Pre's 30-40 Workout

used to do 30/40 mile repeats in college. tried to do 3 if we could? This workout will definitely teach you to change gears! i haven't done this one in awhile. usually do something like 1200's now, cruising the first 800, then dropping down to mile pace for the last quarter.

try to do change of pace workouts about once every two weeks.

good luck

ty

how taxing was the workout on the kids? what point in their season/training did you do this workout?

I don't think it was that taxing. If you look at the total time for the mile effort, it was slower than current 2 mile pace. They handled it without a problem. We are in the late season. We are about 3 weeks from our district meet. I think I wish I would have had this type session included sooner in our training. I have been trying to include more sessions that have to change gears like NW Master said. Other recent w/o's:

3 x 800 (1st 400 at date mile, 2nd 4 at goal mile), jog across the field, crank 200, 400 jog + 2 min. between sets.

3 x 1000 (600@ 3200 pace-last 400 at goal mile)jog across, crank 200. So the varsity girls were 90, 45, 82

I have used the Rubio method up to this point with the idea of taking each pace rather throughout the season (1600 pace was 200', then 400's , then 600' and now 800's etc.)

thanks for the comments.

I ran at U of O. We did the 30-40 workout a couple of times... usually for two miles for our morning workout at 7am, followed by a 5 mile cool down then an afternoon workout at 3pm. It was a good workout in that we got confortable with running a two mile fartlek at 9:20 in our sleep. My favorite workout was the 30-30's. This was a workout to build speed, mind over pain, and confidence. We would do a regular workout, then do a 3 to 5 mile jog. End up back at the track to run a 200 in 30s. Jog a circle for 30 seconds of rest, then another 200 at 30 seconds. No standing around during the rest. This workout was a beast of a way to finish up an already hard workout. Typically we did 8 to 12 repeats. At the time, U of O had 7 guys who could run under 3:44 in the 1500, four sub 8:50 steeplers, four sub 14:05 5,000 and two top ten 10,000 NCAA finishers. This 30-30 was done weekly after workouts during track. A bread and butter.

Man what a great team. That would have been fun to be a part of something like that. Pre didn't do 3miles of 30/40 I heard from Bill D. at running camp that Pre did 27 laps of 30/40 that over 6miles of 70s. That's know joke!

thought it was more in the 16-20 range. Al Sal either came close to Pre's mark or beat it slightly (can't remember)

wtf is 30-40 anyway

"30-40" is a workout Pre, and the other Ducks did quite frequently. It consists of 200m at 30s followed by 200m at 40s. Go until you can't hold the pace any longer. According to the Nike ads (take them for what they're worth), Pre held the record at 18 200s and no one has ever done more than 14.

Did they do it year-round or just at certain phases of their training?

Thanks

Kind of Close:

You did the 30-30's after every hard session or roughly once per week?

thanks man

As a distance runner we did 70-90's for 400's. Similar concept, except the 70's are at about 3k race pace and 90's are a little slower than Tempo run pace (probably close to MP).

Anywore, I'll do 80-100's...cause I'm slower. I think it's a great early season workout. It's not really intense enough for latre season, IMO.

Sal did 16 and Pre did 18. It is quoted in one of Marc Bloom's books..."Greatest Distance Runners" or something like that. On average, OU athletes run around 12 or so. 30/40's that is!

When Gary Seivers (former 3:38 1500 guy and Dellinger disciple) coached at Wake Forest, he used a similar set of workouts. On Tues and thurs am - 3x1000m easy, medium, hard (3:45, 3:00, 2:40-2:45) with 10x100m strides between sets - done continuously easy, medium, hard with little rest. No standing around - this was a continuous, high intensity but relatively short workout. Then Tuesday afternoons - 70/40's - 400m at goal 5K race pace followed by 200m in 40s for 4K. Add it up and you end up running 4K damn close to your ultimate 5k race pace (and goal pace was always faster than PR pace). Then Thursday afternoon's - 6 laps with 300m hard (52 working down to 46s) and a continuous 100m in 20s. You end up running 4:40 mile pace for 1.5 miles. These workouts were done for 3-6 weeks in a row but guys really were sharp by the end. There were no real high school studs on the team but 2 guys ran 3:43 (Chris Estwanik was one of them) and 2 former high school 9:40-10min 2 milers ran in the 29's for 10K. For the right runner these workouts really work. There's something to be said for lots of race simulation workouts.

runcoach,

where do you coach?

runcoach wrote:

Kind of Close:

You did the 30-30's after every hard session or roughly once per week?

thanks man

30-30s were on Monday.

30-40s were rare, not a frequent Dellinger staple as many on this thread are claiming.

Like someone just said... the 30-40 workout was not used much as a main workout. I think I only did it maybe five times in all. the 30/30 workout was done during track season only and once a week on Saturday AFTER our regular workout and AFTER a 5 mile jog. These Saturday workouts brought me more physical pain then I have ever felt in my life. True ball-buster workouts. Usually 15+ miles total for the day.

I've heard of this workout Pre used to do and I modified it for my high school runners. We ran 35-45, at 7000 feet, we're at mid-season and I've got three guys right around 10 flat for 3200. When I explained the workout I received one groan and asked him what he thought he could do. He replied six laps.

My one guy (the one who groaned) dropped at nine laps, but my other two kept it up and I stopped them at 13 laps since we were due to race in two days and I wasn't looking for a workout where it would completely drain them. They were still looking good.

After a couple of hours I asked them to estimate the scale of intensity (10 being dropped-dead hard and 1 being jogging). The completely surprised me by saying 5.

I still believe that a 30 second 200 is too hard for these guys, but maybe next week run 33-43? Or if I'm feeling truly evil, might just see what they could do for 30-40.

kinda close wrote:

I still believe that a 30 second 200 is too hard for these guys, but maybe next week run 33-43? Or if I'm feeling truly evil, might just see what they could do for 30-40.

If, as you say, they are 10-flat 2-mile guys, then their mile PRs are probably around 4:40. Given that 30-40 means they're moving at 70 seconds per lap (4:40 mile pace), it's hard to imagine that they would last very long. I mean, they can only do 4 laps at that pace, while all-out racing, without varying their speed by 10 seconds per 200 for every 200 meters. Asking them to do 30-40 for as long as they could would be so challenging as to be pointless.

I admit I'm slow on the uptake here, but I just figured out that this workout is the origin of the "Air Max 30-40" name.