What's the difference between strides after an easy run and say , 400 repeats. Why is one considered a workout and the other isn't?
What's the difference between strides after an easy run and say , 400 repeats. Why is one considered a workout and the other isn't?
Cause letsrunners are dumb.
I onetime posted a workout idea of 20x100m at faster than 800m pace with short rest and got told it was a completely pointless workout.
However, if you say STRIDES, instead of 100m repeats, suddenly you are an epic gamer advanced runner.
I’ve had extremely huge gains over the last year and a half in 400m-3k, and 100m and 150m repeats are a large part of my training.
That being said, I also once every week or two replace an after run stride session with 4x200m or 2x400m. I try to break 28 in the 200s and 60 in the 400s, as someone that has about 51 400m speed and 1:55 800m speed, it’s a really good way to stimulate more systems in a way that doesn’t absolutely destroy you physically.
CopperRunner wrote:
Cause letsrunners are dumb.
I onetime posted a workout idea of 20x100m at faster than 800m pace with short rest and got told it was a completely pointless workout.
However, if you say STRIDES, instead of 100m repeats, suddenly you are an epic gamer advanced runner.
I’ve had extremely huge gains over the last year and a half in 400m-3k, and 100m and 150m repeats are a large part of my training.
That being said, I also once every week or two replace an after run stride session with 4x200m or 2x400m. I try to break 28 in the 200s and 60 in the 400s, as someone that has about 51 400m speed and 1:55 800m speed, it’s a really good way to stimulate more systems in a way that doesn’t absolutely destroy you physically.
Do you do those repeats on the track?
BTW, today I did a form of that 'short repeat' workout being discussed on another thread. I oscillated between a High Alert HR target of ~88% HRmax, and a Low Alert HR target of ~70% HRmax. I did 30 reps after a 2 mile warmup. I eventually covered a total of 11 miles in the workout. The actual hard running repetition distances came out to an average of 0.13 miles, 3.87 miles in total that were run, at average, right around 5k pace. That workout really was fatiguing by the end of it.
I like to do the 100s on soccer fields. I either run corner to corner diagonally, walk the short side of the field, and do it again, or run the length of the field, walk to the other side, and do it again. Comes out to 30-45 seconds of rest. I only like to touch the track 1-2 times a week.
I have a grass field by my house that I have measured a slightly uphill segment to exactly 150m that I will use as well.
The 200s and 400s are usually on a track, although I do have a 2% hill next to my house that measures almost 400m perfectly if I’m feeling particularly masochistic that day.
I also read an article saying David Rudisha used a very similar soccer field workout as a staple base building workout, not sure how true that is or isn’t, but I’m rolling with it. My 400m PR has fallen 4.5 seconds in the last half year and there’s nothing else other than lifting that would have contributed to that.
CopperRunner wrote:
That being said, I also once every week or two replace an after run stride session with 4x200m or 2x400m. I try to break 28 in the 200s and 60 in the 400s, as someone that has about 51 400m speed and 1:55 800m speed, it’s a really good way to stimulate more systems in a way that doesn’t absolutely destroy you physically.
Due to ego (I thought I was going to attempt) 40 reps of the 'short repeats', and maybe cover a total of 15 miles in total for the workout (which would have been the longest run I've done in probably nine years, at least). But I bagged it after 30 reps. I was so tired, after drinking a post-workout shake, took a long nap. I hope I recover from that without damage.
BTW, my Garmin keeps suggesting to take a Rest Day, "Keep it short and low intensity." But I've lately been thinking of bumping my volume from 40mile/week currently to some artificial target of 70 miles/week. Is this OC RunningDisorder?
Jack Daniels Calculator wrote:
BTW, my Garmin keeps suggesting to take a Rest Day, "Keep it short and low intensity." But I've lately been thinking of bumping my volume from 40mile/week currently to some artificial target of 70 miles/week. Is this OC RunningDisorder?
It sounds like that workout must’ve really strained your heart/aerobic system. In the long term that’ll probably be a good thing, but in the short term I think I’m going to agree with your watch.
I can definitely relate to the feeling, I recently did 16x400, progressing from 1:20-1:03 with 1 lap jog rest. No doubt it has helped my aerobic/Vo2Max type fitness, but the next 2 days my heart rate would climb into the high 170s just running low 7:00 miles.
