I got dragged out to run a hurdles race for fun to see what I could do. A 300 on top of that was free so I decided I might as well run it.
80m hurdles
Well I had a significant lead till right before the first hurdle. Once we started going over the hurdles was when things fell apart, my “technique” isn’t quite perfected :o anyways I ended up running 13.59 which can’t be good but I expected things to be worse then that.
300m
I planned to take the start out slow because I wanted to still be good to train tomorow. My plan worked too well, I was dead last in my heat going onto the straight. Ended up gunning it but it was too little too late, still ran a pb of 37.89 but I should have easily been like 37 flat if it was anything close to a decent race.
Well season’s done and I’m looking forward to next year. It wasn’t as good a season as I expected but plenty of memories and fun.
As of right now I’m not planning an eventful winter season and want to really focus on the outdoor season. I’d like to run 2-3 60s and a 200 indoors but might throw in a 100 too.
For the 60 I want to really focus on my speed and explosiveness this winter and improve my start enough that it becomes a strength instead of a weakness. I’m going to really hit the weights and whethere my coach likes it or not I’m going to do at least 1 speed workout a week which with him was rarely if ever a guarantee. I’d like to run sub 7.1 and would be fealing really happy and on the right track if I could pull out a 7 flat or a high 6.9 which would put me in great position for sub 11s next year.
If I run the 100 with the extra speed and power I’d expect a couple tenths off my outdoor performances. I could see an 11 flat indoors possible but that is if I run the race.
In the 200 if I imrpove my speed and start it would go along ways to helping all my races. If I could keep up a faster speed like I do now I think I could run something like a 22.2 indoors which would also hopefully put me in position for running sub 22s in the summer.
I really feel if I work on my top speed and start that I can really drop my times. Ever since I’ve started training those areas have severely lagged behind the rest of my race and with them improved I can become a much better sprinter. It’ll be a fun year and hopefully I can have more success then this summer.
I am considering changing coaches to, uh, me. First off when I first joined my coach he said I’d never run faster then 10.8 and should focus on the 400 where he thought I could run 46s some day. He’s also been training me more for the 400 then the 100 for the past year.
In order to make the gains in the events that I actually do well in, I’m thinking of working with myself 3 times a week and spending a large deal of time on explosiveness and speed.
Monday - Weights, Plyos
Tuesday - off
Wednesday - Speed Endurance, Weights
Thursday - off
Friday - off
Saturday - Speed and Accel, Plyos, Tempo
Sunday - off
Speed Endurance would consist of going out hard for the first 30-40 meters of my run and then mainting so I’d be working on my accel and speed while still gaining the endurance benefits. I could add in some tempo days, like possibly on Thursday, there’s supposed to be a soccer dome opening 5 minutes from my house but I don’t know when, if it’s somehow done by winter then I would definately throw tempo in on Thursdays. Any help, comments or critisms, would be great.
As I said last year, I first want to build up my speed before I look into sticking with the 100 longterm or moving to the 400 later on. Unfortunately my coach will not seem to change his program for me so to accomplish my goals I might need to go it alone.
Please realize that your coach may be right. If you truly love the 100 and do not find happiness running the 400, then run the 100. But if you are looking for more success (higher placings, etc), consider focusing on the 400.
I know through my career that even a 48. or 49. 400m would have allowed me much more success than my 11.1 or 11.2 100m.
Oh I’m no 400 meter runner. Even with a full year of training albeit halted for a while because of injury I would need a lot of special endurance work for it, over a year to train at least to be able to succeed.
Anyways my point is, my best event and what will be my best event for a long time is the 200 meter. Only problem is my ceiling to improve in that is a lot smaller when we do 1 speed work session a week for like 2 months and then don’t do any speed for the rest of the year. I mean sure, maybe I’ll be able to double my 100 time for a 200 but what use is that if I’m running consistent 11.3/11.4s, none. Even if I wanted to run the 400 I don’t have the speed to be able to run a good time. I mean if I ever wanted to run 46 I’d have to be at worse like 11 flat and seeing as special endurance is a weakness of mine, I’d have to be faster.
I mean, I raced a 200 against one guy 2 weeks ago and he beat me by .15 and then we raced a 300 the next week and he beat me by 2 seconds and he’s a primarily 100 runner.
So basically it’s not like I’m saying I’m never going to run the 400, but what’s the use when I don’t have a proper speed build up that will allow me to reach my potential in that event and as for right now, I’m gona have more succes with an 11.15 100 meter then a 53.9 400 meter.
Edit
I also don’t like working with a coach that tells me I’ll never amount to anything in one of my events. Also, for 2 years in a row his athletes have peaked at a qualifying meet and have gone downhill the rest of the year when the important championships happen.
