I appreciate your candidness. My first year coaching was the year I joined Charlie’s site (in 03) and I’ve no doubt been through this thread and collected exceptional data from it over the years. I only mentioned my curiosity regarding the swimming program because your reference to initially having employed block system training got me thinking that it may have been something other than what has been discussed here already.
Interesting that you make the 200m repeat reference as this is, on the surface, reminiscent of Clyde Hart’s philosophy; though only at first glance as you’ve already made clear that the loading wasn’t linear which, as an aside, is something that I’m compelled to question about Hart’s programming due to the exceptionally clear argument Charlie provided in reference to the pitfalls of the linear approach in which work capacity is lost over time due to the insufficient volume that exists by the time intensities are high enough to develop race specific speed and, by default of the approach, too much time goes by before the runs are actually fast enough to develop speed.