Didn't Ovett claim that he tried Ryun's 40 x 400m one evening but his father's torch went flat before they were finished. Claimed it was an act of stupidity as well.
Didn't Ovett claim that he tried Ryun's 40 x 400m one evening but his father's torch went flat before they were finished. Claimed it was an act of stupidity as well.
pkl wrote:
Taking into account Elud Kipchoge just recently run 105x400m at 1'08 (68'') with no rest, maybe a 60x400m interval at 63'' is not that difficult.
In any case, as far as I can remember, the pace faded dramatically as the workout advanced. And with jogging not timed recoveries you can rest as long as slow you can jog. And it's fiction.
In any case, I think it doesn't make much sense as a workout. You don't need such a strenous stimulus to elicit the physiological adaptations you look for with VO2max training.
Hey! You stole my Kipchoge stat!
Everyone on here is saying how stupid the effort is...when I first read that chapter (and each time after), I took it that Cassidy needed to run it for the mental benefits, not physical.
When you look at it like that superworkouts make more sense. Like a once a season or year 'Herculean effort' as one poster put it.
You know if you can do that then you can race anyone..
According to Toby Tanser, Benson Masya did 60x400 one morning in Albuquerque, after a two-week "party binge" that included lots of smoking and no running. The 400s were not in 63, however. At the end of the workout, he collapsed on the infield and slept for an hour. After a couple more weeks of "mammoth sessions," he was back in 28-minute 10K shape.
It wouldn't surprise me if a workhorse like John Ngugi did some workouts that combined similar volume with relatively high intensity. And Heny Rono, like Benson Masya, did massive crash training programs of high intensity and volume that quickly brought him into world-class shape after long periods of doing everything except running. I can think of a few other Kenyan runners who had similar reasons and capacities for high-volume, high-intensity crash training programs.
I'm not convinced, however, that stories about "superworkouts" by elite athletes are very valuable for runners who are just trying to get good. If your most impressive runs are in training instead of racing, there's a good chance that you're doing something wrong. (In fact, there's a good chance that you're injured.) And coaches who include such "superworkouts" in a regular training cycle may be committing malpractice.
I very much liked "Once a Runner," but I didn't like the chapter about the 60x400 workout, and thought it seemed out of character for a savvy coach and world-class athlete to prescribe that session for his young middle-distance runner. I much preferred Parker's writing about the incessant grind of good training.
I remember watching a video of a low tier professional doing 30x400 but it was at marathons pace
There is a video of NAZ Elite team doing 40 times 400. That being said, i think these idiot workouts are what make American's worse than east Africans, it's this process of over complicating running with dumb workouts that make people show up to the race and perform horribly.
GBohannon wrote:
I am not sure about 60 x 400 in 63, but this guy Kipchoge once ran 105.4875 x 400 in 68.49 with no rest in between reps.
This.
This.
Thisthisthisthisthisthis.
Shoebacca wrote:
Zatopek is the correct answer.
I just don't know how you don't lose a hamstring or Achilles. These aren't smart workouts.
Zatopek never did them in 63, neither did Ryun.
I was present wrote:
200 pride. Not sure what the point of that workout was, but it pretty epic.
The point of the workout was PRIDE!
No. But I have seen guys run a sub 4 mile (yes the backed up to the mile start)!at the end of a workout.
Not sure if ever confirmed:
"Now, that looks pretty tough and it is! But a study of Kenyan full-time 5km runners shows that this is precisely the type of work they do. Haile Gebrselassie (Ethiopia) told one of the writers’ athletes that his favourite session was 50 x 400m at 63 secs with thirty secs rest!"
Looks like this guy have something to tell.I really like his new way.
Ran 20 by 400m yesterday with recovery down to 120 bpm.
Woow! It was super!
That`s my kind of guy! Congrats! :)
Friend of Gerschler
yabbo wrote:
The first being John Bleday win the Heps 3k as a sophomore in 2012
While that's definitely top 5. The award goes to 5-8-77 Dead show. They said the moon landing was the pinnacle of the 20th Century. The Barton Hall Scarlet -> Fire is close.
That about Kenyan fulltime 5 km runners running 50 X 400 at 63 sec is in fact not true.....I am 100% sure! But what happens now and then is that they run f.ex 1 min fast-1 min slow for 90min to 2 hours at the roads at threshold pace for the fast intervals. There is a couple of myths during history of Kenyans training......
The Wizard
One winter I heard Jerry S had his distance crew do 20 miles at 530 pace. For a 3k5k guy that sounds monstrous
Used to run20x - 28x 440 @ 63 to 67 weekly in season back in the seventies. Normal workout back then.
Runner35824 wrote:
Used to run20x - 28x 440 @ 63 to 67 weekly in season back in the seventies. Normal workout back then.
What race pace were your 400s at (2mile, 3mile, 5k, 6mile, 10k...)?
Ran 440's@63 with 90 second interval which didn't allow for much rest is why some would fall to 67 later in the workout. Ran mile repeats @ 8 min min intervals for the longer races. Goal was 4.40 average for six to eight and tried to do all within 10 sec of goal. Trained more for 10 k.
Some of Igloi's athletes back in the 50s & 60s would cover similar distances in some workouts. The reps would be divided into sets which makes the total recovery time significantly longer. If I recall the relevant section of the book correctly, Cassidy did the 60 reps in sets, not knowing that there would be another set until Denton told him. This was a typical Igloi approach, wasn't it? But remember, Once A Runner is a work of fiction not a training manual!!!
Just sprung to mind; Brit great Gordon Pirie talked about workouts such as 80+ x 200 under the supervision of Gerschler at Freiburg in the 1950s. As he said, the key is the speed of each rep; if that is kept at a moderate level (which will be different for each individual) it is possible to build up to a huge number of reps.