I don’t know if it makes much sense, but if you increase the rest you get on your off days so you can cope with the milage of your long runs, would that be feasable? It’s what I did in the winter helped a lot when I was training a bajillion things at once.
Final hard aerobic session today for determining 2-mile race pace. Gonna shoot for a 5:30/mi pace with a 400m kick. Hope to break 11:00. Then it’s on to the fun stuff…Accels, heavy weights, med balls; reading the Lactate Threshold thread has me pumped for some 400s!
11:23 for 2 miles. 
I suck.
Short-to-long begins Monday. This is turning into an experiment in how much can be accomplished without aerobic ability.
What a difference a week makes! Have I been pushing a square peg through a round hole the last year? 7 days in the books with a different approach has really freshened things up. Began transitioning away from aerobic work to a focus on strength and acceleration.
Starting easy with 10-30m hill accels twice a week for speedwork. Keying on leg extension and stepping over.
For strength, used the medball and discus twice this week, mixing in short tempo work between throwing passes. Basically 4x60m@mile pace(15sec walk recovery) between sets of throws. Holding back in the weight room to 5 reps at 80-85% for another week or two. I’m waiting for some safety catch stands to arrive.
Maintaining aerobic capacity with a once-weekly threshold session and easy runs in the morning.
Looking to increase the volume of all elements in the coming weeks.
Things continue to go well; feeling stronger and faster.
Hill Accels for 10-40m the past week. Getting better at it. Extending to 50m this week plus some track starts up to 30m in spikes.
Transitioning to a 2-1-3 Max Strength cycle in the weight room. Last week:
Bench 155 lbs. x 5, Incline 75 lb dumbbells x 4, Dumbell Row 75 lb.s x 5
Dead 90k x 3, Squat 200 lbs. x 3
Snatch 50k x 2, Clean 60k x 2
Threshold run at 6:45/mi plus morning runs for aerobic maintenance.
Ended up building wooden boxes as safety supports for bench/squat. Commercial products were too expensive, and the wood doubles as a plyo box. Have been using 3 and 8 lb. medballs; may add a 12 lb. ball to the rotation.
week of 4/16:
I badly strained my lower back during a deadlift attempt. Last set of the workout and I just yanked too hard; back rounded for an instant and could feel the muscles stretching out under the load :eek: .
Took a day off of running before commencing easy runs the rest of the week. Week off from speedwork, two weeks off from weights.
So this skinny distance runner may not be built for powerlifting :o . I’ve revamped the exercise selection to lower the risk. Deadlift, squat, and olympic movements from the floor are out for the time being. The hang snatch and bench press will carry the strength routine the remainder of the season.
week of 5/1:
Starting to get back into the flow of things; the back has mostly healed. Twice weekly accelerations on the track in spikes with a once weekly threshold run for aerobic maintenance. Lifting four sessions a week (two lower and two upper) with two medball workouts to boot. Medball workouts include tempo sprints. Using jump-ups and drop jumps for elasticity during lower body lifting.
Top speed work in coming weeks. A few low-key meets in June at 100/200.
Top speed track work has begun in earnest. These are my first sessions ever of 20E/20F/20E’s and flying 20’s. Quite a shock to the system. Those sprinters on the other side of the track don’t seem so lazy anymore (and they were formerly Trevor Graham’s group; see my location). I’m finding if I don’t stay relaxed and precise in the movements, things start to ache and pull. The importance of the warmup and rep recoveries has never been so apparent as now.
Next week I’ll start the transition from two speed sessions weekly (CNS seems to be more affected as the weeks of speedwork go by) to a short SE session (80-100m) one day and a top speed session another day. Aerobic capacity remains the 3rd hard workout of the week, as it is the middle distances for the goal.
Alternating SE and TopSpeed sessions with a hard aerobic workout in between for my 3 uptempo days. SE is out to 100m from a stand in 12.8. Had my first meet of the season tonight. 12.1 handtimed 100 from a crouch start; no blocks. Finished with aerobic intervals during a 3000m race. Got some funny looks for doing that!
