Training for top speed during base

It's like you want to be in North and South pole at the sametime.

Please no more typical letsrun cynical worthless comments

i am interested to see what others say. I do think you can train some very fast stuff during base, but you want too much. a 200s day and 2 hill sprints days are a lot. On top of a weekly tempo run, and maybe a long run progression with lots of mileage building, this is a recipe for disaster. I don't know how much real speed work you have done, but it takes a lot out of you. Especially when you are not used to it.

200s from 400 pace to 800 pace will wear down your legs a considerable amount. Probably for a couple days at a time if you are truly running them fast. I think one day of all out hill sprints of 8 to 10 seconds is appropriate. A couple days of 100 meter strides on top of that. Beyond that, I would say you are no longer base training, and will struggle to build miles and strengthen your aerobic system.

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If the main goal is to develop your aerobic abilities, you will have trouble running 400m faster at the same time, unless you are very undertrained, i' which case doing any sort of training will make you improve at all distances.

However, you should do some speed work during base to maintain speed and maintain/improve running form.

1x/w hill sprints and 1x/w strides is good enough I think. Forget the 200s. You can add some drills and light plyo whenever you feel like doing it. But don't go crazy. 10' once or twice a week in addition to the rest is enough while building mileage.

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It sounds like what you need to do is sequence your goals. If you are looking for something to carry you through fall and winter, what makes sense to me is to do a 12-week base building block, then a speed block.

However, you say you have only been running 5 months. I would be very cautious about going from 0 to 75 mpw in under a year. Aerobic development takes time (years) not just miles, and it also takes your body time to adapt to additional mileage. I’m worried that you’re putting yourself at risk for injury by biting off such a big hunk of miles so soon.

Some solid feedback already, but I'll add to the discussion. Speed and endurance are find to train at the same time. You'll have some amount of interference if it isn't planned out, but hitting top speed and running a lot of miles aren't a problem together. Problems start occurring when you add acidity into the mix.

There are two broad groupings of "speed work" (a horrible phrase). Alactic and Glycolytic.

Alactic sessions are ones that don't produce lactate and, by extension, don't build up the accompanying H+ ions that cause your legs to burn. Generally, staying with sprints under 7-8 seconds lets you hit top speed but not accumulate lactic acid as long as you are using long recoveries. That works out nicely because you need long recoveries to hit top speed.

Glycolytic sessions are also very fast, but because of their length you'll see a build up lactic acid and increasingly acidic conditions in your blood/muscle. This kind of work can be very damaging for endurance athletes during their base phase because it competes with everything your aerobic phase is trying to build. You'll inhibit the enzymes your body creates to deal with aerobic conditions and you'll erode capillary beds that deliver oxygen to muscle among other things.

I'll include a thread that I quite enjoyed diving into the subject at length here:

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=7836514

There you'll see some progressions as well as some other considerations for these kinds of sessions. Just be aware that strides are not "speed work." Hills aren't top speed. Both are great, neither do much for developing 400m capacity

one of my favorite threads ever, V!

given 12 or so weeks before a cross country season begins, how long would you work pure base, with only aerobic and alactic, before getting into the glycolytic stuff?

There is some good advice here, but as a relatively new runner, don't over think it. Keep working your base. Do one hill day every other week. If you want to hit the track for some speed work on the odd day that you are feeling really good, go ahead. In moderation, it will not negatively impact your endurance training. If you do nothing but run long, slow miles, you'll get really good at running long, slow miles. Plus, you'll lose motivation forever plodding along. Mix it up, but don't get crazy.

Just as base endurance is a general quality, so too is top speed a general quality. Both should be worked on in the base phase.

The 60m thread is excellent.

This top speed improvement will be the first ingredient for eventual 400m improvement.

This.

During base one can also do downhill strides with very quick turnover,beside the strides and short sprints.Gentle downhill slope,to be able to relax during fast turnover.

I see. I haven't done much speed training but i am aware of the risk of injury. The workouts i suggested would be very low volume like 4-6 x 200m w 8 minutes recovery. Same with the hill sprints i do 6 x 15secs after workouts that i've built up to gradually. Maybe it would be a better idea to only start mixing them in after i have built up to peak mileage and held it for a while?

