Starting to get serious this year, what should I work on?

Hey guys,

First off the history; I’ve been running for 3 1/2 years now (started last quarter of 2004), and did cross country pretty much mainly until mid last year where I decided track was where I wanted to excel. Mainly the 400m, but also the 200m as well.

My current P.B.s are as follows;

200m: 24.88
400m: 54.83

My current training looks like this, (some of you may recognise this is like Baylors, as this is what I based it off as I believe it will work), bare in mind that I am in NZ and the season is at a different time of year for me;

  1.  Off Season (April through August)
    

Mon: 1. Warm‑up: 1 mile cross country run
2. Flexibility exercises*
3. 2 x 600 Speed 65 sec.400m/rest 15 minutes
4. 3 x 300 Speed 55 sec./rest 1 minute
5. 3 x 300 Speed 45 sec./rest 5 minutes
6. Cool down: 1 mile cross country run
7. Weights**

Tue: 1 . Warm‑up: 1 mile cross country run
2. Flexibility exercises*
3. 10 x 200 Speed 30 sec./Rest 3 minutes
4. 6 x 150 long hill runs Speed fast/rest, jog back
5. Cool down:1 mile cross country run

Wed: 1. Warm‑up: 1 mile cross country run
2. Flexibility exercises*
3. 4 x 350 Speed 52 sec/Rest 10 minutes
4. 3 x 200 Speed 30‑29‑28 sec/Rest 3 minutes
5. Cool down: 1 mile cross country run
6. Weights**

Thu: 1 . Warm‑up: 1 Mile cross country run
2. Flexibility exercises*
3. 600‑400‑200‑400‑600 Speed 30 sec 200m pace/rest 5 minutes
4. 6 x 100 strides Speed medium/rest 1 minute
5. Cool down: 1 mile cross country run

Fri: 1 . Warm‑up: 1/2 mile cross country run
2. Flexibility Exercises*
3.Two mile cross country timed run
4. Weights**

Sat: 3 miles running

Sun: 20 min fartlek.

*Flexibility Exercises are usually things like bounding and plyometrics.

** Weight training is usually Power Cleans, Snatches, Deadlifts, Squatting, Bench Press. Doing 5 x 5 now, but please see my other thread about how many reps/sets/weight I should be doing.
http://charliefrancis.com/community/showthread.php?p=156069

The rest of the year follows the basic outline of this article (not that the months are different).

http://www.nacactfca.org/articles/Hart-eng.htm

How does that look for the next few months?

baylor stuff is way different than Charlie’s program. read the lactic threshold training thread under fundamentals for good 400 workouts.

no doubt baylor has produced champions but I would be careful about entering a program like that with out very good speed. E.g. sub 21.5 200

Yes - work on improving acceleration and max velocity capabilities, as well as overall technical execution of these runs. Build a good speed base.

Cool thanks for the replies guys =D