Peaking

Congrats Rebecca!

Bump forward to May.

Same athlete came out for track from playing frosh basketball. Ran mid 5:30s for first 1600. Hit 5:28 in mid March and 5:22 in mid April.

2 days ago at our section divisional meet, she sat off the shoulder of the leader and kicked to a 5:16 victory. I think she can go under 5:10.

If the race is fairly tactical, I think she can snag a top 3 spot at the section masters meet this week and advance to the state meet. So this latest round of peaking is geared to keep her going for 2 more weeks.

5/18: 3 miles easy + 6 x 200 with 200 jog in 39

5/19: warm up + 800m trials (2:23.02, 1st in heat) + lead off leg on 4x4 (61.8)

5/20: 3.5 miles easy + 3 x 400 @ 87-88

5/21: warm up. 1st place in 1600 (5:16), 1st place in a tactical 800 (2:24), lead off 4x4 (64.5)

5/22: easy on own or day off.

5/23: warm up + 8 min tempo on grass + 400@78 + 300@58 + 200 @ 34.5

Moving forward from here

5/24: 3-4 miles easy

5/25: 3 x 1000 @ 90-92 pace with full recovery (just to stimulate the aerobic system a bit)

5/26: 2-3 miles easy + 6 x 200 starting at about 40 working down to 34-35 range (200 recovery)

5/26: warm up + 3-4 x 150 stride outs

5/27: Trials for 800m (hopefully 2:18-2:19)

5/28: Finals for 1600 and possibly finals for 800

5/29: off or cross train (hopefully she will have punched her ticket to state on 5/28)

5/30: 3-4 miles easy

5/31: 8 min tempo + 2 x 800 in around 3 min

6/1: Warm up + 2 x 400-300-200 (200 @ 800 pace)

6/2: Easy 2-3 miles

6/3: Warm up + 3-4 x 150 stride outs

6/4: State trials

6/5: (very hopefully) state finals.

The slow 1000s and 800s are meant solely as maintenence workouts. None of these workouts shoule create fatigue that carries forward to the next day, nor even into the next repetition. All workouts can be modified or cancelled based on the feeling of the athlete.

This pattern of a high frequency of "mini workouts" worked very well for us during the cross country season as we built for the state meet. I am hoping that the same massive peak happens this time around. I honestly don't know what she has in her right now. When she ran her 800 at the divisional meet, she finished in 2:24 but looked like she could have kept going.

as always, comments are appreciated.

Coach B: you put the date 5/26 twice on your list... can you clarify what you plan on doing from 5/25-5/27?

I have a 5:10/11:15 girl and am trying to figure out what to do this week. She races the 1600 prelims on Friday 5/29 and 3200 on Sat.

Coach B -

Accidentally you listed May 26th twice.

The training described below is what I recommend.

May 24th (Sun): 30 minutes jog

May 25th (Mon): 8-10 minutes jog + striders and technique drills (just 2-3 minutes worth) + 2 x 800m in 3:05 (jog 200m recovery) + 3 x 200m cut-downs in 38, 36, 34 (jog 200 recoveries) + 8-10 minutes jog cool-down.

May 26th: 8-10 minutes jog warm up + 5 x 60m quick but not strained (walk back recoveries) + 8-10 minutes jog cool-down

May 27th and 28th: races and lots of jogging to warm up and cool-down. (Be sure to run aggressive warm up for the first race of each day, or else she won't be ready to roll).

May 29th: 30 minutes jog

May 30th: 10 minute warm up jog + 5 x 100m at 1600m effort (jog 100m rec.) on grass. Then, run 5 x 1km at 4:01 (walk 1.5-minute recoveries + 5 x 100m at 800m effort/rhythm (walk 100m recoveries) + 10 minute jog cool-down.

