Another "what can my guy run" thread

It is too bad he has had a rough year, he is exceptionally talented. If he can stop the bleeding he ought to be able to run 1:55 NEXT year, and vie for 1:52-3 as a senior.

This is not what you want to hear, but I think you are over-thinking their training to do 800 and 1000m tempo intervals for a guy who is currently best at 400/800 and competing specifically at 800m?

Clearly you use this method for more than him, but why tempo intervals at 6:10 pace? Why not just give them a 4-5-6 mile run at 6:10 pace? Seriously, this is easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy for a 2:00/4:46 kid.

The 1K reps are like a 12:00 2-mile with big breaks. Do you really think that is Lact. Thresh. for a kid this good?

Trying to stay respectful, but this schedule looks like nuts to me. If you hadn't written it out so nicely and with such obvious care, I would believe you were faking. What in the hell is the purpose of running 600s at 1:52? This is 75-sec pace?!?! Is this V02max training for a supposed 10:00 2-miler? It looks like his strength is 400/800 and he is competing at 800, why not train him like a middle-distance runner?

Looking over the post again, I see why he was easily injured. You are babying him and pampering him way too much. 5 full days of easy runs and strides? It's not like he just got done with tough training.

Trying to relate to how you are handling this 1:59 runner with kid gloves, I am reminded that as a freshman we ran workouts like

16 x 200 in 33-34 / :45 rest;

8 x 400 in 70-71 w/90 rest;

6 x 300 in 51, 4 x 200 in 32 w/60 rest;

pyramid 200-400-600-800-600-400-200 in 32,70,1:52,2:30...;

The fastest I had ever run for 800 was 2:23 in an April Time Trial, but I think I could have run maybe 2:14-2:15 in a race. I ran 4:50 / 10:20 at my best.

Your kid is MILES above my level, at :52/1:59, stop treating him like a middle school kid.

I agree, the workouts look easy on paper. However, I can tell you that, being on the track when he finishes sets of 800m tempo intervals at 3:05, it looks like he is working pretty hard. Granted, the last time we did tempo 800s was a couple of weeks ago when he was still a 2:06 guy. He has gotten to where he has gotten off of training similar to what I described above. I don't think it would be very smart to drastically change/make harder what we are doing over the last 2 weeks of the season.

I've been thinking plenty about where to go with him next year. It's going to be a gradual progesssion from where he is now to that Sub 1:55 you described.

You don't really touch much on any top-end speed at all there. Sure, there are the 3 rolling 100s, but not much else. Nothing extremely short (30s-40s), and nothing that stresses his anaerobic system too much, which he'll need. What about a Seb Coe Ladder (100 to 200 moving up in 10m increments, jog/walk back to next start)?

Just an idea.

No, I wouldn't change his training now. Also, a "couple weeks ago" he was still the same guy, he just hadn't had this breakthrough that everybody gets when they run a few races in good weather, against good people, and they have 6-8 weeks of intervals behind them. He was a 1:59 guy that you could SEE was a 1:59 guy (due to 4:46 last year and :52 this season), he just had not let the genie out of the bottle yet.

What I am saying is that when I was at that 1:59-2:06 level my 400m intervals weren't terribly different over the course of that improvement. Maybe I was 1 second faster over 8 x 400m w/90 sec rest.

I would leave any drastic change until next Fall or this summer. But I am a big believer in sustained LT training, we always ran it at 10k-15k pace depending on the distance, and this was for 2-10 miles (and mostly for 1600/3200 runners). Those of us that could handle 10 miles HARD did it at 10-15 secs per mile slower than race pace for 15k/10miles. This kind of effort would make most kids today quit, I realize this.

But I would look carefully at somebody's middle distance training plan, and drop these "cruise intervals" at 6:00-6:10 pace. Who knows what surprises are in store? He may become a very good 400m runner as well? But 800/1600 runners need some V02max training and Anaerobic Capacity or Lactate Tolerance training. It looks like he has mostly gotten that through racing the last 3 months.

newname wrote:

It looks like he has mostly gotten that through racing the last 3 months.

Yes, racing is a big part of our training. This is where he gets all of the lactate tolerance type stuff from.

I also am a believer in sustained tempo runs. He was doing them early season before he started getting sick. We would do something like 6 x 100 @ 800 pace + 2.8 mile tempo + 6 x 100 @ 800 pace. The goal was to work those tempo runs out to 4 miles (which is what the guys in the other training group did). Unfortunatley, he missed all of that.

You asked about the 600s...as to the purpose. The purpose is to briefly touch into max heart rate territory and to build a little lactic acid without the workout being too taxing. Symmonds did a similar session for flotrack a couple of years ago and most of the comments on that site were similar to yours, "what the hell benefit will he get from that?" For him, running in trainers, on the dirt, those 600s are close to 1600m effort (I doubt he could go much faster than 4:45 right now). So, 600's at mile effort is significant.

I would consider those, and the 1 x 600 max effort + 3 x 200 to be the hardest sessions in the 2 week period prior to Golden West. In my view, the other sessions are there to simply support the gains he will make from the 2 harder sessions

As far as talent goes. I recognize that this guy is probably the most talented overall athlete I've ever coached. He has thrown the disc 134 feet in practice (only 122 in a meet), High Jumped 5'4 as a frosh, and can long jump over 18 feet. He is 5'11" and about 170 pounds of lean muscle, a boy in a mans body. Ironically with all that muscle, he has no idea what he is doing in the weight room.

