Elitetrack: Sport Training & Conditioning

Hey guys this journal is going to take you through all aspects of my training for track. I will begin by telling you a little bit about myself. This is going to be my first year of doing winter track and spring track. The events that i am going to run are the 400 and the 800. My time for the 400 is around 60 seconds or so currently; unsure of my 800 time, but my mile time is around 5:40. Iâ??m 5â??10 and150lbs. My main goal is to bring my times as low as possible, but I am not going to have any set time goals because I feel that having set goals can sometimes set you back a little by starting to fast. During the winter I am going to be working on my speed mainly then my endurance during the spring or have to work on it when it's snowing out and I'm forced to use a treadmill. I am just coming out of soccer season and soccer is a big reason why I am going to be running track.

This week I am currently on a rest week so I'm only going to go out and jog 2 days only 2 miles for each run, during the week just to keep myself from atrophying at too fast a pace that my body is not used too because I have been training for about a year straight.

I will show you what my plan is going to look like for the first month or so.

Drills- done only on the speed days
Light skip
High knees
Butt kicks
Power skip- skip high each third step

Warm Up- jog 800 meters slow then stretch for 5-10 minutes

Meso 1
Monday â?? Drills/MaxV (8 flying 30â??s)
Tuesday - Ext. Tempo (3,000 m)
Wednesday â?? Drills/Split Runs (2 sets of 3x200â??s with 5 minutes rest and 15 minutes between sets.)
Thursday - Ext. Tempo (3,000 m)
Friday â?? Drills/Acc. Dev (200 m total going up to 30 y)
Saturday - Strength Endurance (Running A's followed by Ext. Tempo reps of 400-1000m) (3,000 m)

Acc dev.
3 10 yard accels standing, lying, back (1 min recovery)
3 20 yard accels standing, lying, back (2-3 minutes recovery)
3 30 yard accels standing, lying, back (3-4 minutes recovery)

Jogged 2.2 miles in about 15:30

It felt pretty easy this is my rest week so i didn't want to really go fast. I'm looking at 1 more day of endurance in my rest week and then after that I will start my speed work.

I understand your predicament regarding the weather and speed development but I wouldn't do MaxV during meso 1 and I also wouldn't devote a whole day to acceleration development if you wanted to be a 400m / 800m runner.

Mike what would you suggest, I was going to do the 400 in the winter and 800 in spring basically. What would you change those 2 days too.
thanks

OK heres another question since im coming out of soccer could i just scrap a gpp since i have already gotten it from soccer. What do you think because im very confused on what a training week should look like for me. I appreciate the help.

i have read some stuff for the 400 that was very helpful. Here goes my new training plan, the plan is more less to get up a better base right now? How does that look now. Because I took out Max V and added Int tempo and also took out the speed endurance work and added more pure speed work.
Monday- Speed (20-40m 300 m)
Tuesday- Ext. Tempo
Wednesday- Intensive Tempo
Thursday- Ext. Tempo
Friday- Acc. Dev. (same as before)
Saturday- Ext. Tempo
Sunday- rest

Make Monday's short speed day reps of 40-60m and do hills or bleachers instead on Friday.  The rest is fine.

yeah i realized the speed work was way too short sort of like acc dev; should the volume be like 300 m for that day. Another question that i have is how should i do the intesive tempo to make it a good workout like sets/reps/and rest. Lastly, do you think it would be fine to keep acc. dev in there because there arent any hills nor bleachers that i have access to near me that atleast i know of. I have a treadmill could i put that on incline and do it there cuz it goes up to 10 mph tell me what u think. I've also been training a lot in the past year so i feel that im physically ready for it, training includes sprints 3 months, endurance 3 months and soccer 3 months. I feel that i am ready far a meso that is normally in the 3rd phase is because i only took a week off between my months of training.

Do the 40yd program for acc. dev. and up the volume and make some adjustments…ya'mean

I guess you could keep acc. dev. in the program if you want, b/c you don't have anything else. 

I wouldn't go past 4-500m for short speed at any point b/c you can't handle it. 

No treadmill crap!!!

Int. Tempo is just like Ext. Tempo but faster, so take any workout you want and it'd be good.

Wow, that was kind of like note outlines..my bad :D Hopefully it helped.  Lemme know how you set things up.

