I am going up to the 400 for now and tried a 10x300 (stopped at 8x300) session today. I suppose it woud have been more for GPP than tempo because it ended hard. The runs where 70% of best time with 1.5 minutes rest. I am thinking of extending the rest to 3 minutes and completing all 10, and then increasing the intensity to 75% of best time. I would class this as GPP. For tempo I am thinking 65% with same rest. I would be glad of any criticism/comments? Cheers.
For tempo I like to rest 30 seconds between sets, I find that if I rest more then a minute I don’t get as good as a cardiovascualr workout and don’t get the blood flowing as well.
I’ve used this session alot over the years. Keep the recov. at 100m walk (@=1-1:15min), but reduce the pace. 65% of max. is more appropriate, but be honest when calculating your projected best time for the distance. It will seem like you’re crawling pace-wise, but that’s OK; remember that by design this session is meant to be aerobic. Since you moving up to the 400m, you may need to start at 6 reps, and add 1 a week until you reach 10.
Another point, don’t be stupid and try to run the last rep faster, as many coaches try to get their athletes to do; this spoils the theme of the session.
Cheers
Terminator, I know what you mean about the CV work.
Athletics coach, so keeping all reps the same time length, should the last 2-3 reps still be hard? Also, do you use 600s in GPP and would the rest be longer than for 300s?
I’m semi-retired from coaching at this point, but here goes.
My view of extensive tempo is that none of the reps should present a challenge. This is aerobic work (capacity or power) and straining is a sign that you’re going anaerobic, and hence transitioning into intensive tempo (ie:LA capacity). That spoils the intent of the session, which is to build the base for SpE and SE.
If you are struggling with 6x300m at 65% of max, you need to try shorter distances (100-250m) first. The transition to 400m is often difficult and not for every athlete.
As for 600’s I do use them but not on the track. In fact I attempt to run as much ext. tempo off track as possible. Psychologically it is much better for the athlete. Grass fields and trails are the place in the fall. Athletes tend to see enough of the track if they are training all year. Mike Smith, coach of Iwan Thomas and many others spends lots of time in the dunes which is great if you’ve got them, which I didn’t when I was actively coaching. He does have them do a 1 hour duration 5x100m paarluuf relay on the track which brutal though.
Keeping 400m and 400m hurdlers mentally fresh is as important as the physical side IMO.
I think the use of “challenging” needs to be quantified. I too believe that tempo runs should rarely if ever fall into the realm of the anaerobic, however I still feel that tempo runs need to be challenging from an aerobic perspective in order to maximise developments from this work.
AthleticsCoach, how can you be semi retired if you were born in 1979? You must have started very early 
Wow 1979! I wish. That has to have been randomly generated, because I certainly didn’t enter it. I’m going to leave it for now, it makes me feel young.
To quantify challenging, if the athlete’s mechanics breakdown in an ext. tempo workout, something is wrong. Pulse ratre can be helpful, but it is also deceptive with sprinters. If you’ve ben at this a wehile respiratory rate can tell a coach even more. When the athlete struggles to complete an ext. tempo session, I think that’s a problem.
The challenge of these sessions is on the volume end, which really more psychological for sprinters.
The same thing happened to me: July 30, 1980?
I too will keep it for now…because I’d like to feel old
Hey Pete, they have my birthday down for July 30 1980 too 