Winter Mileage Question

Just start running every day, no need to be afraid of it, you just finished XC, right? Do the winter conditioning stuff, if your coach has it. Something is better than nothing, and doing nothing last year still got you decent times. At some point you want to get faster, right? Well, another year under your belt helps, so will winter training. Don’t forget the agility, stretching, calisthenics stuff too, if your coach has it. Enjoy it, show up, do the work, then go to the HS basketball game, movie, or date. If your body feels good, go with it, a good winter usually leads to a good spring. Peaking in HS is sometimes confused with burnout/plateauing for those who hammer every workout. Work, yes, but you’ll know when you’re struggling and should back off. Finishing feeling like you could have done more is probably about right for training, save gasing yourself the last lap of your races ... and remember to recover.

I like what low to high said. Excellent.

You have some talent but realize that high school is the beginning. Jim Ryun peaked at age 21, yet we have had Olympians win gold in their late 30s. In fact I read about guys in the early 40s who still could be considered elites because they give guys like Galen Rupp are hard run in 10Ks and marathons.

There were 3212 high school boys who ran under 2 minutes for the 800 last year and I am not counting the indoor season or times not reported. That means you must be patient not that you cannot get faster. Jim Ryun started at a 57 quarter mile and ran a 47 split when he finished up.

Sprint/Speed must be worked one day a week at least every 10 days and a recovery day must follow to take advantage of the nervous system development. You will not feel tired but part of your body needs recovery. (That's why coaches don't do it. They think it's not worth the trouble and the easy day.) Ryan Hall did it and ran the marathon in 2:04...mile in 4:02 and etc.

1. Your ultimate peak is determined by your aerobic conditioning. This mean longer long runs.

2. Yet your most important element will always be speed endurance.

3. A mistake many people make is not doing sprint/speed development~7 x 60 full rests, short hills, bounding uphills, fast dynamic running, skipping rope, etc. Work on FORM and acceleration just like a sprinter. Talk to a good sprint coach multiple times.

Recovery runs are as important as all of the above...do not do a tempo run after any of the above

three things.

Perhaps the most important thing is to keep asking questions, reading, and asking yet more questions.

No book, video, or cd is complete. Not book can tell you all you need to know about anything.

Most of all rely on your talent...it's a gift. Bill Dellinger, Prefontaine's real coach would tell you that.

This means if you miss a day or even a month you can come back again. Rest and recovery in every way are important.

waltertompatton wrote:

1. Your ultimate peak is determined by your aerobic conditioning. This mean longer long runs.

2. Yet your most important element will always be speed endurance.

3. A mistake many people make is not doing sprint/speed development~7 x 60 full rests, short hills, bounding uphills, fast dynamic running, skipping rope, etc. Work on FORM and acceleration just like a sprinter. Talk to a good sprint coach multiple times.

Recovery runs are as important as all of the above...do not do a tempo run after any of the above

three things.

I agree about the speed development, but I didn't have problems to do a moderate LT/tempo run the day after the sprint workout. Those targets different energy systems. After these two days I did usually 2 days of high-medium volume easy mileage, then a recovery day followed by the hardest endurance workout of the week done in saturday, before a Sunday long run. This was the best pattern that I found, and could do all the different workouts, with enough basic mileage in a 7-day cycle. I took down weeks, no rest days in the hard weeks.

Running 6 days a week won't injure you unless you're in old shoes or dumb about the miles you do on those days. Running more will only help and will running 40-50 mpw will not slow you down in the 400, no amount of mileage will.

Start off the first half of the winter doing 40-50 miles a week. Since you only do the 400 and 1600 you don't need all that much mileage. Throw in a tempo run like once a week during the phase, and do strides almost every day. If you want to keep your speed start throwing in speed workouts such as repeats (200s or 400s) and some hill sprints. If you need to you can try lowering your mileage at this point, but it would be best if you kept it the same.

