Racing for L-S

[mreoyn09]

Charlie,
You mention 60m races being a good “check” for how the athlete has progressed through spp1 and for planning subsequent training/comps. My question is how you would do this for someone going L-S. Presumably the 60m result wouldn’t be as good for someone doing L-S as it would be for those doing S-L so would you just race at 60m with “lower expectations”? Would you have them race at 200m? Something else entirely?

[tamfb]

I think the short speed wont be as bad as you may think because of the short speed work that is being done towards the end of SPP, Acc work and strength training that is being done throughout the program.

[mreoyn09]

@tamfb

I think the short speed wont be as bad as you may think because of the short speed work that is being done towards the end of SPP, Acc work and strength training that is being done throughout the program.

Yea I don’t think the 60m results would be THAT bad but I have always dropped significant (.1+) time on my 60 after working on it for a while after coming from solely 0-30m work. Given that a .1 differential in the 60 could mean you are either on target or you really need to make changes to hit the ultimate goal I was just wondering how it would be handled in L-S. What do you think of the idea about racing 200s?

[Nikoluski]

Check below Charlie’s very recent reply to John on a similar subject…

@John

… In the SPP download you discuss the indoor 60 Comps as a way of checking the season is on target (100m goal is X so need to be at Y over 60). For a 400m runner who doesn’t have an indoor season and needs a LOT of speed development would it be appropriate to have a 2-3 week simulated comp season over 300m as a similar measure?

In this scenario, while still having 12 weeks you would amend SPP1 and not do the last 4 weeks (as really getting 400m specific) till SPP2 and do more shorter split runs and short speed work.

@Charlie_Francis

Yes, 300s or 320s are good indicators of your place on the way to a 400 season BUT if this is a young beginner, 200s early might be a better indicator because they’d prob only have the capacity to do a few 300s before the 400 and the target is moving so rapidly that early 300s would be too far away from what they’d be capabl;e of later.
the most blatent example of my coaching career was Charmaine Crooks who showed good 200m potential but ran only 59.5 (HS junior) in the 400 in early May. By July the same year, she ran 53.11 and won the National Seniors, almost entirely off 200s in competition and SE, the high school competition season with 3 or 4 400s, and just a few 300s shortly before her final taper. You could never have predicted that from a 300m test done indoors in Jan/Feb.

[mreoyn09]

Nikoluski-

I saw that question and response earlier but that (like the 60m discussed in the video) is shorter than the goal race distance and presumably refers to a S-L program where your speed should be up to par and thus you race at a shorter distance to check that speed. My question is what you should do when going L-S where your top speed isn’t necessarily developed as fully as it would be in a L-S program by the indoor comp period.

So if we are talking about a 100m guy doing a L-S program would it be advisable to race at 200m indoors or would you still race at 60m and just adjust the expected result there based on the fact that top speed hasn’t been fully developed?

[tamfb]

If you look at the spp graphs there is top speed work towards the end also remember you have all indoors to cont the development of top speed work if it is a weakness.

If you dig deeper into why some athletes go l-s, I have found these athletes are usually more gifted in the top speed department because body type (long limbs etc).