May 31st: 30 minutes jog

June 1st: 10 minutes jog warm up + 5 x 100m at 1600m effort/rhythm + light drills + choice of the following, depending upon the race she'll focus on for the state meet:

(a) (800m focus): 3 x 400m cut-downs (rep #1: 2-3 seconds slower than 800m pace; rep #2: @ 800m pace; and, rep #3: 2-3 seconds faster than 800m pace) (jog 3-4 minutes recoveries)

or

(b) (1600m focus): 3 x 600m cut-downs (rep #1: + 4-6 seconds slower than 1600m pace; rep #2: then 1600m pace; and rep #3: 4-6 seconds faster than 1600m pace) + 10- minutes jog cool-down

June 2nd: 25 minutes jog

June 3rd: 8-10 minutes jog + 5 x 60m at 1600m-800m effort/rhythm (but not strained) + 2 minutes of light form drills (no plyometrics training!) + 8-10 minutes of jogging

June 4th: warm up (be aggressive, if it is the first race of the day) + race + cool down jogging.

June 5th: same

lmnop wrote:

Coach B: you put the date 5/26 twice on your list... can you clarify what you plan on doing from 5/25-5/27?

I have a 5:10/11:15 girl and am trying to figure out what to do this week. She races the 1600 prelims on Friday 5/29 and 3200 on Sat.

Oops.

The meet is Thursday, Friday.

The week should go as written but push the dates back by one for the two competitions. I didn't have a calendar in front of me when I was figuring out the training program but I did have it set up so that there would be two pretty easy days between the 3x1000 workout of monday (5/25)and the trials on thursday (5/28)

Tinman:

Thanks for the reply. If the meet were on the 27th and 28th, I would probably go with your suggestion, or have already planned something like it myself. I fully agree with some easy, slow, longer intervals with adequate recovery, followed by a little faster stuff.

Since we have two days to between the monday 1000s and the thursday meet, I think I will keep the two stimuli (easy aerobic work and easy turnover work) on seperate days.

I have a quick question. Is there a specific reason that you would not be doing any tempo work during this period? I have found that doing a small amount of relaxed tempo running is often times a better recovery than a longer period of easy jogging.

Coach B -

What do you mean by "Tempo work?" It is important to differntiate the varous types of tempos, which have varying degrees of effect.

If you need to ask me questions in private, send emails to the address:

runfastcoach@gmail.com

Regards,

Tinman

Tinman --

Can you define what you mean by an "aggressive warmup"?

In my lexicon, "aggressive warm up" means: Jog 10-15 min, stretch, do 3-4 easy stride outs, change into spikes, run a long stride out (up to 150m) at a pretty hard pace. Make sure the hard stride out is done about 15 min prior to race time. Light stretching and easy jogging, stride outs until race time.

Tinman:

By tempo work, I mean work at or just below LT Pace

Based on new information, regarding the dates of races:

May 24th (Sun): 30 minutes jog

May 25th (Mon): 8-10 minutes jog + striders and technique drills (just 2-3 minutes worth) + 4 x 800m in 3:05 (jog 200m recovery) + 4 x 300m cut-downs in 56.5 seconds (jog 300 recoveries) + 8-10 minutes jog cool-down.

May 26th (Tue): 30 minutes

May 27th (Wed): jog 8-10 minutes jog warm up + 5 x 60m quick but not strained (walk back recoveries) + 8-10 minutes jog cool-down

May 28th (Thu): Race(s)

May 29th (Fri): Race(s)

May 29th (Sat): 30 minutes jog

May 30th (Sun): 10 minute warm up jog + 5 x 100m at 1600m effort (jog 100m rec.) on grass. Then, run 5 x 1km at 4:01 (to refurbish aerobic endurance) (walk 1.5-minute recoveries + 5 x 100m at 800m effort/rhythm (walk 100m recoveries) + 10 minute jog cool-down. Otherwise, she can do a fartlek session, alternating 4 minutes at 6:20 pace and 2 minutes of jogging x 5; on her own, during a distance run.

