Racing for L-S

[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.