Speed development progression

What race distance are you training for?

Whoops, should of read your whole post.

I like to transition to speed endurance work.

I do the speed dev like you mention during base/early season.

Mid and late season , the speed workouts shift to more directly ‘support’ the specific work. So, I like to start doing 100m efforts at a relaxed sprint pace (~400m pace) with jog back recoveries... working my way up to high reps (16-20, I’ve seen pros list many more reps in their schedules). I transition by swapping a couple pure speed reps for a handful of these endurance reps at the end of the workout.

Also mid/late season, I like to keep in touch with speed by doing 1-2 speed reps at the beginning of interval sets (for one of the track workouts each week).

Take a break from doing them the specific way you have been EVERY week. Try alternating weeks with some short hill sprints or bounding, which will recruit additional muscle fibers. Also agree that you should start improving the speed endurance, lengthen out the distance to 100m and longer, building up in reps, then drop down reps while stepwise increasing the distance again. Repeat. Keep up your other 5k endurance work and just sprinkle some these speed reps in at the end of one of those or do your more extensive session every third week. Speed/power will help your 5k but you can overdo it, be careful of too much speed volume, too often, or without enough rest. Don't confuse speed development, which you are doing, with max/supramax reps (200s, 300s, 400s, at or above VO2max pace ... 3k, mile, 800, 400 pace depending on the intended recovery interval) that also can improve running economy.

Bubbadeeboos wrote:

Whoops, should of read your whole post.

I like to transition to speed endurance work.

I do the speed dev like you mention during base/early season.

Mid and late season , the speed workouts shift to more directly ‘support’ the specific work. So, I like to start doing 100m efforts at a relaxed sprint pace (~400m pace) with jog back recoveries... working my way up to high reps (16-20, I’ve seen pros list many more reps in their schedules). I transition by swapping a couple pure speed reps for a handful of these endurance reps at the end of the workout.

Also mid/late season, I like to keep in touch with speed by doing 1-2 speed reps at the beginning of interval sets (for one of the track workouts each week).

Keep in touch with speed? Speed never returned my phone calls.

Think of all running on a spectrum of velocity from very short sprinting to jogging.

Some people label them differently using terms like vo2 max and threshold and tempo

Others use events like 100m speed, 400m speed, mile speed, marathon speed.

Some will use coaching terms like acceleration, special endurance.

For you as a 5k runner, think of every pace slower than your 5k pace on an endurance spectrum, and consider anything faster than 5k pace as a speed spectrum.

All runners SHOULD train all across the spectrum from sprinting to jogging. But how much of EACH is the art/science of training.

Since you have done 60m sprints, you should mix in some longer stuff at same intensity (near max). But every so often return to just the short sprints. Once you develop a quality, you should never leave it totally, do enough to maintain.

60-90m can be called short speed endurance (6-9 min. rest per rep)

90-150m can be called speed endurance (9-15 min rest per rep)

150-300 can be called special endurance (15-20 min rest per rep)

300-600 can be called special endurance 2 (15+ min rest per rep)

As a 5k person, you don't need a lot of this, but maybe once every 10-21 days you could use a warm up and longer cooldown for your mileage, or double later in the day. But as the primary session this could be the day for FASTEST running. Too many people disregard this part of the speed spectrum when they are "distance runners." Running at all velocities will promote health because you will challenge all of your systems (nervous, musculo/tendon, etc.) in ways that are often neglected. The benefits to "speed reserve" and running economy are excellent. Learning to deal with the acidosis that accompanies such training is good. And it won't hurt you aerobically if you use proper proportions.

Thanks very much to all for the nice and very helpful answers!

Here’s an old RunningTimes article by Jay Johnson. I believe there are some YouTube videos with the article too.

https://www.runnersworld.com/advanced/a20788111/speed-development/

Speed development is a combination of physical strength and neuromuscular coordination. Get fast early in life. Sprinting fast is like ballet/point. You need to start early in life. You have to keep working at it.