[s.p.c.]

s.p.c. on July 1, 2009 at 11:35 pm #15937

Well basically I’ve decided to post a training journal here for the next year. I know this is the wrong time of year to be starting but sure we’ll give it a go.
I’m 17, around 6ft, 64kgs and my main events are 400m/400mh but i also do some shorter sprints and over the years I’ve tried pretty much everything!

Evevt P.B. Year of P.B.
400m 50.77 2009
400mh 57.16 2009
200m 22.83 2009
100m 11.80 2008
400m(i) 51.70 2009
200m(i) 24.03 2009
60m(i) 7.52 2008
60mh(i) 8.73 2009
110mh 15.91 2009
800m 2.18 2007

Not training too hard at the minute as i felt a bit sluggish when competing last weekend and national champs are only 2 weeks away.
Last night i was in the gym, did:

8x 3x 60kg squat then 30s rest, 3x vertical jumps then 90sec rest.
3x plank 60s hold
3x 6x hamstring curls.
Followed by some stretching.
My hopes are to try and get as close to 50.0 as possible and win the national u18 champs in two weeks time.
So ill keep you posted!!

[Eric Broadbent]

Eric Broadbent on July 2, 2009 at 7:36 am #85912

Sounds good…goodluck man

[s.p.c.]

s.p.c. on July 2, 2009 at 8:58 am #85916

Thanks! I was on the track tonight and took it fairly handy. I did 5x 100m jogging back recovery. Averaged at around 12.3 for them. Then a ten minute run at about 80% and finished up with some dynamic stretching.

[RussZHC]

RussZHC on July 3, 2009 at 1:14 am #85931

Your age and times in the 400/400mH are quite similar to an athlete I am currently coaching and I suspect something to work on in both cases relates to efficiency over the longer hurdle distances (as opposed to the sprint hurdles, indoors or outdoors).

If I have done the math correctly, indoors you are “adding” .242 seconds per flight compared to flat sprint time (60m) and this is very efficient.
Over the longer outdoor distance, the additional time per flight is .639 (double check my math!) so quite a difference. Yes, I do understand sprint and intermediate hurdles are very different events. [As the times indoors are taken from 2 different years, improvement over that calendar span may have skewed the numbers.]
This is definitely something my athlete and myself are working on right now; if you are in the same place as he is, learning each session, you may find out that you slow so gradually in the last half of each hurdle unit (say the 15m immediately before the next hurdle) that you may not even notice it but video or close observation will reveal it is quite apparent. It can be a tough habit to break but if this is the case and once it is solved, your times will drop quite a bit simply because of the efficiency of not slowing, clearing the hurdle and then accelerating a lot to get back up to race pace, then slowing etc. (through that cycle for each flight).

For example, the last practice we had, the stride count to 1H was identical but by making stride length adjustments so as to eliminate the couple of quicker but much shorter strides the touch down time after 1H was reduced by about .3 seconds consistently. It was not the quicker/shorter strides that were the issue, it was he slowed down for about 10m prior to “set them up”, so just running right through that spot helped.

Keep working at it, it is a very special event 😉

[s.p.c.]

s.p.c. on July 3, 2009 at 8:00 am #85941

Your age and times in the 400/400mH are quite similar to an athlete I am currently coaching and I suspect something to work on in both cases relates to efficiency over the longer hurdle distances (as opposed to the sprint hurdles, indoors or outdoors).

If I have done the math correctly, indoors you are “adding” .242 seconds per flight compared to flat sprint time (60m) and this is very efficient.
Over the longer outdoor distance, the additional time per flight is .639 (double check my math!) so quite a difference. Yes, I do understand sprint and intermediate hurdles are [b]very[/b] different events. [As the times indoors are taken from 2 different years, improvement over that calendar span may have skewed the numbers.]
This is definitely something my athlete and myself are working on right now; if you are in the same place as he is, learning each session, you may find out that you slow so gradually in the last half of each hurdle unit (say the 15m immediately before the next hurdle) that you may not even notice it but video or close observation will reveal it is quite apparent. It can be a tough habit to break but if this is the case and once it is solved, your times will drop quite a bit simply because of the efficiency of not slowing, clearing the hurdle and then accelerating a lot to get back up to race pace, then slowing etc. (through that cycle for each flight).

For example, the last practice we had, the stride count to 1H was identical but by making stride length adjustments so as to eliminate the couple of quicker but much shorter strides the touch down time after 1H was reduced by about .3 seconds consistently. It was not the quicker/shorter strides that were the issue, it was he slowed down for about 10m prior to “set them up”, so just running right through that spot helped.

