Good workouts to do ~72 hrs before a mile race?

bumps

Nothing to taxing. Maybe 4x200s @ mile pace and then 4x200s at 800 race pace.

or 10 minute tempo

4x400s @ goal pace w/ one min rest.

or a 600 break down

600, 400, 300, 200 100

sounds good if anyone else has suggestions lemme know

8 x 200 sounds good

3-5 x 300m @ mile race pace with 100m jog. Think Lydiard here.

So that's a Wednesday morning workout prior to a Saturday morning race?

If it's an important race, you want to do something at 800 race pace to sharpen. If it's just a regular race, I'd say make it an endurance workout since the race serves as a speed workout.

You DON'T do workouts 72 hours before a mile race. The last higher lactate workout (400-800 repeats) should have come 5-10 days before a race. Anything that you would consider a workout now will simply tear you down come race day. The only exception to this would be if you're using the race as training and consciously training through--but don't complain after the race if your result sucked because you didn't rest for the race at all.

What you do is rehearse race pace: repeats of 150-300m on pace with long rest (3-5 min). This is not a workout. It's a "dress rehearsal."

coach d wrote:

You DON'T do workouts 72 hours before a mile race.

Here Einstein, from Jumbo Elliot, one of the best coaches for milers who ever lived.

6 x 400 @ 800 m race pace. Lap job in between.

1 x 9 hours of sleep

It really also depends on the workouts you have already done prior to this during the week. Did you feel as if you ran a bit too hard during previous workouts? Are you feeling fatigued? This workout 72 hours prior is basically just keeping you from being completely flat on Sunday, which I think you know. All the hard work is done, you just need to maintain.

I'd say without knowing anything else (including mileage, what you work well off of, and basically me just being blind), you should do a 3-5 minute tempo(and I stress TEMPO) segment, followed by 4 400s at a little over mile race pace with 1:1.5 rest. Then the day before the mile do, say 4-8 100 meter strides. Good luck, you probably won't use this suggestion but I'm throwing it out there.

malmo wrote:

coach d wrote:

You DON'T do workouts 72 hours before a mile race.

Here Einstein, from Jumbo Elliot, one of the best coaches for milers who ever lived.

6 x 400 @ 800 m race pace. Lap job in between.

Bullshit, 72 hours before an important race? There's a reason nobody would do that these days. It's reckless.

Jesus Christ people, he didn't say 48 hrs, he said 72. You could even run a race on Wednesday and still run fine on Saturday. That's 3 nights of sleep between the workout and race.

Just do whatever workout is next on your schedule.

The OP never said it was an important race, just that it was a mile race. If this is an early or even mid season indoor race, then some fast 200 or 300m intervals that add up to ~1500m are a good tune-up.

gerataega wrote:

Bullshit, 72 hours before an important race? There's a reason nobody would do that these days. It's reckless.

Totally Unimportant Race -

Go ahead and run something hard 3 days prior and let the race itself (and the pre-race strides) serve as a reduced volume of additional pace work. Something like:

* 400 at mile "date pace" (current pace or your best estimate of it), 30 seconds walk, 800 at the same pace, 1 minute walk, 200 at 800 "date pace," 4 minutes walk/jog, 2 x 400 at mile "goal pace" with 1 minute walk/jog after each rep, 200 at 800 "goal pace"

(So if you can run 1:56 and 4:20 at the moment and realistically hope to run 1:52 and 4:12, try to hit 65-2:10-29 for the first set and 63-63-28 on the second set)

OR

* 4 x 400 at current mile pace with 1 minute walk/jog between reps, 3 minutes walk/jog after 4th rep, repeat 4 x 400 with the same protocol (3 minutes off after the 4th rep), 2 x 400 at 1-4 seconds faster than current mile pace with 1 minute walk between reps

Regular Mid-Season Race -

* 4 x 200 starting at current mile pace and cutting down to 800 pace with 1 minute rest between reps, 3 minutes walk/jog after 4th rep, 4 x 400 at mile pace with 1:30 walk/jog after each rep, repeat 4 x 200 as per the initial protocol

OR

* Just use that old Villanova staple that malmo cited - 6 x 400 at goal pace with a lap jog between reps - since it's almost identical in intensity to the workout directly above ... guys like Mark Belger, Eamonn Coghlan, Don Paige and Sydney Maree did this nearly every week for a few months a year (of course, they had high enough general fitness that they could easily step up in distance from their bread-and-butter events), so you can't really go wrong with it - unless you hammer the reps too fast!

