Should I do fast 200's during base?

I ran under a guy who relies heavily on Lydiard. Ran several moderately paced 200's with a 200 jog on Saturdays during base. A little speed is okay...emphasis on little...and a handful of 200's at 3k pace is really not an anaerobic workout.

20 x 200 fast is a good session during base training. That's NOT anaerobic training.

In Lydiard't time, there was a mistaken belief that this type of training prevented the full development of the heart stroke volume, which is pure mythology. In fact that fear goes against the original principle of running fast 200's.

Nope

100 m strides are better

But when I say fast 200's I mean 200's near flat out (but relaxed) with full recovery.

I think this is an anerobic session no?

I know the idea of doing some faster running during base to maintain leg speed is well established but what about a few 200's a week at near top end speed in order to improve speed?

Tuna bro from Jersey Sho wrote:

But when I say fast 200's I mean 200's near flat out (but relaxed) with full recovery.

I think this is an anerobic session no?

I know the idea of doing some faster running during base to maintain leg speed is well established but what about a few 200's a week at near top end speed in order to improve speed?

If you're going by Lydiard, this wouldn't work. 1-2 mile race pace (6-8 total) with a floating recovery.

Tuna bro from Jersey Sho wrote:

But when I say fast 200's I mean 200's near flat out (but relaxed) with full recovery.

I think this is an anerobic session no?

I know the idea of doing some faster running during base to maintain leg speed is well established but what about a few 200's a week at near top end speed in order to improve speed?

In terms of energy sources, yes 200's nearly flat out are mostly anaerobic. But this wouldn't damage your base, as long as you are doing adequate training at every other pace.

However, it is probably not the way you should be training until you are nearer to races. Better to do more 200's at slower paces.

Thanks fella's

The reason why Im asking this is I was looking at old posts and came across the following by John Kellog:

"Joe is 27 years old, was decent but no better in H.S., tried to make the cross-country/track team at the local university but was unsuccessful. Joe ran 10:00 in the 3200 in H.S., and now runs local road races with an average 5k of 17:30. Joe runs about 40 miles a week and does intervals in the form of 800m and mile repeats in fartlek form with the local club.

Joe can no longer come close to a 10:00 3200. He can't do this because 5:00 for the mile is all he can muster. An 800m in 2:20 is a race for him.

Joe has 2 big problems that are equally important to address 1)Lack of mileage, 2)No speed. Joe, however has decided he wants some more success and is willing to work for it.

I look at his recent mileage and plot out a course for raising it. We go to the track and warm-up etc. and I put him through a small true speed workout. I have him run what I call an "accela 200." He starts out at mile race pace and builds speed over 200 meters until the last 20-30 are full out. This is always the final component of the warm-up and the beginning of the workout on a true speed day.

Because he has not done any true speed work since high school he will run 1 or 2 200s. I give him 5 minutes recovery and explain that he will run this next 200 as fast as possible while staying relaxed. He jogs into into it with a raised hand which is dropped when the 200 start is reached. As the hand drops I click my watch and observe. The effort to relax is apparent but he is not relaxed and isn't generating a lot of power. The time is 29.3. He walks a bit, jogs a 600 back to the start where I meet him and ask how he is feeling etc (rest was about 8 min). We decide to do another one. Same procedure, 29.7.

I let him know that he will be sore etc. but that his speed will improve. This workout is repeated once a week with the number of 200s increased to 5 after the accela 200. The recovery is whatever is necessary (within reason) to be ready to go again. Usually starts at about 8 minutes and drops to 5 minutes after a couple months. It is never reduced to less then 5.

Joe's progression.

Week 1: 29.3, 29.7

Week 2: 28.8, 28.5, 29.1

Week 3: 28.5, 28.4, 28.6, 28.8

Week 4: 28.1, 28.0, 28.3, 28.3, 29.2

Week 5: 28.2, 28.5, 28.4, 28.5, 28.4

Week 6: 27.7, 27.6, 28.0, 28.1, 27.3

(Finally gets around to buying a pair of spikes to use instead of road flats. The last 200 of week 6 was run in spikes. Joe put them on for strides 2 times during the week. He has not be sore so the last 3 will be run in spikes on week 7. Week 8 will be completely in spikes.)

Week 7: 27.5, 27.6, 27.0, 26.8, 26.6

Week 8: 26.9, 26.5, 26.4, 26.7, 26.2

Week 9: 26.3, 26.1, 26.0, 26.6, 25.9

Week 10:25.9, 26.3, 26.1, 25.9, 25.8

(During this time mileage was raised from 40-70)

This Joe levels off about here, two Joes I have coached progressed to the mid 24's, another is currently at about week 6. All joes increased there mileage and threshold running and dropped up there 5k times substantially--and didn't get outkicked at the end. In less than a year Joe is now running 15:30 for 5k and 4:28 for a mile.

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"

Would be a pretty similiar runner to Joe...certainly lack speed and this seems a good way to improve on it.

I just felt the base would be best time to do this but it seems others would disagree?

