400-800m pre-season plan, please critique

This base period would continue until late February.

This might be too much intensity too soon. Since you don't have a track I'd find a trail or place you can mark off distances that would be a similar program to this:

M: 10 min warmup, 4 fast strides, 2-4 mile tempo run or 12-14 laps of stride straights jog curves, 10 min cool down, 4 fast strides + weights: pull-ups, dumbbell shoulder press, lateral raises/shoulder fly, 3 sets of 5 reps for each. The running workout is pretty light

T: 5-6 minutes of abs, some planks, supermans for lower back + 35 minute EASY run

W: 5 minute warmup, 30 minute fartlek, 5 minute cooldown, all continuous then 6-8x100 flat out with full recovery (2-3 minutes) afterward, couple of bicep/tricep exercises (curls, dips) 3x5 after a warmup set

R: Squats, one warmup set then 3x5 with good form. Since they'll be tired from the 100's make the 3x5 a weight they could actually do 6 of if they had to, it's still going to be heavy for them and pretty difficult. Sprint drills, 20 minute easy run. Let them rest a few minutes then send them out for another 5-10 minutes (this is just mind games).

F: Mile warm up, 16x200 with 60 seconds recovery at about mile pace, last 4 harder, closer to 800 pace. Mile cool down. They'll have a hard time with this after squats the day before. Chest + back weights, 3x5 again but concentrate on the back part of the workout: dumbbell bent over rows, seated cable rows, the plate thing rows, shrugs, 3-4 bench sets and an 2-3 incline bench sets, abs/lower back again

S: 30 minutes easy

S: Off day, let them rest

Again, I'm not a coach.

Also I'm a big fan of splitting tempos runs up. So if they don't have the endurance base (or focus) to run a straight 4 mile tempo (they don't, they're high school kids) divide the tempo run like this:

2 mile tempo

90 seconds

2 mile tempo

or

8x800 or 5x1000 loop, 60 seconds rest at COMFORTABLY difficult pace, make sure they don't race the reps

speed 800 guy wrote:

This might be too much intensity too soon. Since you don't have a track I'd find a trail or place you can mark off distances that would be a similar program to this:

OK, that is good to know. I was aiming for more volume and less intensity than my sprinters normally do (only 2 days of continuous running in the off season) but wanted to keep the intensity and general conditioning levels high.

I gather from your handle that you were a 400-800 guy, rather than an 800-1500 type.

I read through a good portion of the sub 1:50 800 thread, but it seemed that more of the advice was geared toward the 800/1500 type athlete.

I've never coached a 400-800 specialist.

And this is Juantorena's typical week at the same time from his preparation for 1976

I don't see any of the same speed endurance/special endurance/intensive tempo type of work, and for 400/800 the endurance really comes from the special endurance side, not the distance running side.

Yeah I was a 400/800 guy but ran an occasional 1500...my 400 PB was stronger than my 1500 PB even when I trained with guys aiming for indoor 3k's (not a good idea for me, got hurt). I might have had more potential at 1500 than I thought but I didn't tolerate mileage well enough to find out. Anyhow, I got more benefit from less volume, higher intensity and that's why I suggest split tempo runs or long intervals with short recovery, even long interval cutdowns. But my post and possible program isn't meant to disparage yours, I think your mind and goals are in the right place.

The other thing is I overlooked how short your Wednesday is which makes it less stress on your athletes but your Friday and Tuesday are similar. I'd recommend, no matter what you do, some mix of:

1) A pure speed day with full recovery. Depending where you live this could be difficult. Obviously, don't take your kids out to an icy road to run 8x60 all out. I like 10 seconds hill sprints, 60's, 6-8 x 100's for this with 2-3 minutes recovery. You can add reps as you go along, they'll be sore after these days until they get used to it. Useful for basic short distance sprint speed.

2) A tempo day, either a split up tempo, 20-40 minutes comfortably hard, 800's or 1000's with short rest, even 500 or 600's just to keep your kids from checking their splits too much. 16x200 with short rest is good for this purpose too. Comfortably hard, this is a jog compared to their sprint abilities but taxing with short rest. This is meant to help them feel comfortable after 500-600 meters when the going gets tough.

3) Some kind of cut downs or a fartlek with strides. I did my strides fast with full recovery so they were closer to sprints. In other words, I did a lot of sprints in my glory days even if I had another workout to do that day. This is a mix of days 1 and 2 and it's just an aerobic effort without killing them with volume.

On the other days, short recovery runs. 30 minutes or so is fine, maybe less for some kids. Some of them might actually be more of distance runners than you think and can tolerate more but let's work on speed first and reassess later. The other caution I have is to keep your weight training stuff split up in a way that doesn't fatigue your kids for running. Squats, deadlifts and cleans are great but proper form and maybe doing them before an easy run is best. They will have heavier legs the next day from this so factor that in too.

Anyway, if nothing else from my posts are useful the idea is to give them enough volume that they can get to 600 meters fast and not fold like a deck of cards once they get there. At the same time, NOT SO MUCH VOLUME THAT THEY AREN'T FRESH FOR WORKOUTS. Overload a true 400/800 guy with volume and their speed suffers, they're too tired to work out hard and you get the idea. So volume might vary from kid to kid. My recommendation is to undertrain them a little, I had a little more longevity because I got away with slightly undertraining after near constant injuries.

Also Coach D I agree with you to a point. Juantorena still needed to be able to get to 2:35 for 1000 meter reps in the first place. It's a rare kid who can run 1000's on short recovery anywhere near that pace so some early overdistance work is needed. Just not that much, that's only training to handle real training so you don't waste time running 3 minute 800 reps for a month. But real 400/800 types should respond and make big initial fitness gains from cutdowns and long reps with short recoveries more so than mileage for sure. Add some sprints with that and that's almost a whole training program.

Coach D wrote:

I don't see any of the same speed endurance/special endurance/intensive tempo type of work, and for 400/800 the endurance really comes from the special endurance side, not the distance running side.

I agree. I was aiming for a more generalized strength endurance/speed endurance pre-season.

The circuit will take care of some of that as will "snaking" the bleachers. Both of those will be pretty anaerobic.

The 10 x ramp sprints are more or less alactic power, because these kids will also be called on to run the 200 and maybe even the 4x1

The fartlek running is aimed at the same goal as Juantorrena's 4 x 1000 workout. I think we can achieve the same goal as the 4 x 1k workout out on the roads. I don't have use of a track for the winter, plus these guys don't yet have the capability to run good 4 x 1k workouts with that relative quality. Right now, I just want them learning how to run hard for 2 minutes straight. Those fartlek intervals will eventually come up to 3 minutes. Toward the end of February, once they have the idea of running hard and consistantyly for 2-3 min (and the track has dried out, hopefully) we will start bringing in 600-800-and 1000m intervals on the track (which for my group will range from 1:45 to 3:30 total time.)

If anything, I was more worried about having introduced too much intensity too soon, or more specifically, the quality that is taking place after a small volumme of continuous running. Three of the kids that will be in the group are coming from my cross country program and should be able to handle the training (i.e. not be too tired from the continuous running to handle the sprints, bleachers, circuits, etc...) However, about 3-4 of the kids joining the group are football/basketball types who may not be able to handle the training volume that I have set out. For them, I think that the quality work after the continuous running may be too much, but I don't really want to cut out the continous running because I think it will make the foundation for what we will be doing later.