800/1600 winter training

Zola Budd

The day after your last XC race for the season is over is the day that training for track season begins. Try to get in a lot of miles between that day and the first day of track practice. Increase your mileage gradually and put in a combination of easy days and hard days. If unsure, error on the side of making it an easy day. Consistency will pay big dividends. I would also include one rest day a week where you don't run at all.

I would take a different approach. Focus on building to 60 mpw and establish a strong endurance base first by doing longer, extensive intervals (like 1k @ CV) and tempo-runs. Only strides and some 800/mile-paced 200s and hill charges in small amounts.

THEN introduce harder intervals, around 800-1600m race-pace, as part of "Combo Workouts" that still include some stamina - like 4x1k @3:20, or a 20 min Tempo @3:30 before doing the specific stuff.

Also, you can use easy/unimportant meets to get in more threshold/stamina work, by doing a 20-30 min tempo or 5x1k AFTER the race. Salazar used this very successfully in his runners, as it allows them to only have 2 hard days a week and get most out of them.

If someone can split mid 51 in a relay, speed is not the problem if he only runs 1:58 and 4:30, but endurance is. So to me it's clear what the runner should focus on in the winter.

It sounds like you are looking past indoor. Is that so?

I am almost finished with my XC season, and am looking to train smart, but thoroughly this winter. Would you suggest tinman reps and such during base phase? I followed a more lydiard mileage approach this past summer, but would CV workouts be fine to do in January/February when the season starts in April?

coleiolio wrote:

I am almost finished with my XC season, and am looking to train smart, but thoroughly this winter. Would you suggest tinman reps and such during base phase? I followed a more lydiard mileage approach this past summer, but would CV workouts be fine to do in January/February when the season starts in April?

CV can (and should!) be done year-round. Tinman is based on Lydiard, actually there is misconception about Lydiard. Most people think it's only mileage, mileage, mileage but Lydiard also had long tempo runs (Tinman would call them "Tinman Tempo") around optimal fat-burning effort which is around MP.

Jan-March could be like this:

Building to 90 min LR over hills with strides

1 CV workout, 6x1k @CV & 4x200 @mile/800

1 Tinman Tempo, building from 30 min to 40 min, @Tinman Tempo pace & 6x30s hills after

3-4 easy runs, often with strides

Then, once 800/1600 races start, you would cut the CV and Tempo around half in duration, and add some specific work after, like 5x300 @800 or 8x200 @800 for a 800m runner. Slightly longer intervals for a miler (like 400s, or 600s). In weeks with a race, you could do a Tinman Tempo afterwards to keep stamina at a high level.

Coach X wrote:

It sounds like you are looking past indoor. Is that so?

I am looking past indoor. I like the idea of having some meets over the winter, without peaking, but that is not an option. We will have around a dozen meets, as the league dictates. They are not important, and I know we will do well, but not peak to do our best. I would honestly skip it if I thought the kids could keep their focus without the team training and meets.

last year, we did not have indoor, and this kid was not doing the training we had planned, and then was injured into April. So he only had around 6 or 7 weeks to build anything up after doing almost nothing for 4 months. We knew the 2 mile would be garbage, and he would not get the mile where he could, so we focused mostly on speed for 800, as we had a good shot to get our 4x8 to states. And we did. We are hoping to be at 4:15 to 4:20 this year. I will use a lot of the tinman type training philosophies in the plan, but will also include short 50 meter hills or flying sprints on a fairly regular basis. I don't like getting away from that stuff for too long and then having to get back into it from zero. The way these high school 800 and 1600 races run at states, a HUGE kick will be needed, so we'd like to be closer to 50 flat speed.

I respect Tinman, but he is shitty for the 800,look at Hunter, Joseph they re decent at the mile but 1.49ish for the eight.... come on it s a good hs time off 20miles a week

For the 800 you need more agressive longer reps along tempos nut that 10k pace rubish, and most importantly you need an Entry workout for faster reps (3k to 800 pAce all relaxed)

Basicly a tempo, longer reps 10k pace Cutting down to 3k is ex.5-6*800. Last one fast and an entry workout of 200 to 400 reps. Sprints once or twice, you need anaerobic work.