Extremely Important Race -

Do your last really hard, tying-up, knee-grabbing goal pace workout about 12 days prior to the important race (absolutely no closer to it than 10 days away) but 3 days away, use something like:

* 5 x 150 starting at mile pace and cutting down to 800 pace with 60-90 seconds between reps, 5 minute jog after 5th rep, repeat 5 x 150

Don't fall into the trap of treating every race as being so important that you always use this taper workout 3 days before it. You'll eventually lose fitness for sustaining your race speeds unless you're doing mid-week races.

coach d wrote:

You DON'T do workouts 72 hours before a mile race. The last higher lactate workout (400-800 repeats) should have come 5-10 days before a race. Anything that you would consider a workout now will simply tear you down come race day. The only exception to this would be if you're using the race as training and consciously training through--but don't complain after the race if your result sucked because you didn't rest for the race at all.

What you do is rehearse race pace: repeats of 150-300m on pace with long rest (3-5 min). This is not a workout. It's a "dress rehearsal."

Ummmm. I think that something along the lines of 5 x 150 @ goal pace would be a great workout....the day before the race.

3 days out (which I realized has already passed), you'd want to push the systems a little bit. There have been a few pretty good ideas here already (6 x 400 @ goal pace). My only caveat would be to avoid any hard aerobic intervals (i.e. 6 x 1k @ 5k pace). Those may leave you a bit fatigued.

However, if it is an early season, unimportant race where you are just trying to get a guage of where you are at, then bang away with your normal training (which has already been said also).

The answer depends upon factors like these:

a) Is this an early, mid or late season race? That is, do you need to peak or not? The answer impacts your choice of workout.

b) What training have you done prior to the 72 hours? This is important question because it would be harmful to try a workout that doesn't resemble one you have done beforehand.

Let's say you have been running 10 miles per day and long run on the weekend, but you haven't been doing speed training; running a bunch of reps at race-pace or faster for the first time, even though it is 72 hours before the 1-mile race, will make you sore and semi-dysfunctional on race-day.

Overall: Pick one of your normal workouts and cut it back a little bit; if you have to be a bit more fresh for the race than normal. How do you cut back the severity of a workout? Answer: Reduce the number of reps or increase the recovery time. If you normally run a 6 mile tempo, cut it back to 3-4 miles.

Good luck!

T

6 x 400 at goal pace with a lap jog between reps

My bad. The cited workout was at 800 pace, which you probably should reserve for one of those midweek workouts before a pretty unimportant race - unless you've been doing a similar workout every week for awhile like the 'Nova guys were doing.

That one's actually really tough. For a midweek workout before a mid-season mile race you want to be rested enough to do well in, I'd just go with 6 x 400 at no faster than 4 seconds (per 400) quicker than current mile pace with a lap jog between reps. If you're in 4:20 shape, that means you can run them as fast as 61, which will still be a medium to hard effort even with a full lap jog for your R. It's not a ton of stimulus, but this assumes you're doing enough other fitness-oriented stuff often enough that you can get away with only touching on a reduced volume of race pace during some weeks. Save the 6 x 400 at 800 pace for your "harder" days. A lot of people find it's actually quite difficult to complete 6 400s at 800 pace.

I believe the staple 'Nova mile pace workout was 10 x 400 with a 200 jog between reps. That one's nearly identical to that workout I gave above (4 x 400 + 4 x 400 + 2 x 400 a little faster).

Tinman wrote:

b) What training have you done prior to the 72 hours? This is important question because it would be harmful to try a workout that doesn't resemble one you have done beforehand.

Overall: Pick one of your normal workouts and cut it back a little bit; if you have to be a bit more fresh for the race than normal. How do you cut back the severity of a workout? Answer: Reduce the number of reps or increase the recovery time. If you normally run a 6 mile tempo, cut it back to 3-4 miles.

Good luck!

T

This is an excellent point. If you are a marathon guy that is just going to fart around with a mile to see what you can do, a fast workout out of left field could get you injured pretty easily.

gerataega wrote:

Bullshit, 72 hours before an important race? There's a reason nobody would do that these days. It's reckless.

Reckless, you say? The best middle distance coach who ever lived vs you?

I think that reckless would be listening to some anonymous twit on a message board over a coaching legend.

You know what they did on Monday? 10x 400 at mile pace.