Wednesday 23 May.
Lactic acid work.
250m - 31.50
3’ rest
150 - 18.50
250m - 32+
3’ rest
150 - 18.70
Left hip pain, especially when accelerating. Also no energy
Friday 25 May.
Off - Hip pain
Sunday
Block speed workout.
3x80m 5’ and 3’ rest
12 min full rest
3x60m idem
12 min full rest
3x40m idem, ran just the first one… hip pain.
I’m not as explosive as before, looks like I lost some strength in my legs or maybe just no energy. Gonna rest the following days and work on my flexibility, because I’m really rusty.
Wednesday 30 May.
80m (8.93) - 2’ rest - 60m (6.97)
8’ recovery
80m (8.73) - 2’ rest - 60m (6.76)
8’ recovery
80m (8.77) - 2’ rest - 60m (6.77)
150m - 16.78 (my first sub 17 in training)
One of the best speed workouts I’ve ever had. Felt really good in the acceleration phase.
I weighed myself wednesday and I weigh 3kg more than 1 week ago, when I felt energy-less and tired all the time.
Saturday I’ve got a meet, 100 & 200m, looking forward to it !
Saturday 2 June.Track meet100m: 11.32 (w +1,0) I think my acceleration was pretty good, but the transitioning was bad as usual, that’s my season best and 0.07 behind my PB. I’m pretty positive it will improve soon200m: 22.69 (w +0,9) My first 50m were decent, but then started to think too much about when to accelerate again which caused me to slow down a bit. Was trailing behind but accelerated on the straight and passed by 3 guys. My mate told me I was the fastest on the straight too (winner won in 22.28)I’m not happy with these times but my times are consistent, it’s a matter of time before the PB’s fall ! 
Monday 4 June.
5x30m: 4.19 - 4.09 - 4.16 - 4.22 - /
very bad runs, felt like I just ran a marathon and hip bothering me.
was supposed to run 3x40 and 3x60 but just couldn’t.
Went for a deep tissue massage a few hours later, therapist said I was extremely tight in the lumbar/hip area and advised me to stretch more.
Friday 8 June.
Meet: 100m
11.39 (-0.8): This is not a season best, but corrected is a 11.33 which is not too far from my PB and thus my best run of the year so far. As usual this was the problem: http://www.charliefrancis.com/community/showthread.php?22281-Transition-Phase-(Acc-to-MaxV)
Hoping to get it solved asap
@ hornblower if you see this… " hornblower has exceeded their stored private messages quota and cannot accept further messages until they clear some space. "
Should be right, now.
Did you try a new warm up??
Have you guys been doing a lot of lactate work lately? I see you’ve posted a few 250+150 workouts over the past little while, and your 400 time is down by about 2 seconds from last year. Have you done much work out to 60m or 80m in the past two months or so since your training camp?
Yes, we get that 250+150 workout every wednesday. I don’t understand why though, this seems more like winter workouts, and I’d understand if we had to run at near maximal effort with more rest between reps (for special endurance), but we get like 90 secs - 3 min…
We’re doing 60m - 80m (not full rest) work once per week or so, and even then I just feel like he’s training me to become a better 400m runner. Right now I want to focus on the 100 and 200.
He told me the lactate workouts 3x (250 - 90s rest - 150) with 12 min rest between sets are good for the last parts of a 100 and 200m run. Is that true ?
The 250+150 workouts are pure 400 metre work. Your results this year show a significant improvement in your 400, and no improvement in the 100. That should be a clear answer of what 250+150 workouts do- help the 400 and little else. Don’t get me wrong- they can be useful to the 100 and 200 in a non-specific sense for overall fitness and conditioning work. You get fit off those runs in a hurry! They will not improve your 100m or 200m time directly though, (unless you are in Mark Lewis-Francis shape and need to drop 30 pounds). This shouldn’t be hard to argue- as your 100/200 is the same as last year.
Charlie mentions repeatedly, “Speed is specific to itself.” You are not hitting anywhere near the same velocity in a 250 metre run that you will hit in the 100, thus it’s difficult to improve your 100 speed if you’re not actually running in that speed band (10m/sec+) very often. Check out “Key Concepts Elite Edition”, there is a ton of talk about this.
If you want to develop speed, you are going to have to spend time doing full recovery alactic speed work under 8 seconds in duration (60m-70m for you), and some full recovery speed endurance work as well. It sounds like you aren’t hitting those distances often enough, and with enough overall rest or freshness to make improvements. If the 100 and 200 are your races and you want to run faster and your coach won’t change the program, perhaps try to get a few extra races in, which will allow you to skip some lactate workouts hopefully.