I think you could substitute soccer for GPP but I wouldn't really break down the rest of the year in blocks as distinct as "endurance" and "sprints." You'll be much more successful incorporating endurance and speed throughout the whole year.

I don't have a serious problem with treadmill training as long as it's just a small portion of the training program and not the mainstay. Before you do it, I'd probably try finding stadium stairs and also get creative and look for inclined loading docks, etc. If there's no other option, I don't think 1 session a week on a treadmill would be all that bad for a 400m / 800m runner.

Also, given the program you've just posted, I'd say you're setting yourself up for a better 400m than 800m race. If you don't mind this, then it looks ok. Otherwise, it probably needs some revision to include more general and specific endurance development. This holds even though you said you don't intend on focusing on the 800m until outdoor.

Thanks 400 and Mike. I don't really mind improving my 400 more than 800 cuz i've just been realizing that the 400 would probably be more helpful in soccer anyway. So, since i did soccer as some of my gpp, i could do basically what i had written out.

Here it is the revised version
Monday- Speed (40-60m 300 m)
Tuesday- Ext. Tempo
Wednesday-  Acc. Dev. (40 yard program up to 200 m)
Thursday- Ext. Tempo
Friday- Intensive Tempo
Saturday- Ext. Tempo
Sunday- rest

Heres a couple more questions since the ground is going to be cold and sometimes hard since its winter; could I just do it on a treadmill because the cushioning system is pretty good on it. Also would i do Acc Dev or Intensive tempo in that that order b/c acc. dev is a higher intensity.
Thanks this has cleared up a lot of information.

I would actually think acc. dev. should be on Monday b/c I think it's a bit more stressful on the CNS since it's hard accelerating the entire time, while the short speed you'll probably hit some sort of deceleration during the run, thus lowering the intensity on the CNS.  Other than that, it looks good.

Jimmay-
I think that program looks ok.

Also, I was thinking about my previous comment about treadmill running…....unless that treadmill can incline 30+ degrees, 10 mph is going to be really slow for speed and / or specific strength development.  You could potentially use if for tempo but as I said before and as 400stud pointed out, you probably want to minimize your time on the treadmill for specific sessions (if at all).

400stud-
I actually tend to think that maxV work is more stressful on the CNS than acceleration development. In fact, the deceleration you commented on is most likely the point at which acute CNS fatigue occurs (in my opionion). I think acceleration development is more highly dependent on muscular strength and because of this and the fact that the speed of movement is slower and muscle contraction times are longer it places less stress on the CNS. That's just a hunch and perhaps its worthy of a separate discussion.

I was just lounging around from Wednesday up to about Friday.
Satuday I jogged 2.2 miles in about 14:50.
It was a decent pace, but i started cramping up because i didn't eat or drink anything yet that day. I'm waiting until Monday when i can start training seriously again.

Ok i have been up in the air of what to do because i want to start out slow but not too slow because my base is pretty good. I dont know why i had short speed work there before Max V for some reason because Max V should come before speed work.
Because i have heard the cycles go like Acc. Dev.—> Max V—> Short Speed.
I'm also think that my progressions in endurance work would look like
Int. Tempo—> Split Runs—> SE1—> SE2

or would i go like this Split Runs/Acc. Dev.—> Short Speed/SE2—> MaxV/SE1/speed end. I got these progressions from a 400stud but they kinda contradict each other (as it appears to me), on the first one it says Max V before short speed and the other ones says short speed before Max V. 400 could you clarify this.

I would tend to believe that short speed should never come before MaxV. 

Let me try to explain my POV again (here we go again, Mike :D )...

Acc. Dev. - reps of 10-30m working on the beginning/acc. part of the race. 

MaxV - reps of 20-30m usually with a run in so most effort is spent on running fast and not building up.

Short Speed (ready mike) - reps of 40-60m where you have both acc. and MaxV components involved.  You accelerate hard, then hold MaxV for the duration of the run.  Both components are involved. 

That's why I believe that Acc. Dev.—> MaxV—> Short Speed is the way to go, in a short-to-long program, anyways, because you need to build from one aspect to another and that's the best way to do so, in my opinion.  It's logical. 

If I said differently before, I apologize.  I'm making my POV official now…

Acc. Dev.—> MaxV—> Short Speed