I’ve seen you make a lot of very informed posts on this forum, so I’d imagine you’d know jumping from 40 to 70 is asking for injured joints/ potential stress fractures. If you have the patience for it, you can try and follow my mileage building pattern I used over last fall and winter.
Something like:
40
45
40
55
45
65
55
70
And don’t do any workouts on the mileage jump weeks. Sure that’s a two month plan but it goes by quick, and you’ll have 4 really good mileage weeks and 4 really good workout weeks. Should soundly throw you into good 5k-13.1 road race shape by the time the middle of summer hits.
I cross-posted in another thread replying to someone asking about running a Half and bumping their volume. I'm probably better at giving advice, rather than following it, LOL.
A common theme in at least most of the suggestions is that the strides be significantly faster than much of the rest of your running, that they are not "exhausting" or a hard workout like 5 x 1000M, and that the strides are relatively short - long enough to get up to speed but not so far that you risk injury. The training effect I think you are looking for is activation of fast twitch muscles
CopperRunner wrote:
However, if you say STRIDES, instead of 100m repeats, suddenly you are an epic gamer advanced runner.
lmao yes. any time the avg letsrunner sees (reps)x(distance) and theres no race in the next 2 weeks they have a heart attack regardless of the intensity.
going to start referring to my easy runs as 1x6mile @ 7:50 pace
flvmmox wrote:
going to start referring to my easy runs as 1x6mile @ 7:50 pace
xD
I mean, strides mean different things for different people. I think of strides as ~15s effort at 800m/mile pace with 1 min rest in the middle of an easy run. If your concept of strides can mean the same as 400 reps then yes, it is the same. It s a nonsensical semantical debate.
But generally speaking, i think you would be in a minority of the running population. Unying our training vocabulary is useful for communication purpose
good thread.
CopperRunner wrote:
I onetime posted a workout idea of 20x100m at faster than 800m pace with short rest and got told it was a completely pointless workout.
Kipketer (former 800m WR holder) used to do stuff like this.
flvmmox wrote:
CopperRunner wrote:
However, if you say STRIDES, instead of 100m repeats, suddenly you are an epic gamer advanced runner.
lmao yes. any time the avg letsrunner sees (reps)x(distance) and theres no race in the next 2 weeks they have a heart attack regardless of the intensity.
going to start referring to my easy runs as 1x6mile @ 7:50 pace
Six mile reps? What are you training for? An ultra marathon?
Today’s workout:
1x7.5 miles @1:40 per mile slower than goal 5k pace.
2:30 recovery
4x150m @800m pace, full rest
Walk back to home, 45% max effort
stridersallday wrote:
What's the difference between strides after an easy run and say , 400 repeats. Why is one considered a workout and the other isn't?
Dude. "Strides" entails no super hard effort. Touching on speed, with smooth speed form, but not pushing it. A workout is harder than that, right?
For some, 20 x 100 at faster than 800m RP would be a speed session, because that's about the fastest workout they'll do all season. But looking at CopperRunner as an example, running 100s on the grass at like 13.5-14.0 (faster than his 1:55 pace) it's strides because he can run 400m at like 12.8/100m on average, which means his top-end speed is sub-12, which would make 20 x 100m @ 13.5-14.0 a stride session.
That's the difference bro! One man's easy run is another man's tempo at the same pace. You name the session "easy" or "tempo" or "workout" or "strides" based on what the session is for the respective athlete, and for the purpose the session serves within the training regimen!
Had an 8 x 300m workout in college where repeats #1, 3, 5, 7 were hard runs, and #2, 4, 6, 8 were long strides where you forced yourself to cruise with good form. It was a progression from running 4 x 300m for 2 months. Pretty cool session 😎
+1 very very very good point.
You can also relate this to a certain someone on this website that constantly says he needs to run all of his easy runs at sub 7:00 pace cause that’s what prefontaine did, despite the 3:00+ difference in 5k speed.
Of course, at some point if you're doing a BUTTLOAD of strides it becomes a workout, because the net effect is that the session was taxing. If CopperRunner did those same 100m strides, but did like 5 x 10 x 100m with like 30 sec and 3 minutes, well that would be a workout. Amirite dudes??