May 31st: 30 minutes jog

June 1st: 10 minutes jog warm up + 5 x 100m at 1600m effort/rhythm + light drills + choice of the following, depending upon the race she'll focus on for the state meet:

(a) (800m focus): 3 x 400m cut-downs (rep #1: 2-3 seconds slower than 800m pace; rep #2: @ 800m pace; and, rep #3: 2-3 seconds faster than 800m pace) (jog 3-4 minutes recoveries) or

(b) (1600m focus): 3 x 600m cut-downs (rep #1: + 4-6 seconds slower than 1600m pace; rep #2: then 1600m pace; and rep #3: 4-6 seconds faster than 1600m pace) + 10- minutes jog cool-down

June 2nd: 25 minutes jog

June 3rd: 8-10 minutes jog + 5 x 60m at 1600m-800m effort/rhythm (but not strained) + 2 minutes of light form drills (no plyometrics training!) + 8-10 minutes of jogging

June 4th: warm up (be aggressive, if it is the first race of the day) + race + cool down jogging.

June 5th: same

lmnop wrote:

Tinman --

Can you define what you mean by an "aggressive warmup"?

-----------------

The vast majority of high school runners are insufficiently prepared to race, when they step on the line. An "aggressive" warm up, as you will see below, can solve that problem.

For the first race of an evening meet, an athlete should jog 10-12 minutes, and then choose either a 5-6 minute progressive run - from Marathon pace to 10k pace - or do a series of 30-35-second striders at progressive speeds with ~30-second shuffle jogs.

Running short striders/sprints is insufficient because they fail to open capillaries to fast oxidative muscle fibers. Short sprints won't do that; nor will an a full hour of easy distance running. An effective "aggressive" warm up hits range of intensities needed to open fast oxidative fiber capillaries: between maximum lactate steady state and VO2 max velocity. In my opinion, the optimal range is 5-10% slower than 3k/3200m speed. Start at +10% and progress to +5%.

Example: Jennifer runs 42 seconds per 200m in her recent 3200m race. Add 10% to that time and the pace becomes 46.2 to 44.1 seconds per 200m. Adjust the distance to 150m reps and the times are 34.7 - 33.1 (per 150).

Jennifer should run the first 150m in about 35 seconds and then, as she warms up, drop the time to about 33 seconds.

Once she hits 5% slower than 3200m speed, with ease and fluidity; Jennifer is ready to race. Stop the reps at that point and change into racing gear; hydrate, jog around, and check in to the race official.

The difference between doing a warm up like this and just jogging a mile and do some short sprints is very noticeable in a race. Whereas the aggressive warm up I offer will give you a feeling of easy breathing and sustained ability to hold a solid pace in a race, the latter warm-up (with just easy distance and short sprints)will all too often generate a huge need for sustained anaerobiosis to keep energy output high. The eventual result is slowing of the pace at mid-race to catch one's breath; under the traditional warm up.

Regards,

Tinman

Tinman:

I fully agree with your warm up philosophy, especially for experienced athletes. I always struggle to get my athletes to warm up more than they do.

Update on the training.

Monday AM: My distance coach came to the school, but the track was locked. Girl warmed up and went over to our cross country course for the 3 x 1000. (I seriously considered Tinman's advice, but decided to keep the two workouts separate.) The girl ran 3 x 1k in (3:47, 3:39, 3:37) The distance coach tells me that he kept telling her that she was ahead of pace, but that she couldn't seem to slow down. This is a good sign, because that is exactly what happened during the last couple of weeks of cross country. We kept telling her to relax her paces and she kept saying, "it feels too easy"

Today: We are going to go out and do 6 x 200 cutdown (spread to the second day instead of combining with the 1ks like Tinman suggested.) We are going to start at about 40 and work down to 34-35.

5:14, 4th place

The race went out really slowly. The top 2 girls in the field plus one more broke away with about 700 to go and put a huge gap on the field. My girl was caught sleeping in a box back in 6th or 7th place. She reall didn't react agressively enough and was not able to make up much ground on the leaders until the last 150. She looked like she still had plenty of run in her legs.

