150m's for the 800m

This early on in the season, I structure my training as 50 easy miles per week with 150s between 400 and 800 pace every other day. Long run on the weekend. It should be fine.

you can run the full 150m without having to slow down before the end, right? if so then keep it on. it is not perfect but make the best out of it. as the poster above says 150m is great. your idea of running back and forth to get in 300m (slow down and accelerate) should be included. think about a hard tempo run of 20-30mins (or 4-5x5min/1-2min jog rest) after a good warm up here and then.

later you can shorten the rest to make it more specific. 2-3sets of 6x150/30s rest at true goal race pace is a very good workout.

correction: 2 sets of 6x150/30s rest.

3 sets would be too much.

How long should the rest be between the sets?

PotatoRunner wrote:

How long should the rest be between the sets?

What is your goal for the session? If it’s more of a pure speed session take more rest. Like 2-3 minutes. If it’s meant to be more aerobic then take shorter rest.

In Algeria we trained ala Igloi in our group. Thus we were heavy mileage with most of it in interval format.

The primary distance we did? The length of a football (soccer) field.

Examples might be:

Warm up jog,

10x100m fresh with 10 second walk in between ,

then 4x150 hard with 250m slow,

10x100m easy with every third fresh (10m walk) , then 10x100 (2x Easy,hard,easy, all out, easy ) , 2x150m very hard with 250m walk, then cooldown jog.

We used the following nomenclature

Slow is very slow

Easy is normal pace

Fresh is 5k intensity

Hard is mile intensity

Very hard is 800m intensity

All out is a sprint

The above style of work was done 4x a week. We obviously were doping as were our peers so I do not recommend natural runners try this more than 3 times in a week.

150s don’t build much Lactate. At this part of the year I think that’s more ideal. You work on speed but don’t burn the legs up. Save the 300s for the spring.

MohammedAA wrote:

In Algeria we trained ala Igloi in our group. Thus we were heavy mileage with most of it in interval format.

The primary distance we did? The length of a football (soccer) field.

Examples might be:

Warm up jog,

10x100m fresh with 10 second walk in between ,

then 4x150 hard with 250m slow,

10x100m easy with every third fresh (10m walk) , then 10x100 (2x Easy,hard,easy, all out, easy ) , 2x150m very hard with 250m walk, then cooldown jog.

We used the following nomenclature

Slow is very slow

Easy is normal pace

Fresh is 5k intensity

Hard is mile intensity

Very hard is 800m intensity

All out is a sprint

The above style of work was done 4x a week. We obviously were doping as were our peers so I do not recommend natural runners try this more than 3 times in a week.

This was very interesting, but I can't tell whether you were being serious at the end of this post?!

Is there any chance that you could translate the descriptions into percentage of 5km pace? E.g. is mile pace 110% of 5km pace or faster? Similarly for 800m pace?

PotatoRunner wrote:

Should I do 6-8 x 300m by doing something close in swimming like running the 150m, touch the ground, then run another 150m back on same pace or keep doing this.

If you do this, be very careful at the turnaround. Running shoes are not supportive of lateral movements and running muscles aren't adapted to lateral movements. It's even riskier as you get tired after a few reps.

That's not to imply that you shouldn't do it. Just be mindful of the turns and don't try to do them as fast as possible. Your 300m times will be slower due to the turn, but don't worry about it. There won't be a quick turn in your race so you don't need to train to do it fast. Just do it safe.

If you mean the comment regarding doping, I was being serious. We doped. I doped. Year round in some way, shape, or form.

Regarding pacing and intensity, Igloi work is all done by feel. That said, for fast runners, a good rule of thumb would be to use something like McMillan or Daniels for pacing. A mentioned, I judged by feel personally, and our coaches would time us on some repeats (but definitely not every one).

The Horwill rule of 4-5 seconds per 400m (1 second per 100m) for a doubling of distance is a good one.

Thus, if your 800m is 2:00 (easy for math purposes), you are running 15 seconds per 100m. Your Mile intensity would be 16-16.5 seconds per 100m (roughly 4:17-4:27 mile) , and your 5k about 18-19 seconds per 100m (15:00 - 15:50 5k). If you put this into McMillan it is close enough (2:00 800m = 4:26 1600m = 15:28 5k).

