Hi, I'm a high school senior who is planning on a breakout season. Im 5'7 130. My plans are to run the 400 and 800. My end of the season goals are to run a 52 second 400 and a 2 min 800. I ran Cross Country during the fall to stay in shape, but hurt my ankle. Being stubborn, I ran section and state on it, but it has gotten better since then.
I am beginning my Specific prep phase after 4 weeks of GPP. I plan on having about 6 weeks of SPP, 8 weeks of Pre-comp, then 3-4 weeks of comp. I want to peak at around 5/14-5/22.
My general plan at this stage is:
mon:hills/fartleks
tuesday: steady miles (7-7:30 min pace)
wednesday: 200/400 repeats
example: 4(or 5)x400 at 70, rest: 200 jog
2x200 at 30, 3x400 at 72, 2x200 at 28/30, rest: 200 jog
Thursday: easy miles (8 min pace)
Friday: steady miles
Saturday: LSD(long slow distance)
My coach is a strong believer is top to bottom(long to short) training. He wants me to be at around 40-45 miles/week by the time the season starts, which is in the middle of february. Therefore, I am starting the season training with the milers doing their workouts and will slowly move towards training with the 400 runners.
For this week the workouts are as follows:
Mon: 5 miles fartlek, 5 surges, each 1-2 mins
tues: 4 miles
weds: dont know
thursday: 4 miles
friday: 6 miles
saturday: 10 miles
Unfortunately, a precautionary x-ray for an ankle sprain found a stress fracture, which has put me out of action for a week or two. However, I got myself a exercise bike, and my coach told me to just double the time and distance.
I highly disagree with your coach's recommendation on putting in 40-45 miles a week before the season starts as a 400/800m runner. I believe you should try getting all that aerobic endurance in in the form of tempo work. I feel it's much better for many reasons rather than mileage out the ying-yang. Maybe 10miles a week in the off-season, and I'm still not liking that. Do you HAVE to run the miles, or is it a "recommendation"?
Well, it is a recommendation, but as I am coming from a Cross Country/Distance background, I think that starting the season around 30-35 miles isnt asking much. it is a recommendation, since the off-season isnt mandatory, but it pretty much is the only way I am being told to get ready for the season which starts in 3 weeks.
Basically, this is my coach's perspective (word for word from an email)
"we work on base first, but since you're coming right off of CC, not as much time in this phase is as necessary as it was in the summer. You need these slower, longer runs, though, to perfect the oxygen delivery system, "train" your muscles to work efficiently through all phases of running motion, and to mentally "feel" that the 1/2 mile is short.
The strength phase (which we're overlapping slightly with base) involves training your system to better handle the onset of fatigue. Your anaerobic system is being trained to compensate for fatigue by virtue of weights, 400 repeats at lactic acid threshold, tempo runs, and bounds. This is the key to middle distance success, and we will do variations of this model for a good part of the first month and a half of the season."
have a new workout schedule for this week, let me know what you think.
Thursday: 4 miles easy
Friday: 6 miles steady
Saturday: 10 miles LSD
Sunday: rest
Monday: 5 mile fartlek, 5 surges of 1.5 mins
Tuesday: Plyos + 4 miles easy
Wednesday: 400 repeats
since Im still a few days away from healing up my ankle, I changed the workout to this
Thursday: 45 mins bike easy
Friday: 45 min bike steady
Saturday: 1.5 hours bike easy
Sunday: rest
Monday: 2x(10 mins steady, 5 min hard, 10 mins easy)
Tuesday: 40 min bike steady
Wednesday: rest
by that time, I will be able to run again.(hopefully) Thank god, my feet are really itching to burn some track. To try to make up for it, I have been going to the weightroom much more than I had before. Was wondering what you thought of this circuit.(keep in mind Im a skinny distance runner)
40-45 miles a week seems far too much for a quarter miler. That kind of training isn't necessarily bad but it's certainly not going to build the speed you'll need to run your fastest 400m. I'd bet you'll find yourself running a better 800-1500 double than a 400-800 double.
yeah, I definately can see your guys' point, but I think what Im going to do is start high and go low, with 30-35 miles at the beginning, and once I build a good base, run alot more Ext. Tempo on off-days.
Once the year gets going, I will only have one or two true workouts since I will have wednesday and saturday meets almost every week. I have been told many times that real speed workouts can only be done in a 3-5 week window before burn-out, so we start slow and get faster as we go.
Finally, Im out of my cast and ready to run!
