All my faster races and PB's after I was 30 was done off of 10 x 100m with each one getting a bit faster so that the last 3 were pretty quick...that was the warmup. Rest for 5 minutes
Then I would do count downs for another 10 x 100, but this time I counted strides and each one had to be at least 1 stride less over the 100m. For example: If it took me 55 steps to run 100m in the first one, then the second one had to be 54 or less, but I had to be careful not to knock the count down too quickly [like running 50 steps in the second] because then I couldn't keep doing less and would come to a point that it was impossible. It is not as easy as it seems and it takes a lot of pace and stride length awareness to do it just right.
The point was that since I was a 400, 400mH, 800m, 1500m guy that I would need all my ranges of muscle strength in my race to be used the day before and that the count downs put me in that range somewhere in those 10 strides.
52, 50, 49, 48, 47, 46, 45, 44, 43, 42 was my ideal.....
I modeled this workout off of Hall of Fame track coach Berny Wagner who was my high school and university coach that you need to get lots of sleep two days out from a big race [48 hour cycle] and that the day before a big meet was not a day off, but the most important one to get the kinks out of the legs [a test spin] but not too much to leave me flat on race day.
George