Indoor season planning.

CF Product Discussions GPP Essentials
1

Hello all,

I’m 36, training age 3+, PB 12.49 / 25.04. I live in Toronto, so Short to Long is the approach I’ll be going with.

I’m planning my indoor season, so first off here are the competition dates:

Main competition: mid-March (est. March 13th)

Competition phase: 8 weeks (mid-January to mid-March)

SPP: 6-8 weeks (December to mid-January)

GPP: 8-10 weeks (October - November)

I have all the CF materials. Looking at the GPP Essentials DVD as well as the Edmonton Short to Long program, I have a couple of questions.

First, on the Short to Long graph, I am only going to go with two speed days, with perhaps some short hills / general fitness on Sundays early on.

Monday: off
Tuesday: SPEED
Wednesday: tempo
Thursday: off
Friday: SPEED
Saturday: tempo
Sunday: short hills, general fitness during GPP, perhaps off later.

With only two speed days, how should I split up the work? Once you progress through the weeks on the Short to Long graph, there are speed change drills, etc. that will be too taxing to complete if I try to fit in a second day of split runs.

I can do the split runs (e.g. 4x4x50) on my first speed day, but in order to get in the quality short work (4x30, EFE / FEF) on the next speed day, would it be possible to instead of doing the split runs on the second speed day to do something longer with limited rest (akin to Long to Short style, e.g. 2x300m or 2x150+150) to make it more tolerable to get the short work done?

Another option could be that I leave the Friday how it’s listed in the Short to Long template (with appropriate volume reductions of course) and substitute short hills with limited recovery (4x4x40m) on Sundays, and could add some general fitness work after (3xmedball circuit, abs, Pfaff GS circuits, etc.)

Any comments would be appreciated! I’m trying to do a better job of planning this year.

2

Once you have built up your distances enough to use the FEF and EFE, your other speed session could be acceleration e.g. 2x3x20m (keeping in mind your pb’s) followed by 2x4x60m with an acceleration marker at 20m then maintain. Providing the 2 sessions are far enough apart in days, then you might manage that combination. With general conditioning on other days you should progress. Good idea to use a power med ball session once a week, it helps the start a lot. I have coached guys of 35+ and they need plenty of recovery between intensive sessions. The intensity may not be that high but the body needs it, and more so as you get older. Hope this helps, keep us informed how you get on whatever you choose.

3

Hi Phil,

I totally agree about the explosive medball throws! Over the summer when I trained down south, my coach felt that was a major hole in my program. I use a general lifting program, so there are no Olympic lifts in there, so I think the lack of explosive throws hurt.

Your idea sounds very good. Will I be OK with just one day of split runs?

When would you do the medball throws? I can do them on one of the speed days (Tuesday or Friday), or on Sundays with some general fitness work.

4

I would do them first thing on Sundays -give them priority. If on a second day as well, you could reduce the volume.

5

OK, I could do them Sundays because it will be mostly general fitness and therefore low intensity. I’ll be doing medball throws in GPP, and can keep some in on Tuesdays perhaps going forward before runs as that will be my split run day, thus volume will be high but intensity not so high.

I’d imagine they would be more tolerable on a split run day than a pure speed day?

6

That’s exactly what we do on a Sunday, followed by general work.

Regarding the split runs, I reckon one session will be enough.

Do keep your sprint volumes down, I made the mistake of keeping the volume on the sprinting pretty high, thinking my athletes could handle 4 sets of 60’s. And they could, they completed the sessions and were going fine, or so I thought. Even when I reduced the volume and increased the recoveries they just could not get any faster and it took a long time to get it back. I know other users of this site who have had the same problem. I now keep it at 2 sets of 4, even 3 sets left some of them flat.

7

Hi PhilG,

Thank you VERY much for suggesting the cut volume. I usually run out to 50m (because I’m slow and it will get lactic if I run out to 60m at less than full intensity).

Your point about doing only 2 or 3 sets will be taken very seriously. Last year, I would do basically 4x(4x50m) with almost no rest between the 50m reps. It was basically 50m down, turnaround, and 50m back, and 4 mins between sets.

Looking back, I think this lack of rest probably really killed the quality! I barely shaved any time in the 60m last year, and was always tight and sore.

FYI, following a query by me in the SPP forum, NumberTwo made a pretty cool suggestion about following a mixed program (S to L on Speed Day 1, L to S on Speed Day 2). I will keep everyone posted.

Might I ask for a few ideas for general fitness work? I was thinking Pfaff GS circuits would be one thing, of course the CF medball circuits would be another. I could use a few more ideas though!

8

I made the same suggestion months ago because that’s what I’m doing in SPP…

9

Its what we are using as well, starting at 300m and dropping down over the SPP1 period.