Next two weeks: SE out to 150, more TopSpeed sesssions and more aerobic threshold runs. Tempo runs/medball circuit on the in-between days. Another 100m race in a couple of weeks and then on to the 200. The 800m goal race is still on the August horizon.
Body is starting to hurt…knees, toes, quads needed 4 days recovery after the last meet. I determined that in the meet I forced it a bit and instead of the relaxed practice form where I push down with the hamstring, I reverted to the bad habit form of pulling the leg forward with the quad. Gonna have to “wait for it”! In the meantime, hi-intensity elements outside of sprinting like lower body weights, medball throws, and plyos are going to be reduced/eliminated as needed.
Did a full blown SE session Monday but again the form is not coming easy.
80m 11.0
100m 13.3
120m 15.4
150m 19.6
Wish I could spend more time on SE, but I feel I must keep moving out towards Special End. 2 for 800m success. Hopefully the weekly Top Speed runs will straighten out the sprint form.
Special Endurance 200’s next week and another race over 100m. C’mon sub-12!
Special Endurance 1: 2x200 (20min) in 25.6, 25.9
Shoot! That’s not going to be quick enough to break 50. 400m races are about a month off, maybe a few more TopSpeed sessions coupled with the Special Endurance will bring it around.
Canned this week’s 100m race with a whopping headache on raceday. 200m race and longer Special Endurance runs next week, perhaps another shot at the 100 the following week.
Joints are cooperating in the absence of lifting/plyos/medball…pretty bare bones program !
Another go at Special Endurance 1: 250 (30min), 200 in 30.9, 24.8
That’s a heck of a lot better than last week! Sometimes things just work. The sprints seem to be more comfortable by running only using a conscious down push, no vigorous knee drive.
Race 200m in 24.78
Clearly inferior to the training times, this race was two days afterwards. I think a minimum of three days recovery is necessary after future Special Endurance sessions. Also I got mentally distracted in the race by the other runners and the setting of a small crowd. Lost concentration on only using the hamstrings; quads started overworking and the legs began stiffening up.
Special Endurance 2 next week with a few weeks off from races to get in a dense block of training.
Yeah, the quads were overworked alright. Another three solid days of easy runs, ice, and massage to recover.
Special Endurance 2 today: 300 (30min), 250 (25min), 200 in 39.0, 31.8, 24.0.
I’m loving the 200m improvement, and thinking it’s a lot easier to sprint in training than with meet pressure/excitement.
SE2 goes to 350 or 400 next week. Easy runs, an aerobic threshold run, and a top speed workout round out the weekly schedule. About a month to go till the first 800m attempt; the speed is there but will it last for 2 minutes? I’m really crossing my fingers that the foot bones, knee joints, and quads/hamstrings will all cooperate in the interim.
Oh how training teeters at the edge of disaster… Sharp pains in the metatarsals were an abrupt reminder of the dangers of speedwork. After following the last post’s workout with a couple days of barefoot sessions and a Top Speed day, the dreaded pangs of stress fracture began to surface. I immediately cut running for a few days in favor of cycling and rowing. I then began a cautious return substituting hill repeats in trainers on dirt trails in place of previous track days in spikes. If only it weren’t deerfly season :eek: . So far the feet have held up and feel better, suggesting I backed off before fracture occurred.
Still riding a thin timetable with only two shots at the season goal 800m race: July 19th and August 9th. Did a first lactate tolerance session yesterday, cutting the rests from a Special Endurance 2 workout down to 3-5 minutes of walking. I must say I haven’t felt exertion pain like that in several years. Something special available only to the 400/800 runner. So 'til Wednesday I’ll be touching on pace speed a couple times in the spikes to make sure the foot is ok, while filling in with some cross-training and a couple of threshold runs.
