Are flying 70s at top speed a good idea in November? Our coach is having all of us do these -- even the 10k guys. We're cranking them all out at top speed, and he just sits there with his stopwatch shaking his head mumling "not fast enough."
Then the next day, we had an interval session -- 800m reps on the track for most.
Is this a good thing? I could barely walk two days later.
i googled flying 70's. i dont know what it is. i guess its a 70 meter dash. its always good to do short speedwork. as long as your getting your milage in, anything else can only help you.
Yes - 70m as fast as we can with a jogging start. Sometimes we do flying 50's too.
If you're running less than 80m at speed, I would consider that "pure speed work", which should be done with complete recovery. Just from how you described "cranking out" I get the impression of a more continuous workout ( obv. I could be wrong) and I would say that's never a great workout. If you're doing 50-70m, do it as pure speed, if you're doing jog-sprints and working speed-endurance, don't be going over 90% on the sprints.
If your coach is someone you put all your faith in re: training (which you obviously don't since you're here asking about the workout) I would just do it. If what I described seems to be fairly accurate, and your coach isn't completely full of himself, next time you do the workout, just run within your own limits. If your coach doesn't notice the 10% decrease in speed, you should not get killed by the workout as much and be able to recover more normally, even with some long intervals the next day. If he calls you out, tell her that last time you did the workout it affected your training for the next week; a good coach will be able to pickup on the fact that this workout either is too tough or isn't doing what she thinks it is. If you have a dumb coach that is picking bad workouts and is too full of himself to change, just do your own thing; you're still out there working and even if she complains you are doing what you know is best for you.
Agree with yesornoormaybe.
Much of the soreness from these flying sprints was learning [or "coordination"] soreness. Your muscles, unused to firing at the speed/frequency/synchronization that the sprints require, were likely working against each other (e.g. hamstrings a bit tensed when the quads were contracting), which is the prime recipe for muscular soreness.
The soreness [DOMS = delayed-onset muscular soreness] that you had two days afterward is a sign that this was what most likely happened. The next day's 800s, unless run absolutely all out to exhaustion, probably contributed little to the soreness, and in general the sequence of sprints on Day 1, longer reps on Day 2 is fine, because they mostly work on different capacities (strength/power/central nervous system on Day 1).
Two notes, short term and long term:
Short term: when you do these next, *don't* "crank them out." Instead, go top *speed* but not top *effort*, which doesn't make you any faster but does tend to increase fatigue and soreness. For almost everyone, a relaxed and controlled 90% effort is faster than a 100% effort (in which the last 10% of effort just goes into tightening you up). If you're doing these with others, "compete" to see how relaxed you can be at top speed, not to see whose top speed is the highest.
Long term: avoid having an "all slow" period of training. You should stay in touch with your speed at all times, though more usually through accelerations (building from one to the next until you've touched top speed a few times) rather than flying sprints.
And yes, early winter can be the perfect time to do flying sprints, etc., to help distance runners develop/hone their pure speed. When you *don't* want to do it is during the last few weeks of your competitive season!