I trained that rubish combo workout , some 200s to mantain your speed at mile pace bulsshit way and ended up running somewhat 1.57.

With lest mileage and more agressive longer reps, entry day of shor reps ran sub 1.50

Phil, I really like the idea of adding the reps or tempo on meet days. This will be the plan, though we will be working around 30 to 40 other teams in the facility, and often several inches of snow, mud, and freezing conditions outside of the indoor facility. It is not ideal. 55 to 60 miles per week will be the volume goal, as well, though weather conditions along with possibly no treadmill access on sundays could be a problem in that respect.

Kb. wrote:

I respect Tinman, but he is shitty for the 800,look at Hunter, Joseph they re decent at the mile but 1.49ish for the eight.... come on it s a good hs time off 20miles a week

For the 800 you need more agressive longer reps along tempos nut that 10k pace rubish, and most importantly you need an Entry workout for faster reps (3k to 800 pAce all relaxed)

Basicly a tempo, longer reps 10k pace Cutting down to 3k is ex.5-6*800. Last one fast and an entry workout of 200 to 400 reps. Sprints once or twice, you need anaerobic work.

I trained that rubish combo workout , some 200s to mantain your speed at mile pace bulsshit way and ended up running somewhat 1.57.

With lest mileage and more agressive longer reps, entry day of shor reps ran sub 1.50

plan to focus on hard, short stuff starting in February, which should be plenty of time to build for early June. But endurance will be a higher focus December/January.

It doesnt need to be hard, and it also improves endurance and stamina, even Tinman wrote about weekly seperate anarobic stamina training in a hypotetical Nick Symmonds training in the runzone.

He suggested a weekly session in sets at 80-90%of someone 600pace along cv s and sprints and. A long run.

Just keep in the mind that Salazar's famous post-race workouts were being completed by highly trained athletes who...ahem...had the ability to recover extremely quickly from hard efforts. Be careful not to overdo things.

The 50m hills/30-40 dash might be useful, many coaches have them in their training plan. Tinman doesn't like anything that's all-out sprinting, unless you are a sprinter. The problem with 30-40 dash is the injury risk. You don't want to lose one of your runners or set him back several months due to a strain gained in an all-out sprint on the flat. The hill sprints are much safer and I would definitely do many hill sprints before moving to the flat.

About the kick, more than often it's not the fastest 400 guy winning the kick, but whoever has most left in the tank at the end. So getting aerobically more fit is probably more useful in a kick than just working on sprint or 400m speed, unless it's the limiter (which for most young 800m runners it almost never is). Bring their endurance up, and they will have much more left in the tank when the bell rings and can close much quicker and closer to their 400m speed, and also for longer (400-600m and not just 200m at end).

Bonkers wrote:

Just keep in the mind that Salazar's famous post-race workouts were being completed by highly trained athletes who...ahem...had the ability to recover extremely quickly from hard efforts. Be careful not to overdo things.

That is very true. These runners have extremely good VO2MAX/aerobic development and recover much faster from intense races or workouts than an average HS kid.

The thing is, it is still better to do 2 hard days+LR AND a post-race workout if one of the hard days is a race than doing 2 hard days + a race or than just doing 1 hard day + a race.

Instead of a typical Salazar post-race-workout, which would be 5xMile at 5k pace (Rupp) or 20 min @10-15k + 600/400/300/200 all-out which he assigned to Hasay/Cain, you could assign them an easier tempo run at MP and some shorter reps at just mile-pace, and maybe 800 for the last 1-2. I would assign the aerobically strong kids (good 10k time) a bit more work, and the weaker ones maybe just the tempo to make sure they can absorb it.

about the kicking at the end, i know in general the kick comes down to better endurance, but the last couple years at states for new york, they have been running the races in a sit and kick style, similar to Centrowitz in 2016. I'm talking kids going out in 62 and finishing in 1:54. The 1600 was more honest than that, and would definitely come down to the endurance.

Phil, I am more and more coming to favor the hill sprints. I do believe it was short flat sprints that derailed my guy last year, though much of that was him saying he had worked up to 10x40 on his own, when in reality, he may not have been even close to that. We are working the hills most weeks in cross right now, so if we do go to the flats, he will a strong base from those.