Your 100 & 200 is probably disproportionally better than your 400 because you don’t put an enthusiastic effort into the 400 (a common issue).
If you can run 22.77 into a headwind, you can run under 51 with the right mindset. 11.15 and 53.9? come on now
Also, being in disagreement with your coach is not a good thing. Just try to reason with him as much as possible so you can reach your goals. If he wants you to run the 4 exclusively, it’s probably because that’s all he knows how to train, not because he’s trying to be a dick.
I’m trying to get through with him, I told him my start and speed is weak and I feel that we should work on that more this year and he says stick to the same thing and you’ll do fine. It’s just I don’t feel comfortable and reassured with that and he’s had a history of short distance athletes not improving or even getting worse and I know everyone and their needs are different but it worries me. But I’m gonna definately try and get accross my point to him, cause all the runners in our group have the same thing in common, 1. bad starts 2. proportionately better finishes 3. better 200s then 100s and we all came to the group as 100 runners primarily.
And about that 400 I did try hard. I was disapointed earlier on that I ran a bad 100 but it’s not like I took it easy, it was definately the most painful race I’ve ever ran cause it hurt to stand up after and I left all I had on the track, I have pride, I wanted to do well. There was worse that day based on 100/200 time anyways. A guy who has a pb of 10.5 or 10.6, I forget ended up running a high 54
My coach is a great 400 coach and has had loads of success with his 400 athletes but that’s about it.
There is another sprint coach I could go to in the area, a particularly famous one, but after him that’s about it. We’ll see how it goes, I have to talk to a couple people before I decide what’s going to happen this year.
Interesting. You can obviously go faster than 11.15 but it seems that with your present coach youll have a harder time doing so. If I were in your position I would try to get coached by the other sprint coach. Develop your 100m/200m and increase your speed as much as possible and THEN if you want it step up to the 400m.
“Only problem is my ceiling to improve in that is a lot smaller when we do 1 speed work session a week for like 2 months and then don’t do any speed for the rest of the year.”
Question: If he’s you’re not doing speed work, then what are you doing? Can you outline your program for me? I’m a little confused?
About 95% of the year round what we do is speed endurance with incomplete recovery. Stuff like 150 repeats all out with never more then 5 minutes rest or 200 repeats etc. We also do a lot of runs around 75-80% with again low recovery, usually 2 minutes and we’ll do 20 200s at a time. Seems a little much for 100 runners.
Ya I can’t do that great with an outline, except basically the incomplete recovery endurance runs we’ll do at a MINIMUM twice a week year round. Around November - December is when we do 1 speed session a week and after that we do those 75-80% runs once a week both along with the incomplete rested speed endurance runs till around March. At that point we’ll do stuff like 250, 200, 150, 100 all out with about 10-12 minutes rest in between each for about a month till school season begins.
That’s basically the best I can give you of what we do. Loads of endurance, and with these kind of workouts I’ve always been scared of overtraining too cause we just do so much with such little recovery.
Ran a 40 yard dash yesterday in 4.39 handtimed which is much faster then I expected. My coach is experienced with handtimes but I think he got me a little fast.
I am running much better at the start without blocks though, so hopefully I can get my block start down this year.
you guys must have a good track over in ottawa that and the states, cause in bc whenever we leave to run elsewhere everybody drops major times and pbs usually. Especially down in the states.
I had my first practice on my own today. It went really well except the weight room was closed up which sucked.
I did a lot of short start related work. 10 block starts for just 10 meters to work on my form and extending my stride off the start, then 3x10, 20, 30m without blocks.
Felt real good and I’m really looking forward to the rest of the year. I did a SLJ test and ended up with a best of 2.60m and wanted to do a vert test but the thing was locked up in the weight room.
After hearing about other SLJ results throughout this whole week. Including people slower than me outjumping me, I’m thinking my reactive strength leaves something to be desired.
Today I tested a 60m run. I must have not done the timing well cause the time was 6.83 and at this time that time should not be within reach. If I were to guess a time for the run, probably 7.1ish sounds right. But you never know, all week I’ve been getting complements on looking fast
Started with creatine a week ago too and I have to say it’s incredible. On Wednesday I was struggling doing 2x3 squats at 225 lbs but today I did 2x4 at 225 lbs and that could have easily been 2x5.
More gains to note. Was able to do 2x3 squats last night at 260 lbs, which is a 35lb increase from what I was doing 2 weeks. I’m also cleaning a lot better then I have ever been, my gains in the weightroom have been incredible over the past 2-2.5 weeks.
Also doing the standing long jump last night I pulled off a 3 meter jump multiple times which is another huge increase (40cm :eek: ) since my last test. The weekend after this I’ll be doing another testing run so hopefully it’ll show that my gains off the track have payed off.