I can tell you that during the winter when I started doing the KitKat 400m program detailed in the Lactate Threshold thread, there were lots of split runs similar to your 250+150 work, and no true speed work until after the first 12 week GPP. My 60m speed stayed exactly the same, but my 300 dropped almost two seconds in the first 12 weeks. Thus, you need to do alactic speed or you aren’t going to improve it.
Thus, if I want to improve my 60 next year, I would need to add in an acceleration / speed day once a week from the beginning, which I will certainly do next year.
perhaps you could sprint the first 60m at 100%, then jog slowly for 190m… 
Sunday 10 June.
Sled/Speed workout
20m Sled (35 lbs) sprint, turn back - rest like 30 seconds - 20m sprint with sled back to starting point. About 3 min. rest and a 60m full intensity without sled.
This 5x which is a total of 500m. Coach added 2x40 sled and a 120m full intensity on top of that, but I didn’t want to burn myself out so I said no. Which as usual led to a nervous discussion …
Times for the 60m: 7.02 - 6.75 - 6.80 - 6.75 - 6.91
Before the session I told him I didn’t like the 250+150 workouts as I feel they aren’t good for my 100m, and that if we were to do 250m/150m why don’t we do them at say sub or max intensity with way more rest in between.
He smiled then and told me I think too much, and that I should just do what he tells me to do. He said I’m surfing too much on the internet (probably because he sees how well informed I am)
Im really confused with this coach, they all say he knows what to do and that I should just listen to him. But here’s the catch, everyone in the group have been on the same level for about 3 years, their speed is not improving, their 300m and 400m have slightly improved though. What would you do in my situation? I’m pretty sure I could have improvements by following Charlies workouts (personalized ofcourse) but that’s asking for trouble in the track club
Just for info: coach has a 10.30 PB
How many races do you have left this season? Like when are the peak meets of your season supposed to occur?
If you could outline your upcoming race dates, it would help everyone gain more understanding of your coach’s thinking.
The coach’s PB is not that relevant. I know a lot of genetic freaks that ran 10.30 and didn’t have to do a ton of speed development work to get there.
The question is how do you get a quality young athlete from 11.50 to 10.50 over time?
I should have about 5 races left this season. One peak 6 July before I go on holidays and one around 10 September (national junior championships)
I’ve got one important coming up next week and what he wants us to do this week is " 50% " intensity work: hurdles, blocks, etc… won’t this have a negative impact on my race ?
I watched the 10 days taper and they were still doing speed workouts, only at sub maximal effort.
I think taking it easy before a big race is a good idea, no matter what format that takes. Sounds like he’s cutting the intensity to keep you fresh, while keeping you moving enough to be sharp. You will run just fine. Be patient and trust your talent. With a few races before July you are bound to see improvement.
Remember the talk about relaxing during your 200? Watch this interview with Sanya Richards after her 22.09 PB yesterday. Sound familiar?
Yes, however I can’t seem to relax and let the speed come. Last meet I was trailing behind, coming off the turn I accelerated without tensing up and managed to pass 3 guys, I was the fastest on the straight.
I simply can’t imagine how I’d have run faster by not accelerating
The feeling will come with time and confidence. Just having the confidence to know you’re going to run fast allows you to let go of trying to “control” the outcome by “accelerating”- I am pretty sure you didn’t accelerate at all (unless you are running the 200 terribly unevenly), they just decelerated faster than you, which makes sense as you are a big strong guy. If you would have stayed within yourself and remained patient knowing you’d catch them anyway you might have run faster. Feeling lactate at 180m of a 200 is very familiar to me- it means I forced the race. Try letting them come back to you, just once!
You can increase your armstroke slightly, but wait for it to kick in- don’t hammer it, if that makes sense.
Wednesday 13 June.
Block work
5x5 hurdle jumps
blocks
3x20m - 3.19 , 3.20 , 3.34
3x30m - 4.34 , 4.39 , /
3x40m - 5.34 , 5.37 , 5.44
No explosiveness, bad execution, was really drained too and the times show. I’m not pushing out of the blocks, my feet just ‘fall’ on the track (if that makes sense) even though I try.
My times are A LOT better with a 3 point start. Really need to work on it…
Are medicine ball throws etc considered high intensity exercises? Can they be done on off days?
There are many different types of medball throws, both high intensity and low intensity. The medball workout download shows a low intensity throws circuit that can be done on a low intensity day. I actually just used it this week in place of tempo because my calves were too sore to do tempo, and it did a fantastic job of giving a full body flushing effect.
At the end of the same download, some explosive throws are shown which could be worked into a high intensity day. Some examples of more explosive throws would be overhead backward throw, squat throw, single hop squat throw, etc.