Anybody do 70-90s anymore

Bob, is that you?

I think the runners now a days don't seem to adjust midrace like we did back in the day. Trying to get a distance runner to not use a watch and actually "feel" pace just isn't the common thing anymore. That is why we have a generation of pacers and not a generation of racers. I've tried to use the "feel the pace" workouts on my runners and they seem to respond by adjusting to pace changes in their races better than most.

I am 45, and I have to admit to being a bit of a slave to my watch rather than feel. It isn't that I am incapable of locking into a specific pace - outside of the first 200m of any interval, I can tell you exactly what pace I am running for any given 200m of any interval in a workout within a second without looking down at my watch. But I have always been of the belief that I have a good sense of what kind of shape I am going into a race and, since the best way to run your optimal time is with even splits, I have always focused on running my own race rather than worrying about what others are doing.

This has always worked much better for me on the track than it did on the cross country course or than it does on the roads, of course, since once you get gapped on the roads or in cross country, it is really tough to comeback. But I still use this approach on the roads today because I so frequently end up in no man's land in road races, so the ability to just race folks simply isn't there.

I will admit that it has probably limited me over time on big "pops" where I have dramatic improvements in my PRs.

Used to do a similar workout with a very well-known local coach. It was alternating 400@mile pace, 200@5k pace for 1 mile at a time, recovery was I believe 4-800m.

It was exceedingly rare for anyone to do more than two of these, I think only 2 kids did more than 2 when I was training with this group. One became an NCAA champion.

No. 4 times a year I ran the "as close as you can get (or better!)" 50-50-50-50 seconds for 400-200-400-200.

I really liked it and it helped my a lot.

AnthonyD4 wrote:

I never have but my coach is a former elite runner and he used to do a similar workout but do 30-40 for each 200 and did that for 2-3 miles which is mind-boggling to me, that's 4:40 pace!

Is your coach Bill Dellinger?

OP, that sounds like an excellent workout.

The other day I did 12x(2x400) continuous - 9600m alternating half marathon pace with marathon pace.

So maybe a bit slower and longer than your college workout.

Great training.

I don't disagree with you, using a watch for road race training is one thing but this workout wouldn't be that. Doing this workout incorrectly will happen once and you'll learn from it. That's a subtle nuance these kids lack now a days.

I'm 45 myself so we grew up in the same era.

I did just do 3'x 2400 cruise intervals on the track as my workout tonight. Checked splits frequently for first interval, didn't check at all for my second or third. Total spread between my fastest 2400 and my slowest? 3.1 seconds. That's some old man experience right there.

I used to run 70/90 a ton in the summers. I'd do workouts of 32-45 for 200s I'd call it my 2X2 workout. Then I'd do 15-30 for 100s. The 200s and the 100s I'd play around on and work on my form. I'd usually spend a 100 of the 200s alternating between high knees, half-assed butt kicks, stride length, and cadence. I'd never do any certain number and would often switch or combine the 400, 200 and 100s in the same workout. Id just go for 20-45 minutes depending on how I was feeling.

I find myself doing this type of workout still with 200's. 45-65 is where I'm at now.

Sounds like a great workout by virtue of running your recovery lap at 6:00 mile pace. Challenging.

I'm going back 40 years, but UMass cross country used to do a 5 @ 1-mile workout. We'd do the next repeat as soon as our heart rate went down to... umm... OK so I forget that part. 4 miles warmup & down to the repeat mile site, total on day 14 miles.

A very different workout, but equally great for getting strong and fast.

The best guys on the team were averaging in the 4:30s, with some single repeats well under 4:30.

Results, IC4A championship '77 and also 16th, 17th place at NCAA.

And darn it, as a 60 year old who still races, I'm still a slave to the clock. My wristband broke on my running watch yesterday. What an opportunity!

Great job! Glad you understand what I said rather than get defensive.

