i am a 200-400 female runner at a D3 college. ( 25.0, 57.0) my coach believes that doing speed work is just doing something fast no matter how far. usually our workouts consist of distances between 150-600 meters. we never work on short speed under 150 and we rarely go over 90%. no one on my team has improved much.but my coach is defensive when me or someone approach her about why we do these workouts. I feel as if i can run several 400s in one day. just not one fast one. it makes sense to me to run shorter speed, i need to be able to run atleast a low 25 in teh open 200 so i can go out in 26 without that being 100 %. my coach seems to think that if we keep doing 600s or repeat 300’s well get “Strong”. she also is afraid we may peak to early, when our conference is in 2 weeks and we haev yet to do any speed. and the season is over in 4 weeks…can anyone tell me if what we are doing has any effectiveness? am i going to peak before the season ends, if we dotn start speed til next week.? sometimes i try to make suggestions but i dotn know enough to go back and forth with her… any suggestions???:help:
Pioneer
Depends on how many events they have the previous week and the following week. I would move to single Spec End runs for the late season regardless.
Vincente, how the hell did you get your coach to compromise like that?! I have to admit, that’s the first time I’ve heard of a coach doing that. The guy might be clueless about training, but I have to give him credit for having enough confidence to let you train the way you want to. Most coaches are too insecure, probably afraid that their own methods will be shown up by a kid. I’d like to know how he reacts to your success. Will he actually start studying your training methods? Keep us posted.
Track365, that’s why I didn’t run on my college team. I went to a DIII school as well. I have to give the coach credit in that he did assign short speed work (40s and 60s), even to his 400 runners. However, he alternated the speed work with high volumes of intensive tempo work. I trained with the team for about two weeks, but the intensive tempo work killed me and led to several muscle strains, so I said nuts to that. I spent three years in high school battling with my coaches and I refused to go through the same thing in college.
Try:
Mon - speed
Tues - special endurance
Wed - tempo
Thurs - speed
Fri - off or very light temp
Sat - compete
Sun - off
If the meets you are competing in on Saturday are not important at this stage and you are only competing in one event e.g. the 100m, you can do one or two special endurance runs late on Saturday afternoon and do a speed endurance workout on the Tuesday.
I’ll just put it this way. If you have meets every Saturday where is it best to put the special end work during the week on Wednesday or Tuesday? What would the rest of the week look like? Occasionally we have a meet on Wednesday and Saturday in which case we do not do the special end. work during the week-since the meets satisfy that training requirement. I hope that clears up things. Thanks.
Welcome to the forum track365… nice to have the addition of a female voice…
first question i would like to ask is exaclty what a typical week may look like for you in the compettion phase. (what exactly did you do all of last week?)
judging from what you have told us it seems like you have a typical old school coach that views sprints especially the 400 from an strength standpoint.
Speed is developed from 30-80 meters because the simply fact that you reach top speed at 40-50 meters females a little longer and you can maintain it steadily for 80 meters. And that is just simply based on that principal alone. Not to mention energy systems. What you said so far seems like she favors speed endurance and thinks speed endurance and special endurance is actually speed. id like to know the exact intensities she has you do “speed work” at as well as the recoveres she has you use. To paint a better picture it would probably be a good idea as i said earlier in this post to give us a plan of a full weeks workout in the competition phase.
With so little time left in the season, I’m not sure that more speed work would do much for you. In fact, it might make things worse by raising your total speed vol when you’re not used to it, when a lot of the top athletes would already be dropping their speed vol. I’d like to see your Special End restricted to the 200 to 300 range for ONE rep only- and only once per week (probably Tues, if your meets are on Sat). On Thurs, I’d do 4 x 30m starts on the bend with perhaps one x 80m from blocks AT 400M RACE PACE, which should be extremely relaxed and smooth, with Sun and Fri off. If you are either not recovering well by Tues, or have an unusually high workload in the previous week’s competition, I’d move the Spec End run to Wed and work on race pace only ( which is, of course, slightly slower than the best time you can generate over 200 or 300m) The rest of the week would be very easy tempo on grass. It would help if you could post your meet schedule with the events you must cover, as the races will cover the rest of your fitness/speed work needs at this point. I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but, believe me this is the most effective way to improve at your current level and point in the season.
a typical week usually includes speed endurance on mon and wed. with monday being 4-6 600s or 500s and wed being something like 6 200s (at 30 sec. which is about 85%) with a minute rest. tues and thurs are tempo which consists of 200,300,200,300,200x 2 sets. fri is jus a premeet warmup up and meet on sat. my coach considers wed the speed workout when we are running 200s. meanwhile it seems to me that both these days are speed endurance. i feel like i am in great shape and these workouts do tire me out so i feel like i get something out of them. but i dont think there is enough speed nor is it really specific to my events.
this thurs we have a small meet at a nearby school where i wil be running the 100 and 4x1.would this be considrered a speed workout for me? Then i am running a 400, 4x4 and 4x1 this weekend on sat. then on the tues following i am running in a small meet and running the 100 and 200. next weeknd at our conf. meet he wants me to run 100 (trials and finals),200, 400,4x1,4x4 (God only knows how, the meet is one day) The following 3 weeks 400 and 4x4 and 4x1. there is 5 weeks left to our season.
i understand what you wrote about doing one rep. but i know my coach is going to be difficult about it. when i suggest doing less reps and faster i am told “well you have to be able to finish the 400”. in turn. this means he wants us to do more reps.
