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221

Uuuuuuhhhh well here I am againnnn…
This week was very weird training wise, and adjusting-wise, so I didn’t even feel like putting anything down… But I figured, it’s time, since I just ran the Reggie meet in Boston.

I’ll start from the beginning of the week though: Sunday morning I stayed up allllll night because my ingenious idea was to be super sleepy during Monday, so I could sleep throughout the whole 11 hour flight.
:rolleyes: Didn’t work…I could only sleep on the plane for an hour, and for the rest of the time I was rolling around, and watched “Mr and Mrs Smith” three times, back to back… :eek:
Haha…

So Monday no practice whatsoever… Jet lag is so intense when I come back here (for some reason not as much when I fly to Greece), that Monday night I only slept 5 hours.

Tuesday practice: drove 40min to Wesleyan track to do 22150m, which felt good (19,20 the first set, then didnt’ time the second cause I wasn’t comfortable running and timing myself…)

Wednesday: 15min warm up, plenty of drills and 3*60m strides.

Thurday: nothing. (p.s. no weights this week at all, starting next week again)

At this point I was kinda worried because I only had one real practice since last Saturday’s meet (which now seems ages ago), and my jet lag made me get up every morning at 6 nomatter what time I went to bed.

Today my hamstrings and calves were sore for a reason that I honestly do not know…

I was feeling fine at the track meet, I had nothing to complain about, except after the first 200 meters of my race, where all the fatigue kicked in. My first 200m was 27 (the other coach said 26.50 but I think she made a mistake…) and I finished at 61.0something, which was very disappointing for me after running a 59.58 last week. I felt VERY tired during the second 200(which was 7 seconds slower than the first… :cool: ) and the race seemed endless…!!! Nothing like last week…I really really hope this was because my week was weird all together.

Oh, we were supposed to run a 4*4 but we scratched because one leg got a hamstring injury today, and the other leg had calf cramps after her open race.

Now I have a dilemma and I need