Yes thank you for this link. I had some sort of subconscious understanding of this concept but i did not know the details (6-7 sec cap on alactic sprints etc). All of the workouts would be alactic but i see now that 60m sprints would be much better and 200m reps might be destructive. I think i will take the safe route and focus on building and holding peak mileage first before throwing in these sprints.

To respond to @Slartibartfast i know it seems a lot to build to 75 and its a moving target for sure. I do have a background in soccer so i think this is why i can handle 50mpw with 2 workouts and a long run so soon. I will increase the mileage gradually and if it works out then great but if my legs fall apart above 65 i will just be happy with that.

This is my biggest concern to be honest. The boredom of just running slow and tempo is probably the biggest risk to my continuation of running so i need something exciting to do during. But i also really need the aerobic development and to work on my "relaxation" at fast speeds. I will try to balance all 3.

What is your current 400m time?

high school xc coach wrote:

one of my favorite threads ever, V!

given 12 or so weeks before a cross country season begins, how long would you work pure base, with only aerobic and alactic, before getting into the glycolytic stuff?

It's going to depend mostly on the athlete and what their race is. Since we're talking cross country glycolytic work is pretty minimal. I usually just tack on 1-2 reps of 200-300m at the end of a session during the season (twice a month is plenty) until we're near the end of the season. It's really just enough for them to remember what it's like rather than letting them see god. The last 3-4 weeks we'll do proper sessions to work on buffering capacity.

Here's probably how 12 weeks of summer training would look if I had HS athletes:

(1-2 weeks off after spring season)

Weeks 1-2: building mileage with some light strides

Weeks 3-6: build to previous peak mileage with strides and speed dev. (up to 60m)

Weeks 7-10: can climb to new peak mileage; strides, Speed dev (up to 80m), one unstructured workout per week (fartlek, progression run, etc.)

Weeks 11-12: maintain peak mileage; begin structured workouts

Week 13: start of racing season

By week 3 you can start running fast in small doses. If you kids took 2 weeks off just ease into it. Running fast isn't a problem, but a lot of it can be rough on ligaments and tendons that aren't used to firing hard during their time off. Hills are also totally fine and probably a safer transition from strides to running fast.

For mileage, I like first getting a kid back to what they've been successful at before we test new highs. Some coaches much more successful than I just have their kids build through to their goal mileage without stopping at their previous mark, but this has worked for me and generally seems to keep injuries down.

If your season is largely September and October with maybe a few big races early November I really wouldn't worry about hard, lactate intensive sessions until mid/late October. Finishing a tempo with a fast 300m rep, having the occasional mild mile pace session, or adding something like 150m+250m in place of speed dev once or twice near the end of September is more than enough for an XC kid.

I usually tell my real middle-distance kids that I want them to finish the fall feeling like they have better endurance from the season and could crush a 300m time trial. They'll probably get humbled if we made it a 400m, but 300m can be run well with really good speed and not a lot of buffering capacity.

No problem. I'll also mention that 6-7 seconds really comes from sprinters. It's not different for us, but you can stretch that out a bit longer without much issue. I think 100's are fine for a distance runner to do if you pay attention to the number of reps and recovery. The extra 5-6 seconds for a guy or 7-9 seconds for a girl won't suddenly ruin a season or kill their endurance.

Run With The Best (Irv Ray & Tony Benson) are big fans of 10x100m at goal 400m pace w/ 300m jog that my coach used to have us do almost weekly in high school. There's better ways than just repeating that all season, but it did help me as an athlete.

Thanks! Some good stuff in this thread. Almost reminds me of the old days. Let's keep the discussion going.

One question/clarification about the length of the alactic sprints. I agree with you that going from 60s to 100s is not going to massively over stress a distance runner, and certainly won't destroy his/her endurance base training.

However, if the goal is truly pure speed development, which is what it seems we all agree on for that stage of the training cycle, doesn't that require being able to hit pretty much full speed on each rep, without undue straining to get there and stay there? And if so, can that realistically be accomplished for multiple reps at 100 meters? Wouldn't there be a risk of the last 30 meters or so, especially during the later reps, becoming too difficult and too close to the wrong type of effort?

Is no one else concerned about this person planning to build up to 75 mpw in their first year of running?