How much time/distance between 400s??
How much time/distance between 400s??
It depends on if you doped like Bannister did or not.
the only cutting edge training Bannister did was:
oxygen supplemented training (opposite of altitude
training).
you'll read different work/rest information in different places;
figure 2' rest is a fair figure.
What is with this recent trend for people to obsess about outdated training?
According to various sources, the rest was typically a lap jogged in around two minutes.
This gave Bannister--with (as a medical student) very limited time available for training--five miles in around 30min, with half that distance at mile goal pace.
Keep in mind that Bannister was accompanied on many of these sessions by Chataway (fourth man under 4:00) and/or Brasher (never particularly close to 4:00, but OG SC champ in 1956).
10x440y. So, exactly 5 miles in 30 minutes with a lap jog at 8 minute pace.
SMJO wrote:
What is with this recent trend for people to obsess about outdated training?
What exactly is outdated about 10 x 400?
SMJO wrote:
What is with this recent trend for people to obsess about outdated training?
Different things work for different people. People might enjoy learning about a training routine that apparently helped another to his goal: perhaps they can adapt that routine and benefit.
As an example, if people investigated "true" (Holmér) fartlek, they might find that it could help them, as it seemed to help Gunder Hägg and Arne Andersson to their world records.
50 years of development in training has already polished up those techniques for you.
SMJO wrote:
50 years of development in training has already polished up those techniques for you.
What's the harm in knowing some of the particulars of our sport's heritage? We know a lot more about astronomy now than Galileo but astronomy classes still study his work because it was groundbreaking.
Thx for the info ...10x440y w/440y rest jog in 2:00. Question for SMJO... What's the issue with this wo? What other single workout would you place in front of this 10x400/2:00r...?
SMJO wrote:
50 years of development in training has already polished up those techniques for you.
[quote]0987554321 wrote:
Thx for the info ...10x440y w/440y rest jog in 2:00.
Question for SMJO... What's the issue with this wo? What other single workout would you place in front of this 10x400/2:00r...?
Lots of coaches use this kind of workout. But these days we don't use 2 min rest prior to peak. We might start with 2 min rest at goal pace, then cut the rest short to running at goal pace with 60 second. Steve Scott and El Guerrouj used rest as short as 30 seconds, at least at times.
What you need to know with that rest period was that Bannister ran that workout as fast as 57 seconds with that 2 min rest shortly before tapering. There's a fairly well-known quote from his log from this period where he said that running at 4 minute pace was almost getting too easy.
What you also need to know is that Bannister ran that sub-4 at the Iffley Road Track. Craig Mottram ran 3:56 on that same track the year before he ran 3:48, so you could argue that Bannister's time would be worth ~3:52 at Stockholm or Rome today.
Yes but when Mottram ran his 3.56 it wasn't the same surface as 50 years previously was it?
I'm not saying Bannister didn't have the fitness of a 3.52 miler, I'm sure he did, just sayin you can't compare the two.
I am not so sure about that.
Bannister's training was perhaps perfectly tuned to maximising his potential with the time he had available. And he still ran phenomenally fast, as did other guys in the 50s/60s such as Herb Elliott, Jon Landy, Bob Schul, and Ron Clarke who also all worked full time.
The "modern" training philosphy has paradoxically killed off the depth in distance running in areas such as Europe (Euros ran faster in the 70s than they do today). Alongside this "modern" philosophy, there seems to be a way of thinking that you absolutely have to be a full time athlete, and maybe take PEDs (look at the truckload of positives coming out of Kenya for example) to fullfill your potential. Unfortunately this philosophy is probably only effective in relatively few individuals and many are giving up at an early age when they could be applying a more time-efficient way of training while also pursuing a life/career outside of running.
Hence Bannister's training approach still remains relevant for many runners.
coach d,
That track has been a synthetic surface for years now. I ran a mile on it in 2007; inside the dressing area there is a glassed box with the finishing post & three shovelfuls of the rocks they ran on back in the day. If Mottram ran 3:56 he ran on the synthetic surface I ran upon. Yes; Bannister would/could've run 3:52 or better on today's best Mondo. I think if you dig through a few of the recent books written you'd see he raced/time trailed ~2:51 for 1320y or 3/4 mile.
“Different things work for different people”
Too true - years ago, I was chatting to a miler who had just run 4.7, who claimed he had Bannister’s precise training schedules and was going to follow them religiously the following year, confident he too would run a sub 4 minute mile.
He did know Brasher and Disley, so he may well have had the right programme.
Anyway, he never broke 4.10 the following season and it turned out the 4.7 he ran in our race, was the fastest of his career.