I'm discouraged with a recent poor workout. Here's the progression:
week 1: 6x800: each 2:50, 90s rest: felt good
week 2: 6x800: each 2:46, 80s rest: felt easy
week 3: 6x800: each 2:50, 75s rest : felt a bit harder than week 2)
week 4: 10x400: each around 84s, 55s rest. felt very hard. WTF? Plan was 12x400, but ended in disgust.
goal time for this week's 400s was for 80.0 seconds at least.
Don't get too encouraged by a great workout and you will find it harder to be disappointed.
You nailed it. Good advice. The relatively "easy" 2:46's got me excited for a breakthru.
takes a while for training to kick in, four weeks of what may have been hard intervals and you may need a week down
Their is no such thing as a good or bad workout.
It is what it is. A workout. Progression is what it's about and it is not linear...
throw flats in the trash? wrote:
I'm discouraged with a recent poor workout. Here's the progression:
week 1: 6x800: each 2:50, 90s rest: felt good
week 2: 6x800: each 2:46, 80s rest: felt easy
week 3: 6x800: each 2:50, 75s rest : felt a bit harder than week 2)
week 4: 10x400: each around 84s, 55s rest. felt very hard. WTF? Plan was 12x400, but ended in disgust.
There are no bad workouts, just ones that do not go as planned. But what could be the issue is your weekly schedule. Take a look at what you did in week 2 and try to replicate it, maybe the answer lies in the training
keep at it
throw flats in the trash? wrote:
I'm discouraged with a recent poor workout. Here's the progression:
week 1: 6x800: each 2:50, 90s rest: felt good
week 2: 6x800: each 2:46, 80s rest: felt easy
week 3: 6x800: each 2:50, 75s rest : felt a bit harder than week 2)
week 4: 10x400: each around 84s, 55s rest. felt very hard. WTF? Plan was 12x400, but ended in disgust.
Easy, overtraining. You don't think you are, but you are.
Cut easy runs for next 2 weeks by ~25s per mile. Make it too easy if need be. End almost all your easy runs with 5-10 100m strides (not sprints, strides). You'll be fresh as a daisy and mentally refreshed too
One solution might be to measure time or distance of each repeat, not both. Workouts aren't really meant to be an indicator of fitness. They are meant to improve your fitness.
xcguy0988 wrote:
throw flats in the trash? wrote:I'm discouraged with a recent poor workout. Here's the progression:
week 1: 6x800: each 2:50, 90s rest: felt good
week 2: 6x800: each 2:46, 80s rest: felt easy
week 3: 6x800: each 2:50, 75s rest : felt a bit harder than week 2)
week 4: 10x400: each around 84s, 55s rest. felt very hard. WTF? Plan was 12x400, but ended in disgust.
There are no bad workouts, just ones that do not go as planned. But what could be the issue is your weekly schedule. Take a look at what you did in week 2 and try to replicate it, maybe the answer lies in the training
keep at it
I agree with this.
One thing I read about El Guerrouj that I thought was pretty crazy was that if he didnt hit his targets in a workout, then he would repeat it the next day.
Foreign Student from Pakistan wrote:
Progression is what it's about and it is not linear...
nailed it.
as long as your out there training hard, you'll be getting better, don't over think it.
Maybe you should go with the EFFORT rather than being so focused on your watch....
KAV wrote:
Maybe you should go with the EFFORT rather than being so focused on your watch....
Exactly. If I were the OP, I'd consider taking off the watch for the next couple of workouts.
Metric Miler wrote:
xcguy0988 wrote:There are no bad workouts, just ones that do not go as planned. But what could be the issue is your weekly schedule. Take a look at what you did in week 2 and try to replicate it, maybe the answer lies in the training
keep at it
I agree with this.
One thing I read about El Guerrouj that I thought was pretty crazy was that if he didnt hit his targets in a workout, then he would repeat it the next day.
Many great answers here.
It is perfectly normal to hit a variety of different times throughout a phase of training. You are going to have days that are faster, and days that are slower. Don't read too much into either.
Especially early in your season, which I assume you are from these workouts and my calendar, in these cases I would just run the workout by effort and not worry about the time. Take note of the numbers if you can do it without messing with your head, but at this point you know what a solid workout effort for 12x400 feels like. You can just go and do it, without obsessing over the average rep time every time out.
Say an early season staple for me is 4-5x1k with 2:00 rest, doing something like 3:15-3:20 at the quickest. If I'm struggling to 3:25+ in the middle of a hard week, I'll just do those Ks without timing, or switch over to simply going by time and running 3:00 hard, jogging easy for 2:00. Still a great VO2 workout in the barn and I don't panic about quantifying every last piece in the puzzle.
All that said, when you are sharpening and racing, you do want to hit your workouts on pace, and if you're feeling completely exhausted or flat (overtrained) in the first couple of reps it's OK and likely beneficial to pull the plug. Depending on your training set-up, you can probably come back to it the next day, and more importantly look at your overall week and recovery days so that you're arriving at your hard days ready to roll.
Metric Miler wrote:
xcguy0988 wrote:keep at it
I agree with this.
One thing I read about El Guerrouj that I thought was pretty crazy was that if he didnt hit his targets in a workout, then he would repeat it the next day.
Could you possibly remember a spurce for this? I believe you but I'm curious how he would do this.
Would he just stop and have an easy day after 2 pr 3 repeats off target? Or run the whole workout 2 days in a row?
A bad workout or two is much more preferable to a bad race. Perhaps you did not have it on that particular day? I would not worry about it, instead, focus on recovery and try again when you feel up to it. Forcing workouts inevitably turns into racing workouts, which rarely ends well.
Darren Ritz wrote:
KAV wrote:Maybe you should go with the EFFORT rather than being so focused on your watch....
Exactly. If I were the OP, I'd consider taking off the watch for the next couple of workouts.
Or do it over a nice flat piece of ground by time rather than distance.
I have to give props to my coach for this. When I miss splits the next few workouts he will usually have me run for time and based off feel. Last night I ran 10 x 2 minutes on, 2 minutes off. Great workout and feel better today.
Another good thing he has me do is run off distances. We get very focused and have expectations with 400s and 800s, but how about running a 650? I have no idea what a good 650 time is and have to do a lot of math to figure out if my split is within reason, so it's good because I just focus on the effort and don't stress the time like I would running a more traditional repeat.
Another option would be to do the next few workouts off the track as fartleks. Takes the time pressure off.
Along the lines of what others have said, I've learned to accept over the years that I'm not as good as the great workouts indicate BUT not as bad as the terrible ones.
Tell yourself this after a bad workout:
You can run worse than your fitness level, but you can't run better than it. Your better workouts show the fitness is there.