My team is getting a lot better at Tempo Runs....training hack

That’s a smart way to go about it! Always be careful with grouping though. High school athletes can develop on a week to week basis and may be ready to train at a higher level, so if they want to jump up a group, make sure to factor that in.

I really like the minutes instead of distance idea for tempos as well. I used to always kick in the last 400-800m of my tempo efforts because I wanted to get them over with, the problem being that it would turn into a workout that needed 2-3 days of recovery instead of 1-2 just cause of the finish. It’s good for seeing progress as well. One might cover 3.3 miles in 20 minutes, and then slowly build to 3.5-3.6 as fitness increases

Going by minutes also makes it easier to get everyone a relatively similar stimulus. My guys went 8k today (or really close) and my girls were right around 6k. But they both spent 30 minutes right around the same relative intensity.

It’s so much easier now that kids are all garmin’d up. 15 years ago, I couldn’t even get a kid to wear a watch, much less a GPS device that gives us all kinds of valuable data

Bump

They’re lions who don’t fear Covid and mask up like the rest of the sheep

That aught to do it 😁

If you bump it, i have a question:

Comfortable hard, means that at Lactate Threshold (LTH) for you? Or is it below LTH?

The group leader makes the pace? Or the worst runner makes the pace?

(depending on your answers i will follow up here)

For me that method depends how you handle that.

Care to share your thoughts on workouts like

5x800 mile pace with double rest

or

3x1600 (mile pace +20 sec) with double rest

for improving threshold?

Excellent suggestions coach

Only thought is running on an XC softer surface would be more beneficial to prevent injury and increase leg strength then an asphalt road. A gravel rail trail, dirt road or looped grass loop. You couldn’t do the the out and back on a grass loop but you could monitor their paces more readily.

lexel wrote:

If you bump it, i have a question:

Comfortable hard, means that at Lactate Threshold (LTH) for you? Or is it below LTH?

The group leader makes the pace? Or the worst runner makes the pace?

(depending on your answers i will follow up here)

For me that method depends how you handle that.

We run paces that are loosely based on 80-85% vVO2 max, as determined by a 6 minute maximal run for distance. I group the kids according to ability levels and then tell them the goal is to get the group to the finish line, fast, but together. At the beginning of the summer, we start with 20 minutes @ 80%, or close to it. We gradually extend that out to 30 minutes. Since we've gotten to 30, the progression comes from running faster. Over the past 6 weeks, my top 2 guys have gone from 6:11 pace, to 6:07 to 6:03. The efforts are probably what people are calling "sub Threshold" these days. I expect that these guys could race 5k currently at 5:15-5:20 pace, under similar conditions as the tempo (cool, on the roads)

Sham 69 wrote:

Care to share your thoughts on workouts like

5x800 mile pace with double rest

or

3x1600 (mile pace +20 sec) with double rest

for improving threshold?

Those seem pretty tough. When you say double rest, do you mean double jog the distance? or double the time of the rep? Those sessions are highly anaerobic

The rest = double the time it takes to complete the interval, and the rest I have in mind includes no jogging.

E.g. 800 rep in 2:15 followed by 4:30 static rest before next rep.

Good coaching pointers; best of luck in building your team!

Sham 69 wrote:

The rest = double the time it takes to complete the interval, and the rest I have in mind includes no jogging.

E.g. 800 rep in 2:15 followed by 4:30 static rest before next rep.

That’s anaerobic and probably too hard to be reasonable. If you want to work on threshold, do something like (for a 4:30 miler) 10-12x400m in 1:15-1:20 with a lap jog for rest.

Throw in like 30-60 sec surges every mile or kilometer is another good trick for tempo runs. Also gets them ready for surges during races and helps keep the tempo run from being too mental.

You've got a great vibe going, but my eye tells me that many of your runners are overstriding: loping along at a suboptimally slow cadence. Not way off, but enough off that I'm noticing it. One central idea of a tempo run is to hit and hold the proper cadence, albeit as something slower than a full-on race pace. But the cadence should be almost as high as race pace. Have you timed cadence? Are your runners hitting 175-180 or so?

I'm talking about the 1:58-2:04 point, for example. (They obviously start off like gangbusters.)

I'll walk it back a little: not MANY of your runners. Some of your runners. Some of those boys.

The basketball team is looking awfully fit this year, coach.

CoachB wrote:

We run paces that are loosely based on 80-85% vVO2 max, as determined by a 6 minute maximal run for distance. I group the kids according to ability levels and then tell them the goal is to get the group to the finish line, fast, but together. At the beginning of the summer, we start with 20 minutes @ 80%, or close to it. We gradually extend that out to 30 minutes. Since we've gotten to 30, the progression comes from running faster. Over the past 6 weeks, my top 2 guys have gone from 6:11 pace, to 6:07 to 6:03. The efforts are probably what people are calling "sub Threshold" these days. I expect that these guys could race 5k currently at 5:15-5:20 pace, under similar conditions as the tempo (cool, on the roads)

Ok, very well. I see you know what are you doing.

One critique I have is, that some runners improve faster in speed than in endurance, and vice versa. Based on their muscle fiber distribution.

So there are athletes, which are able to increase their running pace quicker over 20 minutes of duration and have problems with longer intervals, like 30 minutes. For that kind of athletes the ‘speed’ approach is better. So this training method does not distinguish between different athletes muscle fiber distribution.

Your approach assumes the athletes are all more on the slow twitch side (-> increase interval duration first and then start to increase the pace) but the opposite way is also possible (increase pace for 20 minutes and then start increase interval time to 30 minutes).

KudzuRunner wrote:

You've got a great vibe going, but my eye tells me that many of your runners are overstriding: loping along at a suboptimally slow cadence. Not way off, but enough off that I'm noticing it. One central idea of a tempo run is to hit and hold the proper cadence, albeit as something slower than a full-on race pace. But the cadence should be almost as high as race pace. Have you timed cadence? Are your runners hitting 175-180 or so?

Yeah....their cadence is pretty slow, but to think those guys will be 180 spm is not super realistic. All of the guys you're probably referring to are 6'3" or above. The top guy can go out and drop a 26 second 200 any time in practice and probably not be above 170 spm. We try and work biomechanics, efficiency, etc.... all the time. We did some max speed sprints today after a bunch of wickets set as stride limiters.

Certainly a coaching point to keep working on, though.

Shorts Make The Runner wrote:

The basketball team is looking awfully fit this year, coach.

LOL! I know!...... The top guy plays pretty much ever day. He can 2 handed dunk without a run up. In my 23 years at Hughson, I've only had one year where the team bought into the whole running short culture. Welcome to the central valley!