You said post what you think even if you know nothing about the 800, so here it goes.
A couple things kinda jumped out at me as I looked over your sheet.
The first thing was this, in 10 weeks of training you do not have a single day off. Not one day of just passive recovery sitting there letting your legs rest and just chilling. The only days where I could possibly see that are the 3 Thursdays from Week 3 to Week 5 where you might now race. I don’t know about you, but I can gurantee that I would burn out if I didnt have at least 1 day off passive rest every 10 days. I understand that you want the miles for cross-country, but it’s track season. You can start packing on the miles in the summer, right now if you want to do well I think you should make the Sunday in Week 3, the Thursday in Week 5, and the Sunday in Week 8 days OFF. Complete passive rest. That’s only 3 days, and I think it’ll make a world of difference as far as recovery and your mental motivation. I know that if I take a day off I’m just aching to go the next time I’m out running, cuz mentally I feel like I’m not doing enough. However, I also know that physically I’ve allowed my body to recover so that it can perform to the best that it’s capable of. However, I am not familiar with distance training as some of you may be, and I dont know the effect of taking a day off on your aerobic capacity or whatever it’s called that makes distance guys run all over the place with ease while I’m huffing and puffing after 3 laps, but I assume it’s negligible, am I right or wrong on this one?
The next thing was the lack of speed work. Now I know that the 800 is not an event based on pure speed, but it seems to me that if you want to run a 1:55 or lower, you’re gonna have to be capable of at least a 52-54 second 400 at max effort. That means having decent speed. Every workout you have that is listed as “hard” are all workouts geared for endurance with partial recoveries. The only places where I see you developing the speed component is actualyl during the races, which you have a lot of, and although it’s not the most efficient way of doing it, it is better than nothing. I guess that can’t be helped really, but I would say that changing the Saturday in Week 7 to a pure speed focus day instead of a fartlek would be more beneficial, but that’s just me being a sprinter
Now I know you say that you’re gonna post your strength portion of your workout soon, but I just want to talk about that for a second. Since you arent doing true speed work, have you considered doing a lower body lift just once a week to help develop limit strength? I think it would helpful, but I dont know how draining it would be on you physically and as how fatiguing it would be to the CNS, especially with all the volume you’re doing. If you feel comfortable and up to it, I would say doing some type of weightlifting involving the legs, medicine ball explosions/throws, and low volume high intensity ab work with medicine balls/weight plates on Tuesdays in Weeks 5,6,7,8,9, and 10 and on Saturday in Week 7 would be good. You could also throw in a couple of other excercises like pulldowns, rows, bench, and dips to round out the workout. I would also do low intensity ab work on a daily basis (except the day before or day of a meet). Stuff like bridges (or planks) and side leans will also help build core strength, which I think is important for all runner, whether they’re sprinters or marathoners.
Finally, the last thing I wanted to address is your taper for near the end of the season. I know that in Speed Trap, among other things, Charlie talks about utilizing a full 10 day taper for his sprinters. 10 days. I dont know how much different it would be for an 800 runner, but it appears, to me at least, that your workout tapers for your big meets (CCS, State) are almost identical as the ones for your meets at the beginning of the season. Have you considered doing something along the lines of moving your hard workout (on tuesday now) to monday during a big meet week (weeks 9 and 10 specifically), putting a progression run on Tuesday, then the workout you have listed for Thursday (weeks 9,10) moved to Wednesday, then a tempo run on Thursday, and a couple of striders on Friday? I think that would leave you fresh for the races you need to do well on. Week 11 is a little tougher cuz its on Thur/Fri instead of Fri/Sat, so you lose a day. I’m still thinking on that one, and I’ll get back to you on that.
Overall, those were my thoughts. Like I said, I have no clue about 800 training, but from my perspective that is what I noticed. Please forgive me if something I suggest is completely bogus because of the way trainig for distance works, but I just did my best
So Palmtag, hows that for input, and what do you think?