10

How much rest are you starting with the 300’s?

11

10-12mins depending on how they look, starting out with a 20m acceleration limit. Just 2 reps, then follow up with endurance A’s then med ball for general conditioning.

12

Hello everyone,

Thank you all once again for your suggestions.

So here’s an update to how the indoor season went. I went in with PB’s of 7.98 in the 60m, 25.67 in the indoor 200m from last year. Last year my 200m time only improved by .02, and I was hoping to take a chunk off this indoor season.

The season got off to a brutal start, as there was a fire at the Metro Track and Field Centre at York University. The indoor facility was closed until December, and we had to run outdoors in converted party tents(!) that only allowed about 35m of full out running.

We started out with 3x4x60 and I think this was a HUGE mistake- as PhilG warned me! Once the fire hit, I was forced to move to 3x4x35m with 3x6 power cleans afterward, with bench and squats as well.

I obviously was very limited in my ability to run longer SE (no 150’s until December really). I made use of a hockey arena for indoor 150 tempo runs, and made great use of bike tempo once a week. The bike tempo is such a terrific option for masters athletes, it really contributed to me not being beat up this season. Also, I really enjoy freaking people out at the gym who have no clue what the hell I’m doing when watching me work the bike + floor exercise combo.

I headed down to Texas for two weeks at Christmas which allowed me to train outdoors and get some quality sessions in. What a difference it makes when there is no work stress! I dropped 5 lbs. in two weeks because I was able to spend more time planning meals, taking naps, and relaxing in general.

I did a 2x4x60m session in Austin, and I thought it was going well. Rep times were as follows:

Set 1: 7.93, 7.81, 7.70, 7.68
Set 2: 7.65, 7.60, 7.55, 7.6x (stumbled)

I figured from the above that 2x4x60m was just right at the time- the final rep would have been fastest if not for a stumble. I stayed with 2x4x60m for a couple more sessions, then dropped to 2x3x60m, but I didn’t see the improvement I was hoping for. Perhaps too much volume early, plus lengthening the accel distances too quickly was to blame.
There were a lot of problems:

-Tuesday speed day from January on was unsupervised
-didn’t feel nearly as good technically from the time I came back from Texas
-coach here wants me to relax, but I didn’t feel technically sound (look at my times- I’m not!), which makes it hard to relax
-very little quality block work (maybe 3 or 4 sessions total)
-lots of accels were done in flats. No hills and not much resisted work
-SE work was 150’s only, nothing over or under that distance
-needed better dietary control

Overall, my results were disappointing. I had a lot of problems with my starts, where as last year I was very comfortable in the blocks even though I was weaker.

This year my 60’s were as follows:
8.15h, 8.15f (yikes!)
8.07h (stumble), 8.05f
8.08 (flinch, bang! oh shit)
8.04SB (big stumble)

The 200’s were not bad:
26.15 (lane 5, ran this as a 150 flat out + pray, great race if not a great time)
25.75 (lane 4, ran race just right)
25.82 (lane 2, good race til the last 25m when I “chased” and overstrided which cost me)
25.73SB (lane 5, crap start, and let the guy in lane 4 alter my race plan- pushed too hard from 60-100m instead of floating and letting myself catch him at 150m- tied up at 180m)

Overall, I really enjoyed the 200’s a lot more than the 60’s. I was just brutal technically in my 60m races.

I’m annoyed that I allowed someone else to affect me in my last 200m race, because I felt ready to run faster, and could have even with the poor start.

It’s time to start planning for SPP 2. It’s all about breaking 25.00 this year outdoors. I suspect going with the mixed program as I wanted to for indoors would create some nice results.

Here is a basic outline:

-4 week outdoor GPP starting March 12
-8 week SPP ending June 12 (big meet #1)
-4 to 6 week competition block (big meet #2 June 24, big meet #3 mid-July)

Tues- SPEED (StoL): 0-60m (some hill work), SE1 (80-150m)
Wed- tempo: big circuit, CF medball / GS / abs
Thurs- off
Fri- SE (LtoS): wk 1 300-300, wk 2 300-300, wk 3 300-250, wk 4 250-250, etc…
Sat- tempo: small circuit, CF medball / GS / abs
Sun- general fitness, explosive throws.

I’m going to Austin during the spring break, so I’ll be able to start SPP2 with 8 days of outdoor training there. I’ll stay on the grass for all tempo sessions, and get on the hills. I think the hills will help my mechanics without inducing paralysis.

I’m flying into Dallas early on Saturday, March 11th. Is anyone based there? I would love to grab some breakfast / lunch with a couple of members if anyone is up for it.