Honestly, I would say to keep it simple. Just run 5-6 miles a day Monday through Friday and 8-10 mile long run or a road race on Saturdays. Sleep in and take the day off on Sundays. Do 10 strides 2-3 days a week after one of the runs to stay in touch with your speed.

robert678 wrote:

Honestly, I would say to keep it simple. Just run 5-6 miles a day Monday through Friday and 8-10 mile long run or a road race on Saturdays. Sleep in and take the day off on Sundays. Do 10 strides 2-3 days a week after one of the runs to stay in touch with your speed.

Honestly, did you even read the post? The OP wants to improve his 400. You don't really "touch your speed" by just some strides. You have to SPRINT.

It sounds like you have a fair amount of talent to do that off of little volume. Also, I would be to say that your coach must know what he's doing at least in season with workouts/anaerobic peaking since you've run as well as you have.

Agree with most of these guys. IF you want to make a jump, you've got to run more. My advice is don't go after any arbitrary numbers, but simply increase the volume over the next couple of months leading into the season. 10% increase per week going up 3 weeks and down 1 week has yielded positive results with minimal injury risk in my experience. Up the volume slowly, listen to your body, and let your coach do his job in season.

ie. 45, 50, 55, 42, 61, 67, 73, 55, 80.....?

I agree with most everything posted on this thread so far with two main caveats

1. Max sprint speed. Don't just go out and say, "I'm going to sprint ALL OUT" this will lead to poor mechanics and wasted energy. When you do your really fast stuff, focus on top relaxed speed. I'm sure your coach has you do all of the same form drills that everyone else does. Focus on the components of running mechanics that are taught by the drills. When you are doing your fast stuff, really emphasize the mechanics and gradually (over the entire off season) work on being faster while maintaining those good mechanics. If you have a short hill, that is an excellent place to work on your form. The incline of the hill will provide the extra resistence needed to cause you to recruit a large number of muscle fibers without having to sprint "ALL OUT"

2. Mileage increases. It takes around 3 weeks for your body to adapt to a new workload. This year, I'm trying to have my kids work in 3 week blocks during the off season. So, if has a peak mileage from a pervious base period of X, then we will try to get to a peak mileage for this period of X+ 5 to 10. We want to get to that peak without straining or undue fatigue and we are going to try and hit that peak 2-3 times during the base period. The first time we will try and hit the mileage peak, all of the mileage will be pretty easy with the only fast runs being organic on days that the athlete "feels it". The only speed will be strides a couple of times a week. The 4th week will be pretty easy, maybe 70% of peak mileage. One of the days in the easy week might be something fast, just to test out where the fitness level is. The second time we hit the mileage peak, the plan is to bring in steady state/tempo efforts as part of a progression run. One day a week, the strides will be lengthened out to short repetitions such as 200s, which will be done at the end of a regular distance run. Once a week, we'll just touch on some very fast running (3 x 60 FAST as part of the warm up, for example. I'm not one of the coaches that believe that one day a week needs to be dedicated to max sprinting). If we are able to get a 3rd 3 week block, the emphasis will be to change the informal progression runs into more formalized threshold runs and lengthening the 200s to longer reps.

CoachB -- I definitely agree with your first paragraph about max sprint speed, in particular your points regarding running relaxed and not going (and not needing to go) "all out."

Question -- In a situation in which practice time is very limited, could you list the form drills you believe are most critical? As I'm sure you know, there are lots of drills, many of which can be beneficial. If time constraints permit only a few, which ones do you view as the most fundamental and essential?

You need to hire the best sprint coach you can and one day a week work with him on form drills and all out speed take the next day off and take one other day off one long run one strong run and strides twice a week after easy run.

