Ben Thomas Oregon Workout

GoDucks! wrote:

The other day Cooper Teare did 2x(200,300,400) in about 28,42,57 + a fast 400 in 51!. This was followed by a 3k tempo and hill strides. On other weeks the fast 400 was substituted by an 800 time trial. Seems interesting combining faster than mile pace intervals with tempo.

With coach Thomas every workout your changing paces. Always changing paces. Fast, slow, medium. But always changing paces. Even within reps, might be doing a mile rep, some 200s will be faster, some slower.

There is a departure from the classic workouts where say you do 5x1miles at the same pace. Or a tempo at the same pace. That isn't going to happen. In a race who cares if you can hold that same pace, cause at the end you better be able to get up and go when your tired.

Don't think of it as a "tempo day" or a "speed day" or those classic workout terms. That isn't how it works.

Debate this how you want, he gets results. And you can't deny that.

He definitely gets result, im just interested in what influenced him. Seems like very practical training, training less for time trials and more for racing.

GoDucks! wrote:

He definitely gets result, im just interested in what influenced him. Seems like very practical training, training less for time trials and more for racing.

If you have followed him closely throughout the years (especially pre oregon), his athletes have never been time trialers. Largely they don't even enter "time trial" type races and don't run "fast" all season.

Then championships come around and they win. Because like you said, the training prepares for racing. The commentators are always incredulous, something to the effect of "wow that was a surprise win, they were only 12th on the seeded list". Yes it was a surprise, but a time trial in March at say stanford is much different from an NCAA final in June.

My changing paces is what?

I would say at Oregon his runners have been putting up some impressive times too , maybe this is just due to a different meet schedule or a higher level of recruits

GoDucks! wrote:

I would say at Oregon his runners have been putting up some impressive times too , maybe this is just due to a different meet schedule or a higher level of recruits

Yes. I do not know enough about the situation to say which. But I agree 100%.

I would hypothesize that despite fast times, peaking and being ready for championships is still the priority.

Also getting times is a priority for indoor because of how qualifying works, so maybe that's why

shootpost wrote:

The commentators are always incredulous, something to the effect of "wow that was a surprise win, they were only 12th on the seeded list". Yes it was a surprise, but a time trial in March at say stanford is much different from an NCAA final in June.

Why would changing paces make them slow AF all season, then all of a sudden fast in the championships??? That makes no sense, unless the championships are also slow AF, but if the other runners are faster, then they still would be faster. What's your explanation for that?

I was 8th at the city championships in a mid-sized state during high school XC. I won state three weeks later.

My explanation? I prepared better than everyone else.

I think he means that the guy who does 8x400 at mile pace may be good at running a fast time, but by training around mile pace your better at a championship race.

If the point is that "changing paces" means you dog all the meets till the last one, then that is just a questionable strategy, but says nothing about the training method itself.

GoDucks! wrote:

I think he means that the guy who does 8x400 at mile pace may be good at running a fast time, but by training around mile pace your better at a championship race.

Okay, because he could jog more easily, and then kick more easily? That presumes that the 8x400 people only do that same workout all the time, never do sprints or distance, and therefore don't have stamina or a kick, but that's usually not the case. Bekele is a great example of this as he can break world records and he also has a big kick. EL G and Morceli are additional great examples. By the way, Morceli mostly ran 400 repetitions.

I've seen tempo before intervals, but never tempo after intervals. Looks like a good combo workout.