Adding Speed to Distance Workouts

Expert Discussion Advanced Sprint Training
1

I coach high school distance runners and would like to incorporate a little more speed into our distance workouts.

For starters, I like the concept of Flyin 30’s. Would I want to include those on my hardest day (Mon or Fri) or would I want to add them at the end of my Tues easy day (instead of 150’s)?

A typical week for us during the season would be:

Mon- 1500/3000 pace work
Tues- Easy distance / 4 x150
Wed- Meet
Thur- Long distance / Recovery
Fri - 400/800 workout
Sat- Easy
Sun- Off

I don’t want to add too much where we are also including form drills/plyos etc. in the warmup.

Welcome all suggestions…

Seb

2

Looking at your schedule I would say you have no choice but to add the 30’s on a Monday or Friday.

The proviso is the intensity - if it is above 90%. To me Friday certainly should have them. It is most important that the athlete is fresh for competition on Wednesday

3

I agree with DMA. You should add these in at the first of the week when the athlete is fresh, and at the end when you are doing your faster pace work, (prior to of course).

4

Also, do you have your distance runners do multi-throws and/or jumps? This can be a good builder prior to going straight to speed work.

5

Dlive-

I am not familiar w/ multi-throws? Can you elaborate… are you talking about doing activities that increase the muscle’s ability to fire?

Thanks for the info.

CJ

6

I think he is talking using medicine ball throws such as Overhead Throws, Chest Throws with partner, wall or throw and run.

Jumps as in multiple jumps eg do 5 jumps in a row.

7

Definitely do speed early within the individual sessions and early on during the week when the athlete should be the freshest after the weekend-provided they did not play 3 hours of pick-up basketball on their “off day”!