It is important to understand that the transition from Phase to Phase is not dependent on what day you have it scheduled for on your Yearly Plan or Olympic Cycle Plan. Transitioning is dependent on weather, on the athlete’s conditioning, the athlete’s competition schedule, on facilities available and many other factors (money for traveling to warm climates etc.)
Here is one thing I have learned from Charlie in particular regarding phase transitions. The trick to a successful transition is to do it in such a way that the organism doesn’t realize any change has gone on. A major cause of injury is transitioning too fast thereby causing stiffness, and a plethora of other problems with the athlete.
This is one reason my athletes do not change very much in the weight room no matter what time of year it is. Everything is general with the weights, and is always supplementary to speed work.
Speed work is done year round, with varying VOLUMES, but always at HIGH INTENSITY (weather permitting).
Speed Endurance work is gradually incorporated and is more like having speed work distances slowly increasing to speed endurance distances. Never would we hit the track in the spring and go from doing 50m and 60m indoors to running 120m x 2. Distance would be increased gradually, but also as quickly as the organism would allow.
Special endurance sessions can be broken up into 2 reps of shorter speed endurance type distances with shorter rest periods. (Eg. 100m rest 1 minute 100m rest 1 minute 100m).
Supposing I was comming from the indoor season with a base where I was capable of running the volume of 2(3 x 60m), I would probably start my outdoor sessions by increasing to 70m, then 80m and up (on speed endurance days, while still doing just speed days), until I got to 100m, and then start breaking it up into special endurance runs. I would never jump more than lets say 20m at a time.
I jumped 40meters today did 1x100 and 1x90. I had pretty good staying power for the entire sprint didn’t slow down that much,mabye becuase of tempo runs. Mabye if you do tempo it allows you to make more of a jump by conditioning you?
mabye 60-100 isn’t that big of a jump your just trying to retain your speed for another 40 meters, once you reach top speed mabye retaining a fast speed for another 40 meters isn’t that big of a deal.
Where are you at in relation to your major competitions for the year? How long have you been running outdoors already this year? You have not done any 80m or 100m yet this year? So if you jumped 40m in one practice you are saying you haven’t done anything over 50m yet this year?
Well I train alone and I plan too try out for the track team at my college next year, I’ve been doing speed work since late december, like once or twice a week,sometimes three times a week,not training consistenly. But recently I’m starting to take it more seriously and I plan to periodize. I’ve ran the distance of 100 meters at full speed twice since december,not counting today where I ran 100 meters,and 90 meters. The largest distance I ran besides the two 100’s and the special endurance work I did today was about 60 meters, I plan to run special endurance every week now though. I find that retaining my speed well for an extra 40 isn’t that difficult as long as I stay relaxed. I plan to do a 3-1-3 one periodization scheme where I increase the volume for three weeks then drop it one week then increase it for another 3 weeks.
I tried to introduce SE in phase 2 @ 10 - 20m per week - but I still found this surprisingly hard to extend , and it’s only now ( start of phase 3 ) that I’m starting to feel I can go the full distance - In 100m and to about 180m in 200m
Now the problem I’m considering in approaching next years planning is - have I found the integration of SE a problem because my volumes of winter tempo were not enough ( track tempo limited by achilles )
or should I introduce SE slightly earlier in phase 2 ( as I want to be able to peak twice and earlier next year for County champs in april )
or should I be doing some sort of ext tempo ( 300’s throughout winter ) along some of the lines in the hotly debated HSI 10 x 600 thread ? - (I won’t be doin 600’s 10 x that’s for sure lol )
Increasing the distances to soon might also make a beginner scared of running flat out.
I hadn’t originally planned on competing this ,my first year and as a consequence focused on running up to 60 meters only. But seeing that I improved so fast ,and that the nationals where to be held at the very place I do my practice ,a 3-minute walk from my home ,I decided to start competing and ran some 80’s in practice. Lately I have run some 100’s and 150’s ,but find I hold back, not only in the acceleration-phase but also at top speed. This has also made me run slow at meets - though that is not the only explanation. I just can’t seem to run as aggressive when doing 100 meters or more as when running 80 meters or less. I get mixed feelings when prepearing to run these distances.