Fist of all, a little background. I started sprint training 6 months ago. I’m a 45 yr old female, with no track experience whatsoever when I was in school. I was like a total physical klutz at sports. Anyway, long story short, because some family members are involved in track, and because I was getting out of shape, I started working out. In the last month, I’ve increased my track workouts from 2-3X a week to 5x wk. Because I’ve lost my mind and decided I was going to actually try and compete in some masters track meets over the summer,just to see if I can be competitive. I have made some progress going from REALLY, REALLY SLOW to just SLOW. But Ive cut about 8 seconds off my 100M time since I started. I have been training for 100 but I want to bring my 200 time down too, which is worse than my 100 time. To be competitive with others in my age group, I got to cut another 2-3 seconds off my time in the 100, but 10-12 seconds off my time in the 200M! So what I’m trying to find out is, what can I do to accomplish this? I’ve had good coaching, so my form is pretty good now. (it was horrible before-I ran like a girly girl and duck-footed too.) I started out barely being able to finish 100M without totally dying in the last 30M or so. Now I can pull right through. I think my weak areas now are in acceleration and starts, and a little more power/drive in my finish. Ive been told I need more lift and leg seperation, especially near the end when my legs start to tire. This past week I think I finally got the arm swings going better now, so that helped me cut about .5 sec. in my time in a week. After I came accross this message board, i realize I need to do more heavy weights, Ive been doing fairly light circuit training type wt workouts instead of power/strength building, mainly because I didnt have access to equipment. And I was only doing that like once or twice a week, and pretty much none in the last two weeks because I was still trying to get used to the 5 days a week intensity of my track workouts!
Here is what I did the last two weeks:
Every workout I do this for warm up: jog 800, then I do 2 x 300M strides, some stretching, then I do between 4-8 60M build ups.
Here is what I’ve been doing the past 12 days (w/ 4 days rest)
Day 1: 150M for time plus 2x 200M tempo? (faster than my strides but slower than my 100’s or 50’s)
Day 2: 18x 50’s (I’ve been doing them at 80-100% max effort, I have 30 sec to run/rest—the run period being between 10-13 seconds.)
Day 3: 200, 150,100, and 60 (at increasingly higher speeds/intensity)
Day 4: 6 x 30M (starts/accel) plus 3 100’s for time
Day 5: 4 x 200M (tempo?)
Day 6: 6 x 40M (accel/maintain) + drills
Day 7: 20 x 50’s (supposed to do 18 because the last time I did 18 I nearly threw up, but I paced myself better and was able to complete 20 without any problems and a little faster too. I had my 50’s run in between 9-12 seconds, with the remaining portion of 30 sec. for rest)
Felt so good today with plenty of energy so for fun I ran 2 100’s AFTER I ran those 50’s (after about 8 minutes of recovery, just walking around and leg swings.) Times were .3 and .5 better than last ones I did on day 4. (about a week ago)
Day 8: drills: ladder drills, plus A running x2 for 100M
Also ran a 100M but didnt have my stopwatch, a good thing because I felt really slow and exhausted and my shins hurt because I brought the wrong shoes to work out in. Or maybe it was the A’s running I did for 100M, which felt like I ran a 400!
I need to get 2 wts workouts in there, but I’m just pretty tired on track days so its not high on my list. When should I do it? I usually take sundays and either wednesday or friday off from track. What type of lifting should I do w/ limited time? I now have access to a squat rack, and a bench. I have a barbell, plenty of wt plates, and some dumbells up to about 25lbs.
I also track my bodyfat and weight fairly closely and Ive noticed that though I’m dropping more weight the last 3 weeks but my bodyfat is not dropping as fast. (first 5 months I went from 136 to 128, and from 32% to 27% BF, but in the last 3-4 weeks I lost another 3 pounds but only lost 1% bodyfat.) Thats why I think I’m losing muscle mass as well, which I don’t want to do!
Do you think if I can drop another 6% bodyfat, would that help my speed? Goal is to be at 18-20%, at which my weight will likely be at around 118-120. I want to gain more muscle which has been easy for me if I weight train w/heavy weights but I’ve been really working on speed and sort of let things slide and when I do it ive been doing the easy stuff with 5 and 10 lb wts. Also afraid of heavy wts slowing me down but i guess thats not the case if done correctly, right?
Anyway, Ive may be entering a meet in about 2 weeks, and another in July and August. What can I do to improve things quickly in the next two months?? What do I need to change in my track workout? What do I need to do more of?
:spin::question:
