the famous 10-12x400 w/ one minute rest

Any time really... We often would do 8 x 400 <200 jog...which is about 1 min) the Wednesday before a big saturday meet. So I guess it could be done any time...

April-May is the time to be doing this (college athletes can handle this for a longer period and their championships are later). This is a lactate tolerance workout, and it will break you down instead of builoding you up if you do it for too long of a period (and you don't adjust your non-interval workload accordingly). 8-12 weeks (at mile intensity) is about as much as most people can tolerate; 16 weeks and longer will break you down.

Uusally the most successful way of using this workout (more so if you have 12 weeks, less so if you have 8 or less) is to start with more relaxed rest (up to 2 minutes) until you can run all of the repititions on goal pace, then progressively cut the rest short, but you want to be able to get in 2-3 400 sessions with 1 minute rest before your key race. As you get the rest "down there" you cut mileage and add a speed session, such as 10X100 at 400 pace or a bit faster. You want to do your last 400 session not closer than 10 days (more likely 14) to a championship meet.

If you are running 800's, the equivalent workout is 3-4 X 800 almost all-out with up to 4 minutes rest.

If you are training for the mile specifically, I would do it 3-5 weeks out from the championships. You can use it as a "deep anaerobic stimulus" workout to prepare for a race of almost any distance. (Tergat did it to prep for the 10K, although he did 25 of them.) We use it 10 days out from our state cross-country meet for our top athletes, who can afford to be at 95% at the sectional meet 3 days after the workout.

Sean Nunn

Raytown South

I did 20x400m in high school... started around 70sec and worked my way down to 61 on the last one.

In college, we usually did more like 25 of them, all at ~67 or so. Some guys did as many as 30. Knowing that Tergat did 25, I think 30 may have been a little too many in hindsight.

We usually did them right in the middle of the spring season. It's a tough workout, so you have plenty of recovery, and it's a great way to get used to that pace.

You have to make a distinction between running 400 sessions and running them at mile pace or faster. If you see the chart Tim Noakes has on page 156, it's not hard to figure out that you don't want to do this for too many weeks.

But doing 400's at 3000 pace with roughly equal time recovery (20X400 uphill is supposed to be KennyB's favorite workout) is a different manner. The Hogs have done 12X400 at 3000 pace with 60 second rest for many years. And in the Oregon System, Bowerman had his runners do roughly 12X400 all year, BUT the rest started at, as I recall, 75 seconds, and that rest gradually declined over the season. Similiar situation with Coe doing 20X200 with 45 second rest at what comes to about 75% speed (a 21 second guy doing them in 27) and Kipketer doing 16X200 in 26 with 30 second rest (I do NOT mean to imply that doing such is easy, but the lactate peak is quite a bit lower).

But, when you actually get to 1 minute rest at mile pace, you have to be careful about turning the corner into stalenesss and overtraining.

Bear in mind that Bannister's bread-and-butter workout (though not carried out, I think, for more than a couple of months) was 10 x 440 @ mile pace, 440 jog (~2:00) rest.

They (he, Brasher, and Chataway) were never able to get their average below 60. They "stagnated" around 61 until they took about a week off and went climbing (in Scotland, IIRC). When they returned, they were able to average 59! The first sub-4:00 came a few weeks later.

One benefit of the 440pace/440jog format was that it gave Bannister, with his limited training time, the chance to run five miles in ~30mins.

I did 15 x 400 on Tuesday, although I'm not fit really. Just gatting back into shape, doing hilly 10.3k 'race' tomorrow as tempo run. I did them in 73s feeling like they were 77/76, with 100 rec in 25-28. Mark Carroll told me 20 x 400s was his bread and butter, and he always ran well off it, I think 60" break, can't remember how fast he did them, doubtless quick enough but still easy for him. Sorry this message isn't saying very much I'm just procrastinating, wasting time......