We are 8 weeks from our Outdoor State Championships, which is this athletes focus. The handicap race he did yesterday was on lush grass, but has been racing and training on tartan with tempo on grass.
Most likely is the cold weather.
The fires have been tragic, but to give you an idea of the weather far north of Australia in Northern New South Wales and Queensland are in the middle of floods caused by ex tropical cyclone and a low pressure fronts off the eastern seaboard (I am thinking of my QLD colleagues)
I have found out my athlete is unable to compete on the 2nd day of the state championships (the 400m will be held) due to a family wedding. I want to give him a a shot at running a 400m pb before, but also allow the athlete to compete in the relays at the state championships.
Should I get him to race the 400 the week before the state championships or 2 weeks before?
Adv and Disadv of option 1
Adv - gives me an extra week in training
disadv - if he gets injured, he won’t get up for the state championships 4 x 4 relay
Adv and disadv of option 2
Adv - chance to get back from injury
can freshen up between 400 and state champs
Dis adv -lose a week (or more) in training
What week of training do I drop or how I do a modify training?
1 week before should not be a problem. Just cut some of the work the week after.
Why should your guy be injured, just be carefull not to push too hard in training than all should be fine
I don’t expect him to get injured. I like to control as many variables as I can for 2 weeks prior to peak comp - training in my mind is more controlable than competition.
My athletes in in white. The guy in red has a pb of 10.95 (and started 2.25m behind), the guy in yellow has a pb of 11.9 (and start about a metre in front). My guy has a pb of 12.2. He finish about 2 metres behind yellow.
great to see pb’s
One thing
Most runners should eaily do 4x100+5s.
How come the 400 is relative slow for him?
I know 1 guy who has also a relative slow 400 but he’s running really tight(not relaxed)
Actually not totally happy with how he ran the 400, went through first 200 too slow. He was in a heat that had runners ranging 47 to 55 sec range, he was in the outside lane with the athletes in lane 4, 5, 6 being 51, 49, 47, so he got spooked when they went past him in the first 100m
His 200m time is a lot slower than it should be - 24.70.
I am not sure if he is relative slow for his 100m, but I understand what you are saying. I suspect the loss of 8 weeks of speed work is behind the lag, as we have only really started special endurance work the past few weeks. At least special endurance other than racing.
Race yesterday in 25 degrees Celsius in the 200 and 400.
Run the 200 in a small personal best of 24.64 (improvement of .06) and about 90 minutes later back up for a 400m and 54.02 (PB is 53.63). A couple of technical issues, one is the dorsi flexion noted above by someone. Just didn’t have it in the 400, maybe still fatigued from 200?
Reason he ran the 200 first, is he seems to run better in the 2nd effort of the day. I would have prefer him to run the 100 but that was 30 minutes before the 400.
Tonight’s planned session was a specific endurance session of 2 x 2 x 200m with 1st rep of 25.0 and second rep of 27.0, with 2 minutes rest between reps and full recovery between sets.
The only adjustment made to the above session was the pacing, I made it 25.5 and 27.5.
Set 1: 25.6 + 27.2
Set 2: 26.0 + 26.5
Recovery between sets was ultimately around 20 minutes
Looks like your guy is doing very well.
His 200/400 difference is good .
24.64*2+4.5=53.78 potential(MJ hass the same difference)
I know a guy who ran 22.40 and 47.80. But most guys are around +4.5/5 second from the 2x200pb.
Looking at competition times and training times I would work more on speed and only do specific work on competitions, because specific 400 ‘work’ look okay but thats just imho.
Yeah I think he has reached his limit for speed this season, and I think I may have worked the specific endurance side too much. Although an improvement of nearly 2 seconds from the previosu seasons personal best isn’t too bad.
Well living in the Southern Hemisphere does that to you. Yeah we have about 5 weeks to State Championships (which he will run in a relay), and he has about 2 (maybe 3) comp before then with a focus on 400m
My athlete has been having issues with achilles issues. Relates more to an old injury, so have been nursing him along. Trying to get him to have regular massages, but bwteen his work, uni and family it is difficult. My partner is a massage therapist, so he gets one at least once a fortnight. He also is self massaging and foam rolling consistently.
The four weeks are in essence competition every week.
So training looks something like this
Week 1
Monday - 4 x 30m and 1 x 80m @95% followed by 4 sets of weights around 75%
Tuesday - 10 x 100m tempos
Wednesday - off
Thursday - Warm Up only
Friday - Off
Saturday - 400 and 4 x 200 (State Championships)
Sunday - Massage
Week 2
Monday - 4 x 30m,1 x 80m, 1 x 100, and 1 x 120m followed by 4 sets of weights around 75%
Tuesday - 10 x 100m tempos
Wednesday - off
Thursday - 4 x 30m and 1 x 80m @95% followed by 4 sets of weights around 75%
Friday - Off
Saturday - Competition - not sure what distance but there is a 200, 400 and 100 on
Sunday - Massage
Week 3
Monday - 4 x 30m,1 x 80m, 1 x 100, and 1 x 120m followed by 4 sets of weights around 75%
Tuesday - 10 x 100m tempos
Wednesday - off
Thursday - Warm Up only
Friday - Off
Saturday - 400m
Sunday - Massage
Week 4
Monday - 4 x 30m,1 x 80m, 1 x 100, and 1 x 120m followed by 4 sets of weights around 75%
Tuesday - 10 x 100m Tempo
Wednesday - Off
Thursday - Competition Warm Up
Friday - Off
Saturday - Off
Sunday - State Championships 200m and 4 x 400m - note he is unlikely to have more than 2 races.
Competed in a state competition, I was slightly disappointed in his 400m time of 54.42. His training partner got small personal bests in the 100 and 200m. They both competed in the 4 x 200m and run okay.
Issues I took out of the competition
Spent 3+ hours watching the competition before he had a chance to compete
Most people seemed to be half a second slower than previous weeks (about 0.1-0.2 seconds in 100m)
Wind seemed all over the place, although in the 100 and 200 wasn’t that strong.
I think the biggest issue was point 1 for a number of reasons. Over thought the race, got over aroused, and spent too much time at the track in the heat was around 30 degrees Celsius (86F) - even though he spent most of the time in the shade laying on a towel
Since the last competition the athlete trained brilliantly. We have been emphasising relaxing at speed, which took a little while to get the hang of it. As with most athletes he is at his best when doing this, just struggles with the concept.
Unfortunately he hurt his lower riding his bike to Uni, had sciatic pain and couldn’t walk (but managed to ride home). Iced for 2 days, and has been adding heat and foam rolling into the picture. Got a quick massage on Saturday and everything is pretty tight (took minimal pressure on hip flexors without jumping)
2 Weeks to state champs, was looking at doing a 400 this weekend and then the 200 and 4 x 400 at the state championship. Thoughts?
Now I will need to look at more photos to see if it happen in the whole race/day/all the time.