For the poster who said we are not doing any really fast stuff. There will be at least one session with alactic sprints in the last 6 days prior to Golden West. It will probably be something like 3 x 60 after a longish warm up and copious drills. I didn't write out the session, because the original post seemed to be getting a bit long winded. I consider those to be pretty easy sessions

Congrats on winning league Coach Bernard!

Don't discuss his training and racing in detail here. Bad move, too personal, not good coaching.

You're welcome.

i think u r setting to high of goals for ur guy. hit 159 once and u have a sub 155 goal for next year, how bout some consistency first rather than a 5 second pr jump in the 800

CoachB wrote:

For the poster who said we are not doing any really fast stuff. There will be at least one session with alactic sprints in the last 6 days prior to Golden West. It will probably be something like 3 x 60 after a longish warm up and copious drills. I didn't write out the session, because the original post seemed to be getting a bit long winded. I consider those to be pretty easy sessions

Alactic sprints are not a taxing thing, I have my all my athletes doing them 3 x week, something like (4 x 40m + 4 x 100 stride) It never hurts to work on raw speed, especially for a mid distance runner.

xc14617 wrote:

i think u r setting to high of goals for ur guy. hit 159 once and u have a sub 155 goal for next year, how bout some consistency first rather than a 5 second pr jump in the 800

Really, after running 2:06 consistantly with basically no training, then getting a good 6 weeks under his belt and dropping to 1:59 (where he came through the 600 in 1:27)?

I'm thinking that 1:55 for next season is aggressive but certainly realistic. I encourage my guys to dream big. The ultimate, best case scenario for next year would be to qualify for state then make the final. At this point, that goal is still quite a way's off.

Yesterday, 4 x 600, trainers, dirt track, pretty windy, dodging mud puddles from the sprinklers:

1:50, 1:51, 1:51, 1:53

I actually had him extend to 650m on all of the runs, so that his total time for each rep would be right around 2 min.

Done with 600m recovery jogs.

Previous day was 3.9 progression with 3 x 100 fast. Each workout was a little harder than I anticipated (because he ran faster than I anticipated, so he has a day of biking and core today instead of the tempo intervals listed above.

I think u r looking at the goal times wrong. Sure 206 down to 202 during the season is expected and then down to 159 for the last race;faster competition, peaking helped but then u have a 4 to 5 second improvement for next year off of a peak time. its a lot harder to drop seconds from end of season times as opposed to the beginning of the season. and also why did he not do the mile also that much this year, it would help strength wise

CoachH wrote:

Alactic sprints are not a taxing thing, I have my all my athletes doing them 3 x week, something like (4 x 40m + 4 x 100 stride) It never hurts to work on raw speed, especially for a mid distance runner.

Might have my guy do this tomorrow, after 4 mile progression, as opposed to 3 x 100 all out. We have a big workout (race simulation) on Saturday.

He didn't run the mile this season (except for one time), because of his injuries and illness. He simply wasn't in shape to do it. I put him in one 2 mile as a workout and he ran 11:32 (pretty much a max effort). Plus, we had plenty of guys in the mile as far as dual meet purposes went. Kid is a decathlete. He won the disc for us in every dual meet but one and occasionally ran on the 4x1. He ran the 4x4 every meet.

The plan for next season definately includes the mile.

Wht goal time do u have for ur guy for the mile next year. if u have a 155 goal then something around 430 im guessing

Yes, 4:30 is about what I'm thinking. It really depends on how his cross country season goes, if he can continue to build aerobic strenght and stay uninjured. If he can carry a good base over from cross, then I'd say he could go down into the mid 4:20s.

MId 420s, once again i think thats a pretty aggressive goal. 420 shape would yield around 920 for the 3200, and a 1600 for the 5k(endurance wise). so you think ur guy could get down to 1600 for the 5k and 920s for the 2 mile to achieve that mile goal

xc14617 wrote:

MId 420s, once again i think thats a pretty aggressive goal. 420 shape would yield around 920 for the 3200, and a 1600 for the 5k(endurance wise). so you think ur guy could get down to 1600 for the 5k and 920s for the 2 mile to achieve that mile goal

No, but I could see 50.x, 1:55, 4:25. The guy is very much speed oriented. His 2 mile PR is 10:39 (from a CC time trial on the roads where he went 5:41, 4:58). This was after a 350 mile summer (which I know is low, but by this guys standards, it was huge mileage.) I could see him down pretty close to 10:00 for 3200 on the track if he ever runs the event.

I could see a 16:45-16:50 in cross this fall.

xc14617 wrote:

MId 420s, once again i think thats a pretty aggressive goal. 420 shape would yield around 920 for the 3200, and a 1600 for the 5k(endurance wise). so you think ur guy could get down to 1600 for the 5k and 920s for the 2 mile to achieve that mile goal

Do some more work before posting again. 1:55/4:20/9:20/16:00 are not equivalents.

Clearly this coach left a lot of info out when he asked the questions: like this kid throws the disc, weighs 170, and ALWAYS runs the 4 x 400, but you really don't know what you are talking about.

I can see kids running 1:55/4:20 in a season where they give serious attention to both events. Those times are rough equivalents for many runners. I can see 1:55/4:25 or 4:30 for this kid because he is not an endurance runner and he is not endurance-trained.

But, in short, that DOES NOT extrapolate out to a 9:20 or 16:00. For a kid with good endurance 4:38/10:00/16:00 are about equivalent. But it doesn't matter because CLEARLY he is not being trained this way for these events.

I ran under 4:20/9:20/15:20 in high school, but never under 1:55, why? Because I could not run a :52 400m like this kid ALREADY HAS.