MohammedAA wrote:

If you mean the comment regarding doping, I was being serious. We doped. I doped. Year round in some way, shape, or form.

Regarding pacing and intensity, Igloi work is all done by feel. That said, for fast runners, a good rule of thumb would be to use something like McMillan or Daniels for pacing. A mentioned, I judged by feel personally, and our coaches would time us on some repeats (but definitely not every one).

The Horwill rule of 4-5 seconds per 400m (1 second per 100m) for a doubling of distance is a good one.

Thus, if your 800m is 2:00 (easy for math purposes), you are running 15 seconds per 100m. Your Mile intensity would be 16-16.5 seconds per 100m (roughly 4:17-4:27 mile) , and your 5k about 18-19 seconds per 100m (15:00 - 15:50 5k). If you put this into McMillan it is close enough (2:00 800m = 4:26 1600m = 15:28 5k).

Yes, that is what I meant. Fascinating, thanks for replying! I assume that you were quite a high level runner? Can you indicate how high? I suppose this would be the 80s or 90s? And I don't suppose you could elaborate on how you felt about it at the time? Did you feel pressured into it? Did you welcome it, or uncomfortable with it? Did you consider the ethics of it, or were just focused on performance, and felt it necessary to do it since everybody else was?

Thank you for your elaboration about paces. Even though it goes against the Igloi philosophy, somehow I personally find it easier to think in terms of percentage of 5km pace, and I think that what you describe does suggest that mile pace is around 110% of 5km pace, perhaps very slightly faster; and 800m pace would be about 120% of 5km pace.

I am mid 40's in age. I ran an 800m sub 1:45. My 1500 was comparable. My competitive years were late 90's mostly.

Doping was an is what we did. No pressure, and no qualms (I think that is the word?) about it. I never felt guilty, nor trapped.

Ethics? Either everybody is allowed to dope, or be firm on it. Don't let the Usain Bolt's of the world get away with it, and then enforce it elsewhere. Either all in, or all out. But stop the facade and the cherry-picking of who gets caught and who does not.

At that time, beating the tests was rather easy.

To be honest, it helps, but the fast people are fast anyway. I doubt there are too many people on my continent, at my age, who can beat me in a 400m, 800m, or 1500m. I do not dope now. I take legal supplements and weigh 15 pounds more now than I did then, albeit all muscle. The real issue wasn't the doping, it was the staying as slim as possible. We would do things to lose muscle (in my example) as weight is bad..including muscular weight. I'm far more muscular naturally than most runners (more like a 200m/400m build) so getting light for the 800m was problematic. Clenbuterol and other aids are used to speed up the metabolism. These were far worse than the performance enhancer aspects.

Apologies as English is not my native tongue, and therefore a deviate between over-formality and egregious grammatical errors.

This is fascinating. Of course I am taking on faith that this is true, but for some reason I believe it. I think that there is only one person who you could possibly be, but I will respect your anonymity. :-) I respect your honesty greatly, thank you for sharing your training!

puh, what a post. looks authentic. i'm not the one to judge something here. everyone is responsible for themselves. in any case, thank you for this post and sharing your training.

to the op:

i have slowly increased the intensity in the sharpening phase. at first 3 sets of 4x150/30sec rest at true 800m pace, 2-3min slow jog between the sets which is harder than it might look (this year i will take a little bit more of rest between the sets). the next week i ran 2 sets of 5x150/30sec, about 5min rest between the sets (had to push at the end). third week, i tried 2 sets of 6x150/30sec rest and about 10min light jog between the sets. i have to say that i am not a believer in monster-workouts, so a volume of 1800m in total at race pace is beyond what i consider to be purposeful. but it was worth it. in the fourth and last week of my sharpening i ran my best workout of the whole year (3x400/4min rest, the fastest 400 at the end).

May I ask a few follow up questions? I think this is important history (taking on faith again that it is true). Did you run the 1500m in high-level competition? Would you say, or do you know for a fact, that all athletes around that time (say the 1996 olympics) in the 800m at your level and above were doping? And were women also doping?