Looking at your targets of 23.7 and 25.7 and his 23.1 season opener, I’d say the following:
He needs to drop his flat 200m to at least 22.6/7. I find that juniors run themselves out of it if their flat 200 and first 200 are to close to each other.
The usual guide to 400m race modelling is that you can run the opening 200m of a 400m race no faster than 1-second slower than your current form best stand-alone 200m.
As for tempo, some type of tempo can continue into the actual season taper (although that may also take the form of race modelling). But you need to find out what mix is best for your athlete.
You need to keep up the speed and long speed at that, but you don’t want to stay at the sharp end for too long or you tend to lose the high level aerobic power needed for the 400 which can come from sessions involving some stress recovery.
This can come from extensive tempo 3x3x300 or broken runs like 5x200 or 2x2x200, or from a set such as 150, jog rest of the lap, 150 + 60, 50, 40, 30, 20, walk 100m into 150 sprint again or repeat some variation of the original set.
That’s not tempo but it can derive from tempo sets such as 3x4x150 (in which you run 150, diagonal jog return, then run 150 again, then diagonal walk back to run 150, diag jog back to run 150. End of set, then either take 10mins rest or do some sort of 10min active recovery.
DURING OSAKA, a member of our board made the following observations of Sanya Richards and Jeremy Wariner at the training track. I think the meet was due to start within the next couple of days…
" i saw training workouts by richards (1pm) and wariner (6pm). Hart was not around so they were coached by the assistant. Richards used spikes and lane 1 to do 2 x 300m in 42sec with 5 or 7min rest, running 50m fast, then 150m relax and last 100m fast in 12.0. Then rest again 5 or 7 min and did 4 x 20m accel from standing start with turn back only as rest. Rest 3min rest and slow jog on grass for 2min.
"Wariner did in training flats on first lane : 5 x 200m in 25sec (first 100m in 12.0) with rest 1min30sec, then rest 10min, then 4 x 40m acceleration rest walk back, then immediately after a 2min jog."
Hope that’s not confused matters?:o
Wow, interesting stuff Kitkat. do you know on what day they did that set, and on what day they actually raced?