Good luck and post how it is going for you from time to time

You have some talent... I suggest starting at 40 miles per week and working up to 50-55 or so slowly. You have about 11-12 weeks If I am not mistaken, so building a base is essential. You must have a good coach. All I can say is listen to him and like others have said having another year to train helps in development. In terms of speed, I’d dedicate one day to running hills and flat out sprints. Flying 30-40m sprints have given me a benefit, as well as 60m at a max velocity. Maintain good sprinting mechanics, and staying relaxed is your KEY. Work on your drills religiously as those mechanics help carry over to your form if of course practiced.

CoachB wrote:

I'm not one of the coaches that believe that one day a week needs to be dedicated to max sprinting).

A good post overall. I want to respond to this part. I'm not either saying that in the sprint day you should just sprint basically without any slower running afterwards/before. But it depends from your main event. If you want to do a 30-45min easy run after the sprints, it will not spoil the sprint session. You've recruited the sprint muscles and done some basic mileage afterwards, no problems. A distance runner must get the miles in. But the training of an 800m runner is of different, demanding more emphasis on the pure speed and anaerobic capacity work, and they might want to hit the gym rather than distance after a sprint workout. Like I used to do, when was training for the 800m.

Everything being said here is good. A few things I’d like to add that are underestimated:

1. Stretching/Flexibility (I believe it was said by a poster to do HOWEVER) previous 400m runner WR holder, Michael Johnson, even said himself his times improved once he added stretching. Flexibility puts a limit to your stride potential.

2. Power/Explosiveness ... very important for the 400m. Will help your 800m time and therefore your mile time essentially. Single leg plyometrics and bounding done as well are good. Circuits of jumping are also good. Do these when fresh.

3. Hip Flexor - I feel as if it is very underestimated. Performing resistance sit ups, hill sprints, etc are all good for developing a stronger hip flexor. This is very helpful for again your 400m and other distances.

General info, but just thought I’d add the tiny bits. Good luck this season

steve red wrote:

You need to hire the best sprint coach you can and one day a week work with him on form drills and all out speed take the next day off and take one other day off one long run one strong run and strides twice a week after easy run.

Good luck and post how it is going for you from time to time

10/10 You obviously know a lot and we could learn from you! I am going to use this post to speak to the rest of the guys on here. Some know what they are talking about and a few may be very confused.

I have been posting a very good periodization based on modern Lydiard concepts. By "modern Lydiard concepts," I mean what has been learned off of what he preached by good coaches. That is--- what they added to his knowledge.

I post under many other usernames on here and people do not get it. I mean they do not understand the importance of getting all the elements in and yet getting recovery from all of them.

Obviously no one can write all there is to know about training even in a 600 page book. Life is not that simple.

Speed Endurance will always be the most important variable especially in events like the 1600 which require both. However you have to add that with intelligence and patience. You build it to a peak and then back off slowly the last four weeks to peak.

Every type of run can and probably should be utilized all season including the peaking time. Your long run will be shorter and you do more sharpening during that phase.

The easiest thing to develop in training is muscular strength, second is endurance, the most difficult to improve is speed. Perhaps if someone already has incredible speed it's not important to work on it. Just realize that doing strides will not increase speed!

Study the career of Ryan Hall. Hall was coached by his dad in high school. They did one sprint/speed type workout per week all year. He was a 4:02 miler and tremendous 5k and 10k runner at Stanford.

Now he is the current American record holder in the marathon at 2:04. In addition, if I remember correctly, he has the top two American times in that event. He never quit doing his sprint/speed workouts at any point where he was healthy.

I could give you the article where he explains this but then I would have to give away my identity.

But people will believe what they want to believe anyway. I'm writing for the terrific high school kids that are reading this.

I just read all of the posts and there are definitely some beneficial things on here I'd like to incorporate and I hope others do as well. Most people's insight I agree on. I've been very busy with school and outside things, but I will reply to posts tomorrow/ask a few questions as I'm very tired now. The most recent post is interesting, I will definitely research on Ryan Hall. Thanks again everyone so far for posting, and if anyone else has anything else to add it would be appreciated.