Workout Heroes vs. Workout Zeros

In my experience, many teams are like this. I think it has a lot to do with self-confidence. Confident athletes do not have to prove anything to themselves in the workouts. They use the workouts to improve. Athletes with less confidence use the workouts to impress. What a coach needs to do is find a way to get athletes with less self confidence to avoid over-running the workouts and feeling stale for the races.

Don't let 9:40 guys run reps at the same pace as 9:20 guys.

Simples. Don't have any standstill or walk rest between recoveries. Slow up the 400s and make them jog 100m in 40-45s and you'll soon see the current heroes change their spots.

Your heroes are just guys with strong lactate systems who can churn out quick 400s SO LONG AS THEY GET A STANDSTILL RECOVERY AFTER EVERY ONE. Doesn't matter how short you make the recovery, they will just get better at recovering quicker. You even play into their hands even more by giving them 2 mins rest after every 4x400.

You're just making them very good at running 400s with a (short) standstill recovery. You're doing nada for their race performance (as you can see).

So take away the standstill and replace with 100m jog in 40-45s. Build to where your heroes can handle 8 x 400 at 2-mile pace with 100m jog recovery in 40s. They likely will not manage it first time out the door, so start cautious.

Doing this makes the session more aerobic in nature and better targets the energy system they will predominantly use in the 2-mile race.

As it is today you are giving your heroes the type of session they love, but does not adequately prepare them for the race. Work what they don't love by refusing to let them rest between reps. If the 400s get slower (and you must expect them to), that's perfectly okay — the race performances will get faster: which is the whole point.

Also give them another weekly session of 10k straight at ~82-85% of 10k pace. Build to 15k, but don't go faster.

You are exhausting your zeroes because they have innately poor lactate/glycolytic systems which don't respond well to hard/intense work. Give them fewer 400s but lots of walk rest in between each one. Even 5 mins. No need to do this often.

Instead of giving them lots of 400s, they would respond to (and improve better with) more tempo-type training. But not too quick: more like 90% of 10k pace for 8k. They would also like 2k reps at 10k pace with 3-4 mins rest (rest/standstill recovery for this type is okay).

Understand the difference between these two types and (as well as realizing they need different forms of training) you'll become a smarter coach. Good luck.

Confused Coach wrote:

Come race day, the zeroes went 9:17 and 9:19 for 3200, while the zeroes went 9:38 and 9:44. This is a continuing pattern and I can't seem to figure out what is going on.

The ZEROS went 9:17 and 9:19 while the ZEROS went 9:38 and 9:44...

Did the heros perform well or the zeros?? Since you say you're confused I'm guessing the zeros raced well?

On here, Renato has referred to these as "fast" (your heroes) mentioning Billy Konchellah vs "resistant" (your zeroes).

Cabral and Hadd had a thread some years ago on the same subject and called them "FT" vs "ST" using Fernando Mamede and Carlos Lopes as an example each type (respectively).

Don't recall having seen anyone else differentiate between running types/training on here.

Run the heroes in the mile instead of the two mile.

Very sound advice from "We dont need another hero".

The problem is your coaching. You take two different types of runners and give them the same exact training. Bad coaching = poor results.

There is also a chance the heroes are doing things differently than the zeroes on easy days. Get the zeroes to pick up the pace on their easy runs and they'll get stronger.

Is HADD posting again?

Confused Coach wrote:

Come race day, the zeroes went 9:17 and 9:19 for 3200, while the zeroes went 9:38 and 9:44.

come again?

I agree with the guy who said the zeroes are probably fast runners and the heroes resistance runners. They should not be doing the same workouts.

The fast guys should be starting at shorter reps where they can light it up and then gradually progress to longer distances with the benefit of running things slower as they get longer.

The resistant guys should be starting at longer reps where they can light it up and then gradually progress to faster things at less demanding distances.

If you take the strength of each and extend it to cover their weaknesses over a few weeks of training, then you can bring two different types of runners to peak condition.

The sample workouts I'll give are totally made up, but should give a clear picture of what I'm talking about.

Fast guys increases distance and slowing pace:

Week 1: 12x400

Week 2: 6x800

Week 3: 5x1000

Resistant guys speeding up pace and lowering distance:

Week 1: 3x1600

Week 2: 4x1200

Week 3: 5x1000

You will have used each of their strengths to progressively address their weaknesses.

l;kjl;jk wrote:

There is also a chance the heroes are doing things differently than the zeroes on easy days. Get the zeroes to pick up the pace on their easy runs and they'll get stronger.

They need more rest afterward than the heroes.Maybe they are different types of athletes

Old thread, I know, but could this be the result of some people having a mental block that precludes them from going all out in a workout?

On my team, we had someone who couldn't run more than 4x300 or 6x200 at 800 pace, or 8x300 or 6x400 at mile. However, he'd be able to run faster than what he averaged in a race.

Please, somebody explain this to our "magic" coach JS with his Dancan system once and forever, I hope he will finally understand how to properly coach runners to do not be a workout heroes 👍👏👏👏 🤦‍♂️🤣