My workout this week is lower than normal milage because I am coming off 3 weeks rest, but here it is
2/5-Thursday:5 easy miles
2/6-Friday: 4 steady miles
2/7-Saturday: 8 LSD
2/8-sunday: Rest
2/9-Monday: 4 mile fartlek, 4 surges of 1-2 mins.
2/10-Tuesday: 6 easy
2/11-Wednesday: 200 repeats
As you can see, I have already started running, with the 9 miles in the last couple days. The thursday workout was real easy, all I did was run around the track at 8:00-jogging pace doing timing for my running partner's workout that was suppose to be run wednesday Feb 4, which was 3x200, 3x400, 3x200 all with 200 jog for rest. Both my ankles felt really wobbly to being with but after a while, it subsided. I was glad since that was a reversal of what normally happened, which was as I ran, the more the ankles hurt.
Friday's workout was much more concrete, as I actually did run the said 4 miles, at about 7:30-7:45 pace. Started to get the rush Ive been missing, but I predict Wednesday will be a good day because I LOVE 200s.
Only bad thing was I didnt run today, but those LSD runs are totally optional and more for the 2 milers than us 400/800 runners(all 2 of us).
Also, just purchased some JSCs from eastbay, I predict they are going to be at least a half size too small, but I can always return them, so I am going to be trying those out in the near future.
One more thing, I restructured my lifting program because I realized I was overdoing the amount of exercises. Going to try this out for a couple weeks, any comments would be great. (still dont know what cleans are)
Monday: Curls 3x12@20
Overhead Tricep 3x12@25 or 30
Shoulder Raises 3x12@15
Shoulder Shrugs 3x12@35
Pull-ups: Pyramid of 6(10 sec rest)
Tuesday: Leg Press 3x12@80(each leg)
Switch to Squats in a week
Calf Raises 3x12@180
Hamstring Curls 3x12@30 or 40(each leg)
Back Extentions <-----still need to figure this one out
Hip Flexors/lunges
Mike and 400stud, other than replacing long runs with tempo, what other type of workouts would help my speed for the 400 other than weekly 200, 400 repeats?
first track workout of the year!
finally got to do the speed stuff I love so much.
workout today was 5x200 with as much rest as we wanted but since we are distance, we pretty much recovered in 1.5 mins.
The workout was designed to go
33s, 32s, 31s, 30s, all-out
However, because I was really excited to finally get to run fast for the first time in about 8 months, I ran them a bit fast.
My splits were
28, 29, 31, 30, 27
I realized mid-way I needed hit pace, so I slowed down on the 3rd and 4th to not screw up my running partners.
It was a great experience to get back into a good mental state since I had been hella pissed about missing 3 weeks due to injury. I hit "the wall" way too early, like into my 3rd split, but I thought I did pretty well anyways for having little base. ankle was still feeling a bit tender so Im icing it and doing some physical therapy as well. I was just so glad to get that feeling of strain on the hamstrings and the butt that I had been missing so.
Here is my workout schedule for this week:
Thurs 2/12-45 min run
Fri 2/13- Hill circuts
Sat 2/14- 8-10 mile run (optional)
Sun 2/15- rest
Mon 2/16- Fartlek
Tues 2/17- Recovery (30-40 min run)
Wed 2/18- 1000m Time Trial (want to be around 2:40-2:43 on this)
did some hill repeats today, and even here in Cali it was raining, therefore the hills were WAY muddy. Its ironic that I washed my shoes till they were sparkling white, to trash them the next day. we did 3 hill surges for about 400m-600m. they were done at 1:55-2:05. Felt good to get some leg lift in a workout since my ankle had been preventing it so much during the last part of XC that my stride length almost disappeared. My lungs are still suffering from the lay-away, but I can tell I am improving. I got my 2 week schedule today, it goes as follows:
Sat 2/14: 45 mins slow
Sun: Rest
Mon: 2 mile warm up, 600M time Trial, 4x100M w/200m jog recovery
Tues: 5 Easy
Wed: 2 mile warm up, 1200M time trial, 2 mile cool down
Thurs: 5 easy
Fri: 5 steady
Sat 2/21:10 LSD
Sun: rest
Mon: 2 mile warm up, 6x800@2:50 w/4 min recovery
Tues: 5 easy
Wed: 2 mile warm up, 2x2x400@65 w/full recovery
Thurs: 8 LSD
Fri: easy running
Sat: First Scrimmage
Running Goals on Time Trials/Scrimmage
600M Time Trial: 1:30-1:38
1200M Time Trial: 3:15-3:30
Scrimmage:
1600m: 4:55
800m:2:07
4x400m split: 56/57
