Training for top speed during base

Bingo. The longer something takes to train the earlier it needs to be planned.

Thanks for all the info here and on the 5x60m thread. I am a rising hs junior. I have always had pretty bad speed compared to other kids on my team/in my league. In the beginning of track this year we had a combine day and I had one of the slowest times in the 40m even though I was fastest over 600m. I think one reason is I am physically not as developed as everyone else on the team and I am only just starting my growth spurt. I had never done any true speed development before. I used to play lacrosse but that was more about changing direction and conditioning would usually be longer sprints back and forth never truly reaching top speed. This summer I have been doing speed development workouts once a week before a tempo/threshold day. Anyway I had a few questions and I was hoping someone would answer them.

1) Should I limit my warmup and cool down more?

I have been doing 2-3 miles warmup and 3 miles cd to get in some mileage for the day since I am building to 60 mpw in 6 day weeks. I was listening ti the coaching runners podcast and jeff boele said he does no warmup mileage just a true sprint warmup because it is most effective if you are completely fresh for the workout. It also seems counterproductive to send a mixed message by doing a long cd. Should I double later in the day or just make it a really low mileage day? (I normally lift later but could do that right after)

2) Trainers, flats, or spikes? I have been wearing trainers for hill sprints and flats for the flat sprints but should I transition to spikes at some point?

3) Measuring distances? This might be a stupid question but how would you measure out for example 60 m on the track. Is there a marking somewhere or just use a wheel/football markings?

4) Once I’m into my races or time trials this fall (probably focused on 3k-5k) should I move these workouts to once every two weeks? And should I stop them when tapering?

5) Do I need to incorporate true speed endurance workouts if focusing on 3k/5k this fall? Normally the shorter rep workouts that we do in the fall are 200-400 reps that are at mile pace or slower. How would I start to incorporate this if I should?

I would also be very interested in people's thoughts on several of these questions.

bump. advice anyone?

I can try to answer some of these to the best of my knowledge. Hopefully others can correct/improve. I followed V's suggested programme last autumn, and saw improvements.

Yes. I believe sprint coaches advise avoiding running slowly completely afterwards. It avoids confusing the body. Walking a bit and stretching is OK I believe.

As a distance runner, I feel it necessary to jog/run easily a bit to warm up before doing strides and some drills (bounding, skipping), as otherwise the injury risk is too great. This may not be completely optimal, but is a reasonable trade off I think. 2-3 miles sounds excessive though. I would not try to get in any extra volume, I would do only what you need to warm up sufficiently to avoid injury risk.

Your technique will probably benefit most from using spikes, and you'll find it easier to accelerate from a standing start. I've used flats, though, and still get a good training effect.

Some tracks actually have 60 and 80m markings on the 100m straight. Otherwise you can use the hurdle markings for a close approximation.

Indoor tracks may have an actual 60m track.

Difficult to give an answer as it depends on how your training as a whole looks, but you could see more as 'maintenance' than development after a while. You would probably be trying to focus on making use of your speed gains in longer intervals.

You can keep up speed in a taper. Whether a full speed development session is helpful very close to a race is maybe dubious/risky, e.g. it may stress your nervous system a bit too much. Also it's probably not realistic to make use of any short term raw speed gains in longer distance races; one has to work up in interval length/session type. But moving the legs fast one way or another in a taper is good.

Yes, I'd say you need to make your raw speed gains 'available' for your longer intervals. This probably means some speed endurance work, before you see the effects in 800m or 1500m pace work. But a little speed endurance goes a long way, it is important not to over do it.

thanks. Would you mine giving some examples of speed endurance workouts that you would do? Would something like 2x5x100 or 2x4x150 be good? And how much rest is required for these kinds of workouts?

Background: Master's athlete stepping down to the middle distance (800m focus). I have been incorporating 2 x 6 x flying 60m (trying to hit top speed at the 30m mark) + 3-4 x 100m around the curve, 3+ minutes rest in my routine. I do this every week. My goal is to improve top end speed.

1) Would a warmup/cooldown jog of say 15-20min negate the gains of the workout?

2) Drills before the warmup or after?

3) Should I cut out the 100s? Should I decrease the flying 30s to one set?

4) I've simply been rolling out my calves during the rest period, should I be doing drills?

5) Is once a week of speed development sufficient or too much?

Typical training week (I also lift fairly regularly):

M - Rest

T - Aerobic workout (fartlek, 1200s. 800s or longer hill session)

W - easy + short steep hills (10 x 50m in 20s, full recovery)

R - Speed endurance (200s, 300s etc)

F - easy

Sa - Speed development (flying 30s) and a jog later in the day.

Su - "Long run" 10mi (easy effort)

1) Should I limit my warmup and cool down more?

