Sunday 9 September
Belgian Junior Championships
100m heat: 11.20 (w+2,0)
100m final : 11.03 (w+3,4)
200m final : 22.38 (w+2,3)
The times are okay, would have been cool to run a sub 11 though, legal wind or not. My first 60m are good as usual and then can’t seem to speed up anymore. That’s it for the season… next week relay championships and the week after a sweet decathlon just for fun
Congrats on your season. You ran a few PB’s which is always great.
You put together a really nice journal here, and it was nice to follow along and see what kind of workouts your coach assigned throughout the season and how it affected the final results. I know you complained about all the lactic workouts early on, and from your results with about two seconds coming off your 400, it seems the focus was on a lot of lactic work and probably not as much speed development as would be suitable for a big strong guy like yourself.
I know you have mentioned you might like to leave your coach. Have you had a chance to think more about that? I’m curious to hear your mindset now that your season is complete.
Well, i’m still not sure about leaving my coach. By reading and doing lots of research on this forum I’ve seen that ‘beginners’ need a longer GPP and basic fitness before speed work can be done. Alot of information to be found here: http://www.charliefrancis.com/community/showthread.php?19789-Speed-endurance-the-key-to-all-11-12second-sprinters
We had a discussion yesterday and he told me I’m far from my potential, and that with all my injuries and such it’s normal that speed work/power work was very limited. I duno I don’t really feel like leaving him, I have to think it through.
About the lactic work, I told him that when I ran 22.38 last week, my last 50m were horrible. He said I lack '250+150 workouts with 90 sec rest after the 250. I remember you, T-Slow saying the workout itself can’t really improve a 100m time, could they improve my last portion of the 200?
Wednesday 12 September
Relay exchanges/speed work
few relax exchanges for the 4x200 sunday, with 50m runup
3x30m
2x150m - last one in 16.90s
Friday 14 September
running in between small cones for rhythm and stride frequency.
3x
2x40m
2x60m
all relaxed and 95% effort
Sunday 16 September
Belgian relay championships
I ran the 4x200m heats and 3 hours later the 4x2 final.
We won in a time of 1:27’72
First leg for both and ran the final pretty fast, last 50m are a pain in the ass though. I’m curious about my time in the final, i’ll know once the video is up.
Wednesday 19 September
Running in between cones. It’s hard to explain but we had one row of cones placed close to each other for rythm/stride frequency. Other row had the cones spaced a bit larger… last row had a 2.70m space between cones. 4 rows of cones in total.
3x each row (20m run up), last one (2.70m) is very difficult to do. I really can’t understand how say Asafa Powell (2.60m stride length) can achieve such stride length. I really have to extend and overstride a lot to get such stride lol. After just 1 try my coach said it’s pointless to do right now as it could cause injury, but it was nice to see how big the elites stride length is.
3x40m
3x60m
Each with different starting positions.
My coach says I seem to have better top speed than before, I don’t know it seems that way too when I run. I said my season is finished but we have a meet 6th of October (where Meritt ran his WR). I’m in great shape right now and been injury free for the past weeks, haven’t missed one single session… so I think PB’s could fall that day. My coach will start the GPP late anyway
I’m not really a fan of the concept of artificially training stride length like that. I expect it would result in a forced technique and possibly injury from over striding. Better to let the stride lengthen as a result of general strength increases and hills, sleds, etc…
Agreed. Stride length is a side effect of strength and power, not the primary reason for running fast. It seems this coach pulls out weird workouts every so often…
Saturday 22 September
Pre-meet routine
Dynamic warm-up
3x20m with full rec.
Sunday 23 September
Meet
100m: 11.33 (w -0.3) - very good first 60m, the guy who won in 11.30 was 2m behind me at the 60m mark, and then bam he passes me at the end. seems like i lack some speed endurance
300m: 35.69 - last 100m were horrible
Is it your conditioning or your technique? Perhaps get some video of you running from 60-100…
It’s my conditioning, my last 100m sunday were as hard as the last 100m of a 400 race… and I have alot of races in plus it’s the end of the season. This wk-end my first decathlon ever, will be careful and warm up thoroughly to avoid injury, that will close my season.
Saturday 29 September
First-ever decathlon, day 1
100m: 11.37 (w 0.0) (bad start and acceleration)
Long jump: 5m77, disappointed with that. I expected at least 6m but i really can’t jump
Shot put (6kg): 10m48
High jump: 1m56, lol i expected a bad performance but not as bad…
400m: 51.70, went too fast the first 200m, found myself struggling in the last curve and gave all I had in the straight. again poor performance
excited for tomorrow! 110m hurdles and pole vault will be a mess (might not do it as i could injure myself)
Saturday 30 September
decathlon day 2
110m hurdles: 18.08
discus (1750g): 31m
pole vault: 1.88m
javelin (800g): 44m
1500m: 4min59
total of 5202 points
so this closes my season! was a great experience, didn’t injure myself so all is good. i’ll be starting a new journal when the season starts again. right now im still not sure whether to leave the coach for the other sprint coach in my club, i’ll have to think it through and I have about 2 weeks to do that.
thanks to all the people that gave me advice and told me not to feel bad about bad performances (early in the season) and remain patient throughout the season
that really motivated me and i do have patience now, i learned alot by starting this journal and reading through the archives. what a great forum!
Well done, you’ve had a great season…
NEW SEASON.
Monday 8 October - Training in the Park
20 min warm up
2x 30 step ups
5x park parkour ( around 600m) - 3 min rest.
2’14 - 2’03 - 2’20 - 2’20 - 2’14
Tuesday 9 October - Tempo
30 min warm up
6x50 technique runs
16x200 in 39 sec - 2 min rest.
Static core exercises
I noticed i’m completely out of shape, the times of yesterday show that and I couldn’t even hold the plank for 45 secs while in the early competition phase I could hold it for 2 mins.
Oh well, that will change soon
Sunday 4 November - Official season start
25 min jogging
ballistic stretches
hamstring eccentrics with partner
lunges (hurt really bad)
Run circuit around the park
Monday 5 November
20 min jog
core circuit
400m in 1:10 - jog to 300m
300m in 50s - jog to 200m
200m in 35s