high school xc coach wrote:
Sun: 4 x 200m with 5' recovery
Mon: off
Tue: 3 x 200m with 5' recovery
Wed: off
Thu: 2 x 200m with 5' recovery
Fri: off
Sat: 400m TT/race
Sub-8, is this the kind of week you would look at for any 400 meter runner peaking for a championship week?
Just asking because I'm primarily a distance coach, but got a 4x400 team (all distance/mid distance runners) to states this year during indoor, and I stressed out A LOT trying to figure out what to do for that last week!
high school xc coach -
I'm not an expert, so I don't want to exaggerate my qualifications on this. But I wouldn't say ANY 400m runner, no. My best understanding is that it depends on the athlete, on their strengths, and on the training they have done all year.
In general, I'd say that, yes, I think this should probably work reasonably well for most HS (or say, D2-D3-ish level at any age) distance/MD runners trying to peak for a 400. Or, for any distance runner who has put in a few weeks of what I call "transitional speedwork" as they work toward a 400m TT/race.
I believe that if your guys aren't also trying to peak for something else at the same time, or if they already peaked maybe a week earlier for the 800/mile, then this could be a quick & effective way to sharpen them for 400m.
For other athletes, this peak-week might not work as well. For example, the above workouts would have been entirely insufficient for Michael Johnson, who if I recall ran 2 x 350 fast (IIRC with long recovery, like 10-15 min, maybe more, I'm not entirely sure) as part of his peaking week leading up to one of his great performances. But he had built up the race-specific speed endurance, special endurance I, and special endurance II over an entire training year, and all the years leading up to that, to be able to benefit from 2 x 350 as a peaking workout.
For runners who trained specifically for 400m, and who have developed decent speed end, SE1, and SE2, I would think they would certainly achieve a peak with what I suggested above, but that they would probably achieve a better peak with different workouts, for example:
Sun: 2 x 300m @ 400m goal race pace, 15 min standing rec.
Tue: 2 x 150m fast, 99.5% top speed w/ 10 min standing rec, block work 3 x 30m
Thu: same as Tue
Sat: 400m peak race
The above might work for athletes who trained specifically and who are going to run, say, no faster than 47-48 and no slower than maybe around 52. For athletes running 43-46, the best peaking workouts would probably be different (again, not an expert, so I don't want to come across as authoritative on this). My reasoning here is that, for example, running 300m repeats all-out is not the same physiologically for someone doing it in 45+ sec, vs someone else doing it in 38-40 sec, vs someone else doing it in sub-35 sec. The distance covered may be the same, but the run itself is an entirely different thing. At least, that's to the best of my knowledge.
Getting back to the question - while I might suggest a similar structure to the peak-week's workout/off days, the difference in the two peak-weeks is because I don't think that the runners who have spent their season training for distance/MD will get the same benefit from running 2 x 300m (I think the exertion would be more like running a race instead of preparing for one), or from 2 x 150 (I think it would be like suddenly dropping them into the 100m at a meet, then with sore legs a couple of days later telling them to run 400m which is also shorter & faster than what they have trained for all season).
Having said all that: there are guys on these boards who know WAY more about this than I do, so I apologize to everybody if I got anything wrong here.
tl;dr -- Yes, I think it's probably great for any of your distance/MD guys dropping down. No, I don't think it is universally the most ideal way to peak ANY 400m runner.
btw nice job getting those guys to states! Best of luck doing it again next year.