2:03 for 3rd. (59,64) The foot held up, even if the ego didn’t! That effort laid me down on the infield for 30 minutes to boot. I just don’t understand how the elites run 5sec per 200 faster, then give a post-race interview. Much respect.
So the bone-sparing cross training approach seems to be working. Probably losing a bit more aerobic capacity and efficiency than if I could run everyday.
400 in two weeks, 800 in three, then the season and this journal draw the curtains.
Well unfortunately the season has come to a premature end due to recurring metatarsal pain. Ultimately the Special Endurance II was too much to handle in spikes on a once-weekly basis. Perhaps in the future these can be done in trainers uphill, while doing spikework only with the middle distance paces on the track.
So to wrap up the results for the year; previous PR’s were 12.4, 24.8, 54.0, and 2:02. Short speed was improved to 12.0 and 24.0. The 400m was due for a rewrite but the feet just didn’t last. A 2:03 in the 800 rounded out the year.
So this is all too bad after 10 or so months of effort, but the training was some of the most enjoyable as well as revealing as to what is appropriate for my body. As a middle distance guy, there is absolutely no reason to be doing only 2:03 off 24.0 speed. Next season will see a launch into more traditional distance training involving high mileage etc. Short to long appears to have a limit for me as to how far it can be taken out without injury.
I think there will still be many valid applications to Charlie’s theories in the coming years, even if few workouts will be done on the track with cones + spikes. Perhaps most valid is his point of not using the middle intensities. In my case they seemed to only dull the peaks. Basically, I’ve had the most improvement using accels/top speed work up to 60m, and 8:00/mi pace medium aerobic runs. His points regarding form and high hips were also probably instrumental in the sprint time improvements.
That’s going to do it then for my journal. I hope more than the 2 people who posted here got something beneficial or entertaining out of my posts. Thanks to the forum and to Charlie.
-Joel
Dude, how old are you?
Feet problems are a hard thing in 800m running. YOu need to know in advance that unless you do things to overcome feet sorenes, you will get sore feet… lol.
Ems on feet. Calf raises in joggers work the feet. Toe raises to work the front shin muscle. The whole lower leg needs strengh and lots of flexability and massage.
Also for off season, work on getting your 5k, or xc going, try this,
400m in 70 sec with 70 sec recovery, repeat untill pace slows.
If pace slows at 300m, STOP. Say you do 2 3/4 efforts. Then next time, work on doing 3 full ones and 100m at that pace. Stay at pace, dont finnishe the 400 at slower than 70sec, pull up instead. At least next time you can run an extra 100 or 200m!! Also, never finnish off with an even no of 400s. ie, 3 or 5 or 7 ect. after 70s rest, surly you can do another 100m at pace??? Work on this till at least 5klm. ie, 5klm is 12.5 laps of 400m! To get there may take 3-6mnths?? And once you are there, expect to be running low 15min for 5klm, often, 1ce per wk or two.
Always be working on your max 400m speed once per wk too during the off season. or maybe say flat out 200m with 60sec recovery then 200m flat out? or 400 flat out, 60sec rest then 200m?? ouch.
i should fix, never finnish off with (Whole numbers), v’s even numbers, learn the pace, dont learn to know what slowing up is. Its a real hard session, and if you start going too hard therby finnishing off with a say 75 instead it also might push you that bit far ontop off not learning correct speed judgment.
I used this to run a 24.30 8klm, as part of off season 800m work.
Untill you get to 12.5 efforts, then increase the speed of the efforts 2sec.
Boldwarrior, thank you much for the ideas. I’m 28, with 7 training seasons behind me now. I’ll certainly do a little more for the lower legs/feet this coming season, as that has been a recurring problem in previous seasons. Cramping, tightness, stress reactions, you name it.
These are tough workouts you describe. Repeat 400’s at mile pace w/ same time recovery and the special endurance split runs you describe; those are no joke! Great 8k time, by the way.
I did and hope they continue 