Max King 100x200m Workout

quentoncassidy93 wrote:

So,

who is Jerry Smith?

Former Cornell and Fayetteville Manlius distance coach. A true upstate NY legend. Definitely an "old school" type of coach, and he got great results.

section 3 alum wrote:

quentoncassidy93 wrote:

So,

who is Jerry Smith?

Former Cornell and Fayetteville Manlius distance coach. A true upstate NY legend. Definitely an "old school" type of coach, and he got great results.

Smith is a great guy- supportive of everyone, a true oldschool runner.

I was there and quit at 90. Absolutely nutty workout. Sets of 4 starting at 45 seconds and dropping down a second each set till youre at 30 seconds/200m. Keep doing sets of 4 200s in 30 until you can't run. Flat indoor track. lap jog between sets, jog from the finish to the start in lane seven between reps. It's the one workout that i wouldn't believe had I not seen it. Like 20 miles of running, we had more than one guy with a stress fracture that season...

WONDERFUL COACHING!

in_ithaca wrote:

I was there and quit at 90. Absolutely nutty workout. Sets of 4 starting at 45 seconds and dropping down a second each set till youre at 30 seconds/200m. Keep doing sets of 4 200s in 30 until you can't run. Flat indoor track. lap jog between sets, jog from the finish to the start in lane seven between reps. It's the one workout that i wouldn't believe had I not seen it. Like 20 miles of running, we had more than one guy with a stress fracture that season...

Awesome stuff, could you explain the rest between reps again, if it's a 200m indoor track, then jogging in lane 7 from the finish to the start is another 200m, or about 40K of total running on the track. Not that I think that it's crazy, in fact I think it's brilliant, just want to make sure that's what you mean.

i think the whole thing was done in lane 7 to minimize the tight turns. it'd be about a 30m jog or something from finish line to staggered start

Wowee. I can't stop thinking about this workout! I don't have my Daniels Running Formula with me, but I'm pretty sure he had the Cortland guys do a pretty similar thing one season where they ran over 20 miles worth of 400s at around 5:00/mile or a little under. I'm fairly certain it was 80-100 400s in a couple workouts a week, but the same idea. This is the kind of stuff that makes a smoooooove runner.

When you break it down, it's really only 12.5 miles of "quality" and a good amount of that is slower than marathon pace.

Who hasn't done this run with zero recovery between 200s? It is called a 20K training run.

I know you're being facetious, but if you were to follow the pace guidelines, you would run 58 minutes for 20K (about 1:01:11 half marathon pace), and would set WRs at 10K, 8K, 6K, 5K and damn near get the 2-mile at the end of the run.

Who hasn't done that run with zero recovery? Everyone ever.

in_ithaca wrote:

I was there and quit at 90. Absolutely nutty workout. Sets of 4 starting at 45 seconds and dropping down a second each set till youre at 30 seconds/200m. Keep doing sets of 4 200s in 30 until you can't run. Flat indoor track. lap jog between sets, jog from the finish to the start in lane seven between reps. It's the one workout that i wouldn't believe had I not seen it. Like 20 miles of running, we had more than one guy with a stress fracture that season...

What were your times running there? Didn't you run a lot faster later on, though also with a short interval program?

Strangely enough, I too used to coach at Cornell BITD (long before Jerry) and gave a 100 x 220y workout, on the outdoor track during cross season.

It was structured quite differently, though:

5 sets of 10 x (220y faster, 220y slower), with a quick water break between sets.

First four sets, 2:00 total for each faster-and-slower 440y; fifth set, ~2mi goal pace on the faster 220s and whatever speed on the slower.

Followed, at the completion of the 100th 220, by a 440 all-out, which was around 80secs IIRC. Total, 12 3/4 miles on the track.

This was for the women's team, btw--obvious from the times, I suppose...

bump

fold art wrote:

5 sets of 10 x (220y faster, 220y slower)

12 3/4 miles on the track.

That's only 50x 220.

The intervals are not repetitions.

I was in grad school at Cornell during '01/'02 and I occasionally ran with the team. Max King and some guy in the 14:20-14:30 5k range were their top runners. I didn't do the session under discussion, but I did watch a bunch of it. The pre-workout anxiety was greater than that of a major race. After they got down to pace, one by one guys fell off the 30-second group until it was just King and the other guy for a long time. I think King hung in there for several on his own. The fun part was watching him and wondering when he was going to quit. The session didn't have a number of reps assigned, just do 200s until you couldn't do them in 30 seconds anymore. King was going for the school record, I beleive. On the rep he decided would be his last, he crossed the line, jogged a few steps, then popped himself into the air like he was jumping into a swimming pool and landed flat on his back on a folding table with no effort whatsoever to break his fall. It was as if he said, "I'm going to toss my body on this here table and you can give me an IV or you can bury me on it, I don't care". It was awesome.

For years afterwards, every time I saw a result with Max King's name in it, I thought, "Yep, I'm not surprised at all. That's one tough motherfugger".

Thanks for that post.

I know this sounds really cool, but everything about it is completely antithetical to effective training for distance runners. This is the type of workout that destroys performance rather than elevate it.

So if I have this right, they did 60x200 in sets of 4x45, 44, 43, 42,...,31, then did as many sets of 4x200 at 30 as they could? sounds fun.

113 wrote:

I know this sounds really cool, but everything about it is completely antithetical to effective training for distance runners. This is the type of workout that destroys performance rather than elevate it.

You've got to understand there are two types of track coaches: psychologists and physiologists.

This is a psychologist's workout. Sure it might not have immediate physical benefits (and I'll even concede that some of its effects may be initally deterimental), but knowing you're tough enough to make it into the 80s is a huge mental boost. There's a reason FM's guys teams did so well in the 80s and 90s: after doing workouts like this, they knew they were tougher and better than any team they raced.

Physiologists tend to forget about the organ between the ears.

Here's a section from Max King's USATF bio:

So the master psychology in this case leads to a guy burning out after two good seasons and needing to take two years off from racing on the road or track-- one with no running at all, one with triathlons and adventure races.

These types of workouts can produce short term success, and it's not uncommon to see the elite high school programs crazy stuff like this. When you've got 80-100 guys on the team, you have room to burn a few out. As for long-term development, though (anything over a season or two) it's completely counterproductive.