I have a So girl running 50 sec in the 300s. She will need to run mid 49s to have an outside chance at Regionals. My question concerns training and rest–because we were also training her as a part of the 4X8 relay, she has had much more intensive tempo than anything else. I would love suggestions for the last seven days of training. (We have a league meet this friday and then four days of practice the following week before Regionals.)
Heading into Regionals
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Participant
Lay out some of the previous training you had been doing and some people like Dan will be able to help. The last thing you want is a suggestion which will cause a shift in training. For the most part, the gas is in the tank, you just need to get her feeling good.
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Participant
Last week:
Monday 10 X 400 @ 80%
Tuesday 12 X 200 @ 85%
Wednesday 3 X (300, 200, 100) @ 85%
Thursday 1600 @ 60%
Friday MeetThis is a typical week. Yes there’s been a lack of speed work, but again, our distance coach has been training her for a 4 x 8 and his philosophy is basically: “build endurance.”
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ParticipantYeah wow…
Mon and Tues back to back like that is craziness…
Thursday serves no purpose at all…a losen up i’m guessing? Could do other more benificial things than that…
The spacing of the workouts etc is all off as well…
If those percentages are truly being hit, there’s no way that would be possible…
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Participant
I’ve never seen people do workouts like that… Closest I’ve ever seen was what Jim Ryun did prepping for 4:00 mile, where he’d do 15x400m at race pace with 60-90″ rest – but even that was probably less than 80% and he’s not a high school girl.
I’d say: Rest. and Tech.
If she’s survived those kinds of workouts, she has plenty of fitness. For 300 hurdles, the race is over quick enough, that stride pattern is everything, especially for girls. I’d suggest doing stride pattern work twice leading into the meet. A few drills that did wonders for me and helped me go from 40.4 to 38.4 my senior year w/out improving 400m speed significantly:
1. Starts to first hurdle – 2-4 of them. These should be done at close to 100% effort. On one of them, try to get there in 2 less steps (ie for a girl – 26 steps vs. 28 – that’s just a guess).
2. Tempo work on hurdles 2-4 around the curve:
– space the hurdles 2m close and try to do it in 2 less strides – that should be very difficult, but doable.
– mess up the hurdle spacing – ie – hurdle 2= 2 hurdles in; hurdle 3= 1 hurdle out; hurdle 4=spaced correctly – this will help prepare mentally for the inevitable missing of steps, or too quick of a start, too slow of a start, etc. -
KeymasterBryan Clay could do it (that’s an inside joke between Matt and I).
I agree with all that’s been said.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
Im gonna quote Mort “these look like the kinds of workouts that make you go “eh, that’s not very good” then their team comes out and kicks your ass”. LOL
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Participant
All of the responses are greatly appreciated. I’m going to reveal an ulterior motive for my post–I wanted someone else to say that we’re overtraining. Our distance coach is a solid track guy with a history of sending distance runners to state–and he’s used the same methods for years. I have wondered, however, if some of our inability to progress late this season has been due to overwork. Our distance coach simply believes “we’re still not in shape.” Anyway, again, I appreciate everyone taking the time to respond. I especially appreciate the start and curve work suggestions from Matt.
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Participant
Fr miler with a 400m best of :56 ran these times for Monday’s 400s with 80 secs rest in between reps (@80% his target was 1:08)– 1:06, 1:05, 1:05, 1:06, 1:07, 1:06, 1:07, 1:06, 1:19, 1:24. You can see where he blew up–Didn’t intend for this to become some sort of “no way you really do those workouts” thread, but if I’m going to make the case to the distance coach that we’re doing too much I might as well use what we’re doing.
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Participant
Fair enough, though the context is a bit different when we are talking about a miler versus a sprinter/hurdler. When I have seen people do workouts like that their % was usually based on a run that was not near their capacity (ie going off of a PR run as the 4th event in a dual meet or something like that), but that is fair enough.
I would still err on a much lower side of the volume right now. At this point, there isn’t going to be many (if any) significant positive effects you can gain from conditioning and most of your gains in a short period of time will just be getting them to a higher level of preparedness/readiness, which would likely just involve rest + small refinements done @ high quality (like Matt suggested on some of the quality race pace work). You wouldn’t want to completely abandon the work you are doing now, but it would be advisable to increase the rests and lower the volume a bit and make those workouts a little less frequent with things like Matt suggested in place.
I’m interested to hear how the athlete does. Is there no hurdle work outside of meets in this athlete’s program? The micro you posted does not seem to indicate significant quality work being spent on hurdling, special endurance, or anything technical really.
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Participant
Technique work has taken a back seat to conditioning. I don’t need to bore you with the details; suffice to say that we were short enough on pure sprinters (fastest male 200m :25.2, fastest female 200m :27.4)that the decision was made at the beginning of the season to train everyone together and focus on getting in shape. So, yes, she’s lacking technique time.
