Time to add in some short accel work and you can do technical speed work as shown in the GPP download
Thanks, we will begin next session.
Ok to add accelerations to the regular warm up?
Thanks to everyone for you input.
After two weeks of tempo workouts, she dropped almost 1.5s to 60.6.
Was only able to get one additional workout in last week due to classses, etc. So, time did not improve.
Indoor Conf in a few weeks. When should we add intensive tempo and or speed endurance, or is it too late for indoor?
How long exactly to the conference and are there any other meets in the meantime? You might be able to fit in a couple of SE sessions that coul help if there are no more meets. If there are more meets beforehand, I might be inclined to stick with what you’re doing now and let the meets serve as the SE.
Thanks.
yes, there are two more. Do not think she is going to run the 400m in either one though.
200m events and below.
I know this is a very leading question, but how much time can we hope to drop in three weeks?
Running the shorter events into the champs is ideal so better to stick with what you’ve been doing and let the races help her. I can’t say how much she’ll drop but this should lead to the best result you can get under the circumstances.
Thank You.
Ok, we’ll stick to tempo, accelerations, and let competition build the rest.
Continue to keep tempo at 70%?
She is now approx one full second off from last season.
Yes. Keep the tempo as it is.
Well, there has been some improvement.
Current: 8.42 /60m, 27.6 / 200m, 60.55 / 400m
Last season at this time:
7.92 / 60m, 26.65 / 200m, 59.48 / 400m
She keeps emphasising to me that she just feels slow, even at the shorter distances.
It’s puzzling that her 200m time is off 1 full second as is her 400m. It would seem that her 400m time would be off 2+ seconds. Maybe I’m just over analyzing.
Also, indoor conf champ in two weeks. She is still weight training 2/3 times a week. Should she continue, decrease, or stop weight training until outdoor begins?
Thank you
I would keep weight training throughout the season.
If you stick to high weights and low reps with adequate recovery between sets, you shouldn’t have any problems.
I have empathy with your predicament!
Have the same problem: one of my athletes was injured, could not compete for three years. His first competition on Friday - 4 seconds from his best in the 400m. At this stage he is very down, telling me he ran faster times when he was still a junior. True - but could one expect a PB on his first race after 3 years of no competition?
Charlie, Kitkat and others - what do you recommend? In training - emphasis on faster work, like speed and speed endurance? Or focus on special endurance? In competition - running more 200’s or 400’s … to get ‘competition fit’?
Thanks!
It would be easy for me to say do whatever you want to do because that’s the course of action you’ll truly be committed to.
But I would say that if your guy has done a broad cross-section of GPP work and especially if he has done a decent pre-comp transition phase of at least a month, then race, race and race again. But give him proper regeneration and rest time between whatever training and racing you schedule during this coming competition period. He must recover well between races.
On the other hand, if there is a lot of travelling involved in finding good enough races, perhaps you need to be judicious and mix some quality training up with whatever local races you can find.
Best wishes sprint_coach… 
Thanks, we’ll keep the reps low.
She has continued to become stronger each year, with this year being no exception. Squatting about 25lb more than last year has really frustrated her. She expects that she should be faster, not slower than she was last year.
What is everyones thought on cold weather speed workouts. How cold is too cold to be outside doing short accelerations and / or technical speed work? For sake of simplicity, let’s assume there is little or no wind…
thanks,
She’s holding on to her 27.6 speed, such as it is, better this year over 400m than she held on to her 26.65 speed over 400m last year.
The same thing goes for the 60m speed over 200m.
That might mean better endurance, or it might just be because slower speed is easier to hang on to, or she might be pacing herself more this year over 400m. There’s raw speed, there’s endurance, and there are tactics, and the way the three interplay gives you your 200m and 400m times. There might be other things, but I’ll defer to the track guys on that.
Yes, it appears that her overall speed is slower, but her endurance is better. So, I assume it would make sense to concentrate on bringing her overall speed back in line to at least, where it was last season, which would then produce better top end times as compared to last season. Does that sound reasonable?
I would probably keep the same format, since she seems to respond well to it so far. I believe a plan should have continuity and I would probably try and avoid jumping from an endurance to a speed focus and back. This doesn’t mean that certain elements of speed can’t be worked, as previously discussed. Others?
Thanks Niko! I am not planning on changing course now. Staying with the tempo, accelerations, and allowing competition to develop endurance. My question is once outdoor season begins, should we change things up?
thanks,
In my opinion the same applies to a whole season, too! Of course, there will be more time for power work, but since you started the way you did (and rightly so), your plan should basically be some kind of a long to short, I guess, throughout the season.
In my experiences with college athletes. (especially women) Weight gain is usually the primary factor,other than injury for a regression in performance. Do you know weather she has gained weight from last year?