2-3 miles is fine. Not warming up is a pretty dramatic reaction that's inviting injury. The kinds of injuries you see with this work can be severe if they happen, but are almost completely avoidable with a decent warm-up.

While I get the idea to limit it to be even more fresh, most of us are so accustomed to our routine that it adds no legitimate fatigue to your system.

2) Trainers, flats, or spikes? I have been wearing trainers for hill sprints and flats for the flat sprints but should I transition to spikes at some point?

If you're trying to run fast you need to set yourself up to run fast. Eventually, this kind of work should be in spikes and on a track. I don't see any downside to spikes here.

3) Measuring distances? This might be a stupid question but how would you measure out for example 60 m on the track. Is there a marking somewhere or just use a wheel/football markings?

the closest mark to 60m is probably the women's 100m hurdle mark at 61.5m from the finish. That's their second hurdle mark in the race. To be honest the distance doesn't really matter. Is it long enough to hit top speed? is it short enough that you aren't losing speed at the end? if you're in that ballpark you're good.

4) Once I’m into my races or time trials this fall (probably focused on 3k-5k) should I move these workouts to once every two weeks? And should I stop them when tapering?

I do them once a week pretty much year round and take them out during tapering (by that point the hay is in the barn). My exceptions are when another workout takes it's place (speed endurance or a really fast SE1 day) or when we're doing hills instead of flat sprints.

5) Do I need to incorporate true speed endurance workouts if focusing on 3k/5k this fall? Normally the shorter rep workouts that we do in the fall are 200-400 reps that are at mile pace or slower. How would I start to incorporate this if I should?

Everyone's got different takes on this but my kids even up to 10k do these sessions. They might be more spaced out and probably shorter or less particular about how fresh they are, but we've had some success with it and I really don't think it takes anything away from a plan just to tack on 4-5 fast reps after a mid week run. We know it's not true "speed development" to do it after an "easy 10" or as part of a long double day, but sometimes we have to go with what's good enough. 10k runners do have more important things to worry about.

Think about it like a vitamin. You might not need a ton of it and it may not have any immediate effects, but it's probably not awesome to have none of it.

39xc2 wrote:

thanks. Would you mine giving some examples of speed endurance workouts that you would do? Would something like 2x5x100 or 2x4x150 be good? And how much rest is required for these kinds of workouts?

I'd reduce the volume a bit, but you've got the right idea. 6x150m is pretty common and on the upper end of volume for a session. Use long recoveries with this, think minimum 5 minutes. That session could take my team close to an hour to finish. 7-8 minutes is my go to for 150's

thanks for all the advice. I am assuming a speed endurance day should be a stand alone workout day or would it be possible to do a tempo/threshold workout the following day?

1) Would a warmup/cooldown jog of say 15-20min negate the gains of the workout?

I think your warm-up and cool-down are fine. I'm only a purist when it makes sense to be, you're still a distance runner and I doubt that warm-up is making you tired

2) Drills before the warmup or after?

Drills after the warm-up, those should be part of the warm-up that wakes up the nervous system and sets up the coordination

3) Should I cut out the 100s? Should I decrease the flying 30s to one set?

I don't have a lot of experience with master's runners, I'm betting they need more volume to see the same benefit, but 12 reps of 60m and 4 reps of 100m is a lot. Focus on 60's until you feel like your speed is there. After that gradually drop some of the 60m reps and replace them with 100's so you learn to make that speed more functional. Use long recoveries.

4) I've simply been rolling out my calves during the rest period, should I be doing drills?

Once your warm and feel like you're ready to go you won't need more drills mid-workout. Probably doesn't hurt, but treat them like how track kids do before a race that they warmed up to early for; it's just a tool to stay loose, warm, and keep from getting anxious.

5) Is once a week of speed development sufficient or too much?

Once a week is plenty for non-sprinters/jumpers. I wouldn't do more, but I also wouldn't make it more rare than about once ever 14 days.

As far as the training block you have, it seems a little dense from Tuesday to Thursday. I don't think one week needs hills, speed development, and speed endurance/SE1. I also don't like putting fast work the day after a distance workout, we usually reverse that order, but I can understand that if hills make you sore or tired it could just be to preserve the quality of the lone endurance workout.

39xc2 wrote:

thanks for all the advice. I am assuming a speed endurance day should be a stand alone workout day or would it be possible to do a tempo/threshold workout the following day?

Depends on how deep in the well you go. If it's a full blown session like 6x150m then put an easy day after that doesn't have much neuromuscular demand (i.e. no sprinting, lifting, or plyometrics). If it's something like an easy 5 miles followed by 150m, 120m, 100m with ample rest then you're probably fine going hard the next day if it's something slower than 5k pace.