Keep working at it, it is a very special event 😉

Thanks for your help. Yes, this sounds very familiar!!! My main problem at the minute is that I am stuttering into the hurdles and at each hurdle I’m pretty much stopping and restarting. Since I used to concentrate on sprint hurdles I am pretty much restricted to leading with my left leg, this is probably what is causing the stuttering. We have began to work on trying to get me comfortable at leading with my right leg in training.
Last year I was having the opposite problem! I was running 58’s with a good technique but what was wrong was my flat time (55)! So if I can get used to this increase in speed and get my strides right, I will be laughing!!

Tonight I was on the track where we worked on my technique. We started with a longer warm up than usual with plenty of drills and step overs, then we did 6 runs over 4 hurdles with 2 strides in between then i did 5 runs over the first two hurdles at competition spacings. Overall it went a lot better with a lot more fluency over the hurdles!!
It was my last training session before a competition on Sunday where I’ll be running the hurdles and the 4x400m. It will be my first competition on a mondo track!
So I’ll let you know how I get on!

[Matt Norquist]

Matt Norquist on July 8, 2009 at 12:01 pm #86103

I would work stride pattern like mad.

With your 400m speed, a 54.xx is very realistic within a year.

With your height and speed, you should be able to go 13-14 steps for first 4 hurdles, then 15 for hurdles 5-8 or even through 10.

Just get comfortable with those step patterns.

[s.p.c.]

s.p.c. on July 8, 2009 at 7:31 pm #86125

I’ve decided to give the hurdles a miss at this weekends U18 National Champs. as unless I were to improve by 2-3seconds over the next few days I don’t have any real chance of catching the guy who is going to win it. The hurdles are on around an hour before the flat so Ive decided just to focus on the flat this weekend as I have a real shot at winning the flat. If the flat was on first then I would run both but I don’t want to jeopardize my chances in the flat.

Last weekends competition was a disaster!! I was going ok in the hurdles running close to a p.b., until the last hurdle…..I was neck and neck with the leader so I said to myself to try and stay as low over the last hurdle as possible of course this backfired and I ended up falling over it and finishing 3rd in a time of 58.77!! Then in our 4x400m which we would have won with ease, the first two runners dropped the baton so I didnt even get to run!!

Training this week has been really easy so that I can build up as much energy as I can for the weekend.
Monday
20min recovery run
15 mins dynamic stretching.

Tuesday
8x 3x 65kg squat then 30s rest, 3x vertical jumps then 90sec rest.
3x plank 60s hold
3x 6x hamstring curls.
Followed by some stretching.

[s.p.c.]

s.p.c. on July 10, 2009 at 6:36 am #86195

08/06/09

Took it handy enough tonight. We decided to focus mainly on my start and the first 50m of my race. I did 6x50m sprints from blocks at race pace with 3min in between.I then took a 20min berak and did 6 starts over 5m.
I Can’t wait for the weekend, I think (hope) I’m in P.B. shape!!!! 🙂

[s.p.c.]

s.p.c. on July 13, 2009 at 8:04 am #86314

Complete!! Won the 400m today in 50.27! Conditions were not ideal at all…lashing rain and a strong headwind on the back straight so really delighted with my first national title and taking half a second off my P.B. Should get picked for an international in August now! I have the national 200m next weekend so I’ll hopefully get a p.b. there and perhaps sneak a medal but I’m not to worried about that.
I also won a silver medal in the 110mh this weekend in another P.B. of 15.3 which I was quite pleased with also!! 🙂 😆

[s.p.c.]

s.p.c. on July 15, 2009 at 6:50 am #86374

Monday 13/07/09
Today I went to a county 4x100m relay training session as we have nationals on Sunday. At the session we did a large number of baton changes and got our marks etc. We then did two complete runs where we ran a 44.5 and a 44.2 so it was a solid enough session.

Tuesday 14/07/09
Today i was in the gym and did a similar session to the last few
8x 3x 70kg squat then 30s rest, 3x vertical jumps then 90sec rest.
3x plank 60s hold
4x 6x hamstring curls.
Followed by some stretching.

[RussZHC]

RussZHC on September 2, 2009 at 3:58 am #88697

s.p.c.: so how have the last 6 weeks gone? :ohh:

Another thing I have since encountered is that at this age/level of expertise, it is next to impossible to tell when a substantial change will occur and whether it will be helpful long term but perhaps detrimental short term.
The athlete I am coaching showed steady improvement and more consistency but literally days before leaving for national level competition made substantial changes to his run to the first flight and there simply was not enough time to integrate it fully into his competition preparation so he ended up running slower than his seasonal best .

100% agreement with Matt, in fact that is the next stage for the athlete and myself as well, up until now the focus has been simply running and hurdling but more as separate entities.