I think the real problem is that she has come to rely on her kick over the last 150-200m too much. I think she was afraid to just start throwing down with 700 to go. She got out of her box pretty easily and passed a couple of girls, but then relaxed and they passed her right back. With 200 to go, she just flew around 3 girls and tried kicking for home, but there was too much ground to make up on the third girl.

Still in all, it was a 2 second PR. I had believed that she could go under 5:10 (which would put her really close to 3rd). The really good thing about the season was that she never slowed down. In the larger meets with good competition and on all weather tracks, she had a steady improvement over the course of the season. Her first big race early in the year was 5:34, then she ran a 5:28 (both in March), then a 5:22 in April, Then a 5:16 and a 5:14 in May.

What I know you will recruit the fast oxidative fibers fully at tempo/marathon-half marathon intensity. when you go over your that intensity the lactate will accumulate quickly because you have to use some of your ftIIb type fibers.

delete: *your

Coach B -

Running a combo of 1k's for endurance and then short reps (like the 6 x 200's you prescribed) is an excellent training tool for two main reasons. One, it provides a longer bout of stimulus (in one session, rather than two) AND the 1k's serve as an outstanding "warm up" for the speedwork to follow. Typically, athletes who run the 1k's first find that 200's flow quickly and easily. When 200's are run alone (with no longer, slower reps beforehand), runners feel sluggish, at first, and have to force speed to come out - or wait until they are 3 or 4 reps into the workout to get speed to flow smoothly from their legs.

Take care,

Tinman

I have been following Tinman's advice for three years with the high school athletes I coach at a small school. I started the program five years ago. We have no track, and our track season starts late (the school takes a spring trip to Rome, Italy-Catholic-which is two weeks long and almost kills track season) around April 15th. With only 40 students total, and small squads (last fall's xc team was five boys), the team (or team members)has/have qualified for state the last three years. This year's track teams (6 girls/4boys) qualified for 12 different events in sectionals and 4 different events in state. One boy (who ran 2:36 second 800m and 22:30 5k his freshmen year qualified for the 800m. Another girl who only runs track (plays field hockey in the fall) qualified in the 400m. I have two sprinters in the 100/200m for which I credit God,and the kids own dedication. (By the way, another girl I trained off Tinmans training, finished sixth at xc state and is now at Princeton) Listen to Tinman. His advice provides results, and more importantly, he cares about the kids running, not about himself selling training videos, books or seminars.

Sorry for the long post.

Update:

Finishing sophomore XC season. She was running fantastically through mid october....won a large invitational on the Willow Hills CC course in a time that would be equal to about an 18:40 at the state meet course. Won league but got sick going into the post season. She got third in our Sub Section meet feeling pretty ill and running slower than she did at the same course much earlier in the season. She got second in the section meet a week later. Still wasn't feeling 100%. Since the section meet we have done the following.

Sat, 11/14 Section Finals 20:06, 2nd place still a bit sick(last year 20:32 on a hot day)

11/15 Rest

11/16 7 miles easy + weights

11/17 2.8 miles easy, form drills, strides 8 x 200 smooth with full recovery 38-39, last in 35. (purpose was to shake out the legs

11/18 2 mile wu, 2 miles hard (12:15) 1 mile hard (5:57) Workout was hard but controlled. Last year she ran same workout @ 12:22, 6:00

11/19: body weight circuit (12 exercises) 3.9 miles easy

11/20: 1.5 wu - 5 x 1200 tempo effort (4 @ 4:42 same time every time, running w/o watch, last @ 4:30) cross country loop, 75 second recovery. Very controlled workout. Last year she ran 4 x 1200, same rest, Avg about 4:49

11/21: 30 min easy

11/22: Will be a day off

State meet is 11/28: Last year 19:12 for 21st place