Thank you for the detailed response V. I've taken you advice and backed off on incorporating the short hill session before the SE session. They have helped develop power so I am considering

1) alternating them with the speed endurance session (ex: hills + grass soccer field diagonals 20 x 120m @ 800m, 1min rest) or, tack them on to my long run. Which is safer?

2) Why do you suggest putting the aerobic workout after the SE session?

Antillar Maximus wrote:

Thank you for the detailed response V. I've taken you advice and backed off on incorporating the short hill session before the SE session. They have helped develop power so I am considering

1) alternating them with the speed endurance session (ex: hills + grass soccer field diagonals 20 x 120m @ 800m, 1min rest) or, tack them on to my long run. Which is safer?

2) Why do you suggest putting the aerobic workout after the SE session?

It might be semantics, but our definitions of speed endurance are diverging. For me speed endurance is a pretty specific category of maximal sprints that exceed the distance of speed development sessions but don't have a significant accumulation of lactate (more to ensure high speeds as opposed to opening up the question of energy systems). 20x120m at 800m w/ 1 min rest has too many reps, too much volume, too slow, too short recovery. That doesn't make it a bad session, we're just speaking a different language and I'm worried what I think I'm talking about and what someone else thinks they're hearing are two different things.

I suggest putting the aerobic workout after for a few reasons. Generally, a well designed speed dev session carries almost no residual fatigue. you might be sore the first time or two around, but it's easy to recover from an energetic point of view. It also primes the nervous system fairly well. Modern coaches almost never prescribe only easy running the day before a race, we understand that opening up for some quick strides or sprints or even using plyometrics can leave the body feeling better the next day. I'm just applying that same idea toward a workout instead of a race. My other concern is that after a big aerobic session, you usually aren't ready to fire on all cylinders. I know for me in cross, the day after a 6 mile tempo was all about trying to recover without missing out too much on mileage. I can't imagine consistently feeling great the day after either a long run or a big tempo, on the other had I usually feel really good even after sprinting the day prior as long as it wasn't a massively glycolytic session.

I'm definitely don't know everything so I won't assume to know what works for everyone. I just see more drawbacks from putting speed after the aerobic workout than before.

Thank you for the clarification. After a bit of reading, I think I meant "Specific endurance" (SpE). I mix SpE workouts and the terrain a bit as the track, in spikes beats me up. Every other week on the track seems to work fine. I am a bit wary in this regard due to being recently afflicted by the dreaded old man calf disease.

I have been placing the aerobic session before the SpE session for...no good reason! I suppose I am still stuck in the 5000/10000 mindset of hardest session when you are fresh? I will switch it up next week and report back for a few weeks. Regarding plyometrics, do you recommend them immediately after the speed development session, day before, or a couple of days after?

I am still learning the 800 (who says you are too old to learn?!) but some habits seem hard to break, ex: the wretched negative split mentality.

Thanks again V!

Good clarification. So for distance runners, the two biggest workouts for most people are our aerobic workouts and our specific endurance sessions. It makes total sense to prioritize making use these workouts go well. Being fresh can be a big part of that. In those instances, I'm still comfortable putting speed development the day before or even a light speed endurance/SE1 session, but really it's got to be low volume and long rest (past 400m is really pushing it).

The golden rule should pretty much always be, stay healthy. If spikes bother you then limit their use. For non-maximal work they are a help, but not something to rely on. The sessions you're describing (being mostly around 800m pace) I'd just want to be spiked up enough to get the feel for them, but not much more. A good practice is to only throw them on for the last set of a workout if you know they cause problems with big volume, if you're sensitive toward them, or if you haven't worn them in a long time and need to go through an adjustment period.

Plyo's can be tough to plan . I usually have them after a workout if I know my athletes won't be gassed, or in the warm-up if I just want to sneak in a few movements. Otherwise I relegate them to our weight room sessions later in the day when I know we have some of our coordination back; even then we just hammer home the basics and quit while we're ahead.

Though I would be interested in hearing if other coaches have found better ways to add plyometrics in that don't detract from the program.

V your advice is outstanding. I've been reading all your posts and am learning a lot.

Regarding plyos, I wouldn't have them after a running workout. Like you I like them as part of the warm up or as part of the strength routine (French contrast or not).

coach wrote:

V your advice is outstanding. I've been reading all your posts and am learning a lot.

Regarding plyos, I wouldn't have them after a running workout. Like you I like them as part of the warm up or as part of the strength routine (French contrast or not).

I was actually really looking forward to trying out some more french contrast training. I worked with a pretty high caliber jump coach a few years ago that did a lot of that with a lot of success. I'd like to try out some very heavy (1.5 times body weight or higher) sled pulls and basically treat them like a static lift that's just a little more specific to our body positions and pair it up with some plyo's and medball throws.

We do some of the basics with pairing our static lifts with something more functional and more explosive. Any pairings you've liked or schemes that you've been using?