push up, lunges

6/20: 4 easy + core, push up, lunges.

6/21: 2 mile wu, 2 x 2 mile with 2 min recovery, supposed to be sub threshold effort level, probably closer to true threshold. 11:57, 12:13. + 3 x 60 controlled sprint, 1 mile CD

47.7 total for the week. I believe this was one if his highest volume weeks ever. Probably a little too much overall for the week, I told him tomorrow is just a 3-4 mile super easy shake out. He might get another really easy day during the week also next week.

The workout today was really good. We ran it on a road TT loop that I've been using with my athletes for decades. I gave them the instructions this time to just run by feel. We've done enough stuff where I've timed it and they've meticulously stuck to the pace charts. Before the workout I told them that I thought that based on where their fitness currently is, that the appropriate pace for the workout would be in the low 6:1x to the high 6:0x. I didn't let them wear their watches but I rode along on the bike and took splits. First one they went 6:08 - 5:49. When they finished they both agreed that they'd gone a little too hard, so they decided to back off the next one a bit. Splits on the second were 6:13 -5:59. So, the first one probably was right at threshold if not a little faster with the 5:49 second mile and then the recovery was only 2 minutes so they carried some fatigue into the second rep.

They said this workout was somewhat difficult, so tomorrow will be super easy. We have a really talented incoming freshman that I'm going to have run with them and see how that goes. Mostly the goal of that is to give the freshman a little mentoring and allow him to get some confidence that "he ran with some college guys".

Coach, the injury issue is due to the jogging. He is not built to run so slowly.

This is a sport about producing and maintaining power, let the kid run.

True vVO2peak here is closer to 1200m for this one.

dsrunner wrote:

Coach, the injury issue is due to the jogging. He is not built to run so slowly.

This is a sport about producing and maintaining power, let the kid run.

True vVO2peak here is closer to 1200m for this one.

I've used at 1200m test for newbies in the past and agree that for many anaerobically talented kids or kids who have not had time to aerobically develop, it's a better distance. Maybe if the goal was to get him ready to compete at 800-1500 this fall, we'd be doing things a little differently. The goal, however, is to get him ready to handle the training that his college program will expect him to handle. Since the standard college program includes weekly long runs and tempo sessions, I'm trying to build him to the point where he can handle it.

I'm not telling him to jog on his easy days, the paces he's running are the paces he chooses. He's mostly down in the 7:10-7:30 range for his easy runs now.

Really excellent session today. We haven't done a CV workout yet this summer. With the exception of 1 workout of 600,400,200 @ 95% vVO2, everything's either been threshold, sub threshold or short sprints. So, just for the sake of variety (and to see how they respond to a session that brings their blood lactate up a bit and keeps it there) we did the following

1 mile WU

5 x 3 min @ 90% vVO2 with 1 min jog. + 4 x 200 @ 1500 goal pace with full recovery

1 mile CD

The 3 min intervals were done on the track and I recorded the distance.

845m, 845m, 840m, 840m, 845m. (800 splits of 2:51-2:52)

then over the next minute, they jogged 160 to get to the start, so basically, they were covering 1000 every 4 minutes. They were working fairly hard by the last rep, but were still under control. RPE of 7-8 by the end of the CV.

5 minute break, water, change to racing flats

4 x 200 @ 30.0, 30.4, 30.7, 30.3.

Before the workout, I had told the guy who'll be running in JC next year that I can see him running 4:00 for 1500 before he's done there. So, go ahead and think about 32 seconds per 200 as 1500 goal pace, even though the goal is still a ways off. I just wanted to see if he could run comfortably at that pace on tired legs.

For the first, I had 29.97 on my watch. When I called out the time, he looked at me kind of sheepishly and was like, "oops". He asked if he should slow it down and I said to just keep it relaxed and that as long as he wasn't struggling, he should just keep going. The other guy, who is not speedy, was struggling, but he's mostly just doing the workouts for fun and to help with the longer threshold stuff (at which he excels).

One more big week then a cut down week again and a 6 minute time trial to see where he's at.

Looks like your kid is making good progress. 4:00 for 1500 is pretty aggressive for a guy with a 4:51 PR for 1600

Only one way to find out if he’ll make it.....keep training and add it up!

-SG

Sum Guy wrote:

4:00 for 1500 is pretty aggressive for a guy with a 4:51 PR for 1600

Only one way to find out if he’ll make it.....keep training and add it up!

-SG

I agree it's aggressive, but I ran 4:10 in college after only going 4:53 in high school. It took me 4 years and 50 miles a week to run that time. This athlete ran 4:51 after only being out from the soccer team for 3.5 weeks and he's never had a really solid base. The 40+ mile weeks are more volume than he's ever done. Plus, he's got the speed to run a 39 and 38 for 300 at the end of a workout, which is something I was never even close to.

FWIW, I told him 1:55 would be a solid JC goal as well.