Dingler wrote:

AnthonyD4 wrote:

I never have but my coach is a former elite runner and he used to do a similar workout but do 30-40 for each 200 and did that for 2-3 miles which is mind-boggling to me, that's 4:40 pace!

Is your coach Bill Dellinger?

As a former UO runner in the early to mid 1980's, I can remember Dellinger having us do 30-40's. Hurt like hell.

I forget how many Pre did. Some obscene number that showed what a machine he was. Salazar was another who ran a high number.

jvrunsfar wrote:

Dingler wrote:

Is your coach Bill Dellinger?

As a former UO runner in the early to mid 1980's, I can remember Dellinger having us do 30-40's. Hurt like hell.

I forget how many Pre did. Some obscene number that showed what a machine he was. Salazar was another who ran a high number.

30/40s are another level. That is basically 1500m/marathon pace (well a bit slower) which is rough.

I thought 70/90s were supposed to be about 3-5k pace/marathon pace type workout. It is tough but it is still a pretty aerobic workout.

jvrunsfar wrote:

Dingler wrote:

Is your coach Bill Dellinger?

As a former UO runner in the early to mid 1980's, I can remember Dellinger having us do 30-40's. Hurt like hell.

I forget how many Pre did. Some obscene number that showed what a machine he was. Salazar was another who ran a high number.

For those not familiar, the goal was to get 12, but few actually did without falling off pace. Salazar did 16, Pre did 18!

Haven't checked in on LR for a while. I had seen that this thread made the link on the main page....wooohooo, my first ever!

For the poster who asked about adapting the workout for high school kids....It really only works when you have a homogenous group. If you've got 50-60 kids running around the track at all ability levels, this workout is impossible to manage. It's a great workout, but the paces have to be dialed in to the runner's ability level, very difficult to do with a large, heterogenous group.

If you had a varsity group that had somewhere less than a 60 second spread during a 5k race, you could probably peg the workout at a level that would be appropriate for your 3-4 guys. The top guys could go an extra mile and the 5-7 guys would have to work a little over their heads to keep up (or drop off a rep early, or something like that.

I used to do 30/40s and 70/90s with my top varsity runner a few years ago. The rest of the varsity squad would do 70/90s.

But I adjusted it for a high school runner.

Conceptually, you have to think of it is a variation of mile pace to an up-tempo steady pace or a marathon pace (from 4:00/mi pace to 5:20/mi pace) every 200m for an elite college runner. So for high school runner that was 4:30/9:45/15:50, I would do 33/45. If he was hitting 33/44 or 33/43, I would be happy with the result. The kid would still hit 16:20 for 3 miles in a workout. Basically, a tempo run but with greater spikes of lactate production.

Similarly, you have to look at the 70/90 as the variation between 10k pace and a regular distance run pace (from 4:40/mi pace to 6:00/mi pace). So for my top guy, I was looking more for 80/100; 5:20 pace to 6:40 pace. Others would be 85/105.

You can run this workout with different abilities as long as you don't look at the name of the workout as a set time. Conceptualize it as variations of the type of effort and switching gears. Injecting a spike of lactate in the system and clearing. Physiologically, it is trying to do the same thing whether it is Lydiard's fartleks, Dellinger's 30/40 or 70/90 drills, Deek's Quarters, or Canova's alternation workouts. You actually see something similar in Daniel's books where you do sets 4x200 at race pace followed by a 1200 or 1600 at tempo pace.

I'd adapt it so the slower people would just drop off 1-2 reps early, not unlike how Summer of Malmo is adaptable for all runners (in that case, the slower runners run fewer reps or just jump in at the end).

I just found Deek's Quarters and should have used this in my current block of marathon training but I'll do it in the spring/summer for the fall block (2022 Columbus).

Alternative Pacing wrote:

Rupp went continuous 5 miles of 30/40 200s before Al Sal stopped him.

I loved this workout, but could never go past 5k. This was a gear shifter without much backing off.