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Participant
lol I love how getting in shape means being able to run mediocre middle distance times to so many coaches! Not, of course, getting in shape to sprint/hurdle fast, but to just have hordes of so-so and maybe slightly above average middle distance people.
Anyway, good luck. Good to see you are looking to change things a bit.
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Participant
Technique work has taken a back seat to conditioning
So you recognize it, I would only add emphasis in that in talking about intermediate hurdles, the return on investment CAN fall in favor of technical work v. conditioning e.g. say 4 hours worth of conditioning spread throughout a week may yield a lesser return than spending 2 hours on conditioning and 2 hours on hurdling technique work. How much technical work would be needed to say gain a tenth per flight? And then how much time would be needed to get that same reduction in time just working on conditioning?
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Participant
Again, I appreciate the responses. I think many coaches–certainly the three other coaches I coach with–believe that top speed is purely genetic and the only thing we can control is how long a runner can run at or near top speed. The philosophy of my other coaches might best be stated this way: we may not make an athlete faster, but we’ll make them as fast as they already are for longer distances.
Having said that, the athlete in question has nice form. She has a tendency to swing her left leg out and around the hurdle when the left leg is the lead leg rather than attacking the hurdle straight on (which she does nicely with her right leg). She’s 5’9″ with a long inseam–she can straddle the HS 300m (30″)hurdle easily. -
Participant
Yes, but it is entirely possible that the training is actually making them slower. A girl I coached in HS did 27.0, 59.2 as a SR on low volume and pretty high intensity. This year (freshman in college) she went to 27.6, 62.0 on mind-boggling volume (and no speed work) that I think was similar to the workouts you described.
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Participant
I would not have her run 300m with hurdles at race pace in training. Early season, I’d have thrown in some over distance (350-500 over hurdles) and later season – lots of 50-250 at faster than race pace.
In a HS season, they get plenty of race pace training in the weekly (or more frequent) races.
Definitely not at this stage. Work on step patterns. At her height, see if she can make 17 steps between hurdles and work on keeping her with R leg lead leg.
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Participant
I’ll be honest, I had hoped for some constructive advice when I posted this thread, but I have been pleasantly overwhelmed. Terrific response–what a great resource. We took yesterday to count steps–she’s 24 to the first hurdle and 17 in between the next two (we only did three). I have a suspicion that her steps increase down the home stretch; I’m going to count steps at the meet tomorrow.
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Participant
Right on Matt.
At this point having her run with no break in rhythm, lots of “flow”, regardless of how hard she goes out or has to work later in the race is NB, so what Matt said about no full distance at race pace but rather shorter and keep pushing the pace up (total sessional volume of clearances should also be under control)…the only exception maybe if one meet is at the beginning of one week and the second meet is not until the end of the following weeks but even then ??? and most paths to continued competitions will not have that format. -
Participant
Ahh, Kansas. We had a storm hit our League meet Friday–and we’ll be finishing the meet Monday. My hurdler did not run well in the 100s (not her strength) 16.9 alternating between 3 and 4 stepping all the way down the track. Hopefully we’ll run better in the 300s on Monday.
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Participant
Just wanted to update. We finished the league meet but my hurdler ran poorly–52.2. She was very disappointed. It may, however, have been a blessing in disguise. Because we postponed the meet to a Monday, that left only one day to go hard in practice before regionals–giving her one hard day out of the last ten. I’m convinced she was overtraining (I know, I’m the coach so it falls on me)and just needed some recovery time. Anyway, happy ending: she ran 49.6 at regionals. Not close to qualifying for state–she would have needed to run in the low 47s to have a shot at the top four–but running in the 49s was our goal and she felt great. She’s also just 8 tenths off the school record; if she gains some strength this summer she’ll put her name on the board next year. Thanks again to all those who offered advice.
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Participant
Congrats…. but maybe her “strength” isn’t the issue after a full season (maybe more?) of those death workouts? At least, I can’t imagine her exactly relying on her technique and speed to be carrying her at this point, or even being to an adequate level to drop those kind of times.
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Participant
Here we go again, heading into league and Regionals. The hurdler who serves as the subject for this post is now a Jr (HS). We modified the training this season–more control over total distance put in as well as more time spent working on technique. The results have been largely positive; she’s run in the 49s in each of the last four meets. Having said that, it feels as though she’s hit a plateau. So, here’s what I’m asking for from my Elite Trackers. Give me your best “plateau breaker” two week workout plan. (I would accept as an alternative the best drill for eliminating time spent over the hurdle)
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Participant
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I hate to say this, but I would say her plateau is from her speed, not her hurdling technique. I have two HS girls. #1, an experienced hurdler, is about 46.5 with a best 200 of 27.1 and a best 400 of 61.0. #2 is a first-year runner. She is at 50.0 (a lot of stuttering) with a 200 around 29 and a 400 about 65. With more experience and no more speed, I think she could go 49.0. I have no advice for you in the short run, but I think speed development is her key for the future. Endurance is certainly not a problem if she can run 65 off of 31.8. In fact, I find that a little hard to believe. Anyone on my team at 32 is lucky to break 70. Are you sure she cannot go faster for 200?