… I believe he is also under the impression that 100s are not hard and as 400 runners we dotn benefit from them. Even though the 100 may not be the longest race, it still takes something out of your legs. and it cannot be something you just expect someone to be able to run at any tme and before any race. he looks at this as “just a 100”. so at our conference meet i wil be asked to do run 2 100s in addition to the 4,2,4x1 4x4 and it as not looked at as hampering me at all. similiar to when i ran the 55 (trials and fianls) at our indoor conf. meet shortly before the 400 and all i got was ‘its just a 55 u will be fine’…
i ended the indoor season running high 57 in the open 400 and opened up the outdoor season in a 60!!! which is pathetic. i feel like we haev started from square one to where we were at teh begining of indoor season as far as training. i feel like i have been detrained and just want to get back to where i was atleast b4 its too late… thanks for taking the time to respond. i know i dont know that much about this but i am trying to learn. what i do know is this philosophy isnt working too well and i would like to know more about what i should do so maybe i can change this around before its too late. :o
let me just add taht this has been a typical schedule for the past few weeks. our first meet was this weekend. so maybe the workouts will change now that were in the competition phase. but this is how its been all outdoor season so far for preperation…
Track365,
I hope that you don’t mind me asking, but what DIII school are you attending? I also go to a DIII school (Springfield College) and have experienced what you are going through. I decided to take matters into my own hands after my first year have and been enjoying the fruits of my labor thoroughly because of Charlie and the people on this board. What I eventually ended up doing is learing as much as I could about sprinting (still am) and then was able to “compromise” with my coach on what the training is. I basically have to warm up with my team and then I can do Charlie’s program tailored to my own specifecs. What year are you?
Vincette, i would rather not say the name of the school out of respect. i guess that is waht i am just going to have to do, learn alot and then try to compromise with my coach. but i dont know how well that will go, because like Flash said most coaches would feel insecure about something like that. but if i learn enough maybe i can bring up some valuable points. which may lead him to reconsider what he is doing and wake him up. i tried this the other day and i was surprised to see he took what i was saying into account and modified the workout. so i guess that is a start!
Flash, sorry to hear what happend with ur coach and training, that is too bad. i am trying to prevent something like that from happening. thanks everyone for the advice…:saint:
Dear Track365
I agree it’s important to finish the 400m but I do have some experience in this area, both with beginners and high level 400m women. (4 under 51, 2 under 50)
A reasonable comparison would be the girl I had, who as a high school junior, started the season with a 59.5h and ended during summer track with a 400m best of 53.12, which was good enough at that time to win the national seniors (this was at a time when the heats and finals were run on the same day- a SEVERE detriment to fast times, as you, no doubt, know. She ran special end for 2 reps, 2x/week at the beginning (long and short) but moved to shorter only for 2 reps, and, finally short for one rep towards the end of the season. Additionally, I kept her out of 400m races for most of the later season, running 200s, and competing in 400s only in the most important meets.
to answer some of your questions:
The Tues meets with shorter events will provide the speed work you have time for now- don’t look for more.
If possible, at the conference, try to drop the 100.
For the remaining workouts- you should be doing tempo at a conversational pace only- prob no faster than 38 to 40 sec pace on the grass.
If you can make these modest changes, you might well see things turn out a lot better than you think!
Charlie, for h.s. athletes, I’ve had them do spec. end. work on Wednesdays before a Saturday meet. Is this too close? Speed on Mon. Tues-tempo, Wed.-spec. end. 2x200 for 100/200 athletes and 2x300 for 200/400 or strictly 400 athletes. Tempo-Thurs. Fri. travel to meet. no workout unless especially tight or sore-very rare. This is the schedule we have used this season with many Saturday meets and the occasional Wednesday meet substituting for the special endurance work.
Charlie, they are regularly running 2-3 events on Saturday and occasionally 4(rarely). What would the following week look like if you are running again on Saturday? Would Monday be tempo, Tues-spec. end, Wed-tempo, Thurs-light speed as you posted earlier, Fri.-travel or should I stick with other plan? Thanks.
zoom 100, that definately sounds liek something my coach would say. “who is the coach here?” i agree you must listen to your athletes. obviously what works for one person., might not workout out for another person. my coach tries to compare me to girls who have been our team in the past, and i know i am a totally different runner then them so it doesnt matter!
Charlie, thank you for the suggestions. that is very impressive how that one girl got down from 59 to 53 in one summer! that must have been something !! so you think that at this point in the season i should just be doing 2 special endurance reps one time a week at this point or 2 times a week? so maybe 2x300, or should it be shorter like 200’s? and then the other days tempo, and use the weekday meets as speed? i just want to clarify if i got it right…and also do u think it would be a good idea to not run to many open 400s and try to concentrate more on the 200 at meets, like you said that girl did and only ran the 400 at big meets. and if so, what about the 4x4, would that be o.k to run at pretty much every meet. (not that i am sure i even have a choice)…thanks so much everyone for ur help:)
i know the question was directed at Charlie but before he answers id like to chime in… in no case would you want to do special endurance 2 times a week… since special endurance is supposed to be done around 95% with full recovery it is extremly hard on your body. Charlie correct me if im wrong but i belive if you have a meet on tuesday that would take place of you special endurance runs. but my question is what would she want to do the rest of the week? would she want to do 4x30 out of blocks on the bend and perhaps 1x80 on Thurs? if she did that wouldnt she need to do some sort of tempo workout the next day to recover for Saturdays meet?
You ARE doing Spec End twice a week as the Meet counts for one session. Normally in the pre-comp period, it isn’t too stressful for a 400m runner to do two sessions, as the second session of 2x 500 or 600m isn’t as demanding on the CNS as shorter work might be- even though it’s plenty tough.
ok. i see, the meet is the second spec. end. session. what if the meet is on a thurs? is that too close to recover if i have another meet on sat. ?
also just to clarify, if i dont have a meet should i still do 2 spec. endurance runs or should one change to shorter speed?
If you’re in-season, I would do speed work or maybe shorter speed endurance runs.