Thoughts on this series of workouts

What's the point? That is, what are you trying to achieve with these workouts? Also, what else are you doing during these weeks? Without a complete understanding of your training background, it is senseless to critique these workouts.

have you already been doing this kind of workout during the season?

if not, then don't do it just keep doing more of the same. there is no magic in "peaking" - make sure that you are rested or recovered from your workouts, etc. - but you shouldn't do anything different, your body hates changes.

You shouldn’t do anything new that you haven’t done before, the only thing you can do this close to your peak race is mess things up by changing the workouts.

Talking about the session though, I don’t think the rep is long enough for the pacing, I’d be more likely to do a 400m at 1600 pace then a 400m at 800 pace and then kick off that for the last 200m.

donkey nuts wrote:I’d be more likely to do a 400m at 1600 pace then a 400m at 800 pace and then kick off that for the last 200m.

I'd love to be there to watch you try to do three of those. Actually, just one of them. That would essentially amount to a 1k race. In training.

I don't think so...

Doh!

Fair point, I did make a slight miss calculation. In all reality I think two of them are easily do able though and would be a good 800/1500 work out. Back in the day I used to do 3x800m at 1500/800 pace, so come through in 60 then kick onto a 55 and have 2 laps jog before the next.

While I agree with Coach K's point (what's the context? what are your other training sessions like? etc.), there's certainly nothing inherently wrong with your suggested progression of workouts.

But do keep in mind precisely what your objective is in performing these. I assume the following (but I grant 100% that your emphases could be different). I think you're

a) working on pace sense for 3200m and 1600m; plus

b) honing the ability to accelerate smoothly, while staying relaxed and efficient, off each of those paces; plus

c) simulating running a fast, yet controlled, final 200 off a strong pace.

While this is a lot of different things to focus on in a given session, by the last three weeks of a solid program you'll have the physical and mental skills to handle them with no problem!

Notes:

1) This kind of training is primarily for rehearsal--skill development, not conditioning! (The conditioning is developed in the pre-, early-, and mid-season schedule that include "decent mileage and a number of pretty high volume workouts.") Therefore these reps should come early in your session: probably after a race-type warmup, but *before* any additional activities in the session. (You best develop skills while fresh, even skills that you'll have to use when you're fatigued!)

And you should have very good rests between repetitions, because what you're after from this workout happens within the repetitions themselves and NOT from the combination of rep-plus-recovery. Overall, this session most likely should be a pretty light day.

2) Each final 200 should be a practice for how (how technically, not how fast!) you might end a 1600 or 3200. Again, it's a skill you're working on. Be sure that you "tidy up" your form before you move into that last 200. Some runners go through a whole mental form-checklist before they accelerate into the final kick; I'd suggest that you work with your coach and pick just one item (or at the *very* most two) that will "key" your final move.

Because you're working on skill, your coach may actually want to stop the watch--i.e. *not* time your final 200--and just coach by eye, so that you're both focusing on the how, not the how fast. S/he may want you doing something specific on each of these finishes: sudden accelaration? gradual speeding up? quickening tempo first, *then* lengthening stride? Whatever it is, you don't want to get distracted by "running for time."

Similarly, not timing the last 200 can prevent going "balls to the wall," and let you better simulate how you'll actually finish after 1400m or 3000m. All-out, BTTW stuff in practice--which you'll certainly be *capable* of doing, as you generally freshen up in the last couple weeks of the season--can leave some people with dead legs on race day (though, again, I grant that you and your coach will have the best sense of this).

Anyway, I'm pleased to see that you and your coach are collaborating, working together as a team while preparing for these important final meets. Sounds like s/he's an educator, not just a workout writer.

I think you'll do great, and would be really interested if you'd report back to let us all know how you do. Good luck!

The above mindset is essentially what I am approaching this workout with. I feel that these workouts are designed to be an opportunity to feel comfortable with race pace (I will have raced sparingly by the time the state meet rolls around) and simulate building to and executing an effective kick. My coach and I each feel that my fitness will be there and want to be sure that I have the mental adjustment and race rythym necessary to be sharp on race day.

A little background: To this point I will have run 55-65 mpw since the beginning of track season. 90 min long runs once a week during the base phase probably 2 every three weeks once I start racing. 1 medium long run a week. Fartleks and tempos in the base phase. Starting about 8 weeks out from my peak I began doing VO2 max work starting with 8x800 going off every 5 min (a little more rest than 1:1). These workouts then dropped to 6x800 for two weeks and then to a combination of 800's or 1200's and 400's in near equal volume. Strides 3x a week. Plan is to take out the tempos in favor of dual meets used as workouts for the 3 weeks that we have them and then go back to them as a low stress maintence the last three weeks. As I said I am a Senior who has been running for 4 years and has hit consistently around 75 mpw over the summer for two straight years as my highest mileage.