I had a guy named Tony Benson coach me at one point. He had me do a 21-day cycle. Each Monday I did a short workout geared towards improving speed. 4 x 200, 3, x 300 and 2 x 300 + 1 x 200. I did improve my speed, but, I attributed it to the high mileage as well. You can improve speed by running hills as well. They are safer and more effective for most people (not all). I was able to improve my 300m speed on about 40% of the mileage when I ran with Benson using a once weekly 6 x 300m hill workout that focused more on the fast recovery jog than a fast interval and slow recovery jog. There are lots of different ways to skin a cat.

Improving speed is all very well, but we need to work on every pace to get really good race results.

What about short, 8-10 second hill sprints to improve speed instead of 200's during base?

Good idea?

There are a lot coaches recommending 10-20s all out sprints during base. It is a bit different than something like 200s at 1500m pace.I am guessing most people do fine just running a half dozen of either these (all short sprints or more controlled 200s), twice a week during thier base phase at the end (or middle) of a run. No need to get fancy and try and over think training.I am pretty sure what lydiard was opposed to was things like 20x400 with 90s rest. The stuff about LA impairing aerobic development has been proven false. But a workout like that takes a couple of days to recovery from and that is time you could have done a some good aerobic runs.

wellnow wrote:

Tuna bro from Jersey Sho wrote:

But when I say fast 200\'s I mean 200\'s near flat out (but relaxed) with full recovery.

I think this is an anerobic session no?

I know the idea of doing some faster running during base to maintain leg speed is well established but what about a few 200\'s a week at near top end speed in order to improve speed?

In terms of energy sources, yes 200\'s nearly flat out are mostly anaerobic. But this wouldn\'t damage your base, as long as you are doing adequate training at every other pace.

However, it is probably not the way you should be training until you are nearer to races. Better to do more 200\'s at slower paces.

Hills are good, but are different from running fast on the track. Hills recruit more muscle; the track requires faster leg speed and more coordination.

200s with long recovery are not going to be heavily anaerobic. Wetmore uses a similar phase early in the cross country season (or at least presents such a phase in RWTB): Speed with long recovery so that no or little fatigue is carried over from one rep to the next. If you're going all out on the 200s, that's going to make the anaerobic contribution rise significantly, and perhaps you would be better off in a "true base phase" with a shorter interval.

Personally, in the base phase, I would agree with an earlier poster that more 200s at a slower pace is better. The pace can still come down, but I'd focus more on building volume, and then later focus more on the pace.

From my own coaching, a pattern along the lines of starting somewhere around 6-8 for an athlete with very minimal "speedwork" in the recent past. Say the athlete is a 15:00 5k runner, this might mean starting with 6-8 starting at 33-34 seconds, coming down to 30-31 second by the end of the workout. Over the course of 6-8 weeks, I would build up (if all was going well) to 16-24 (depending on the athlete) in sets of 4, 5, or 6 (usually taking 1min jog between reps, 3-4min between sets). The pace drops naturally to some extent, but the increasing stimulus is mostly brought on by the volume. For the same athlete, the pace might start at 33 and end at 29 after 6-8 weeks (on a good day). Still, though, the emphasis would not be on pace. running 29s at the end would be natural, not hammering. If then you choose to start running faster (whether in 30s 50s, 100s or faster 200s, or whatever), it takes much less out of the athlete, and faster improvements can be made. How I would make this progression would depend primarily on the target event(s) and the type of runner. Maybe the aim would be to shorten the recover, maybe the aim to get faster, maybe the aim to just increase the number of 200s. Anyway, that's my experience with 200s in the base phase.

Tuna bro from Jersey Sho wrote:

Thanks fella's

The reason why Im asking this is I was looking at old posts and came across the following by John Kellog:

How do you know he is Johm Kellog?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Kellogg didn't write that.

That's from Joe Rubio

I don't know the exact science behind it, but I know some people advocate doing about 4-8 x 40m all-out with full (3-5 minutes) easy jogging recovery one day per week during base phase (and maybe in other phases, too) to stay in touch with top speed.

Again, I don't know the exact science, but when I did this it didn't compromise my base phase in any way (this "workout" took the place of an easy recovery day, and didn't leave me fatigued for the nest day's workout) and it definitely helped me make a seamless transition into middle distance-specific speedwork.

From Daniels, I've thought that 200s and 400s w/ full recovery (e.g., 200 jog for 200) at "Repeat" pace is largely to develop form so they'd be the first speed work I'd do in a cycle. The speed (not all out) forces you to concentrate on form and build muscle memory for it, which can come in handy when fatigue sets in on long runs and races.

Lassefan wrote:

Tuna bro from Jersey Sho wrote:

The reason why I'm asking this is I was looking at old posts and came across the following by John Kellog:

How do you know he is Johm Kellog?

Yeah, this doesn't much sound like JK. (It sounds great, though!)

I will say that I've seen several of RoJo's runners in races, and some (not all) really seem to have awkward mechanics. I wonder whether they have training phases (a la JK???) without anything fast--hence losing the skill of fast, efficient running--or whether this is strictly an idiosyncratic thing.

To be fair, I'll also say that I've seen RoJo's guys, good mechanics or not, kick a lot of ass in cross-country and track races.

I agree: It sounds great. But I think that 200 mts is too long, so it probably would interfere with the base building.