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Participant
She’s run faster times in the 200 in practice–28s and 29s consistently–however, I’ve read enough posts concerning the validity of practice times that I went with a confirmed meet time. (Love EliteTrack as a resource, but have you ever noticed that threads solely focused on training generate few responses, while threads debating whether or not such and such actually ran such and such generate pages?)
My fear is that you’re right; that we’re bumping up against her speed potential. Still, what I’m really looking for is 6 tenths of a second. An improvement of around .8%. (I know, you can’t simply improve forever. If there were a magic workout that always = a PR, world records would never last a week.)
Let me put it this way: What will hurdles coaches represented on EliteTrack be doing with their 300m hurdlers to give them the best chance of running well at the end of the season? -
Participant
…give them the best chance of running well at the end of the season?
Can you give a bit more detail as to “last four meets”, when and how far apart…and when is the end of the season?
So sort of where are you now and where do you want to be when…Sorry but given the past posts, I am a bit suspicious the plateau could be fatigue setting in if those four meets were say the last four weeks, each meet being a week or less apart.
The approach I am taking this year is an early season 300mH meet (early for us and HS in this province does not run 300mH so this athlete, other than one meet a year, runs 400mH as an age group athlete) and then, roughly a 400mH event, at most every 3 weeks, with shorter distance races in-between, if any racing at all (though 400m flat maybe run and relays will be run but not 4×800)…with this athlete I have more or less changed from mid-distance “base” to sprint (speed/power) base. Looking to be “ready” very late June, early July.
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Participant
I went back to the beginning of this thread – the 2009 season. Has her 2010 training been similar to last season in terms of volume/paces? I also noticed that you said she ran 16.9 with some 3-stepping, some 4. That indicates to me that her speed is not that bad, nor is her technique.
I assume that your league meet must be on 5/14 or 5/15, so you have 2 1/2 weeks. That is what I have also. I would keep the volume down and the intensity up. I recently had my 2 hurdlers do the following: 1 hurdle, then 2, 3, 4, 5 and then twice more over one hurdle, all with good rest. They had specific targets. For the girl who is at 50.0 and goal of 49.0, the targets were 7.3, 12.7, 18.1, 23.6 and 29.2 which she hit within a tenth or so. Our better hurdler had appropriately faster targets. An alternative would be 2-4 times 4 hurdles at 23.5 (22.5 for the faster one. This latter workout is what they will do today (probably 3, or 2 plus one flat). Yesterday the faster one did 3 X one 300 hurdle at race pace with full rest, then 4 X two 100 hurdles. All are in spikes, out of blocks, since we are simulating races. But all will depend on their level of freshness. My faster one raced hard at an invitational on 4/17 (300H, 4X100, 4X400, season best in all), then travelled 3 time zones for three days to visit colleges, worked out Wednesday, then travelled again (jazz group) Thursday through Sunday (ah, the complications of HS track!). The 50.0 girl is a high-level club soccer player. She was dead at our meet last Thursday and had a major soccer game Saturday, so I had her take Friday and yesterday off. I will have to see what she seems like today and adjust her workout accordingly. After this week, volume will be reduced.
I am babbling here, but would just say keep the paces up and the volume down. Freshness is everything from here on.
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Participant
ex400, it’s nice to hear it’s the same everywhere.
We greatly reduced the volume this season compared to last. Past four meets performance: 4/9 – 49.8, 4/16 – 49.5 (PR), 4/20 – 49.7, 4/23 – 49.9. Her remaining meet schedule looks like this: 4/29, 5/7, 5/14 (League), 5/21 (Regionals).School record is 48.8. To qualify at Regionals will probably once again require running in the 47s–not something I see as likely. But if she can get her name on the board she will have achieved her goal for the season.
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Participant
Just an update. Friday at our league meet she broke the school hurdle record with a time of 48.08. She ran well, although she was awkward over the second hurdle–slowing considerably approaching the hurdle–but she recovered and finished strong. She was ecstatic.
We run at regionals this week, and she’ll need to run in the 47s to have a shot at advancing. She may have one more PR in her. Thanks again to all who offered input along the way. -
Participant
I think I can honestly say that Elite Track played an important role in my hurdler breaking the school record. Not only did I receive valuable advice in terms of technique and cuing instructions, but perhaps just as importantly it helped keep me out of the way. It is in my nature as a coach to constantly push my athletes–only when I’m pushing do I feel a sense of control (false as it may be). It took hearing from multiple sources that the athlete’s health and vigor were more important than running her every day to get me to say “today we’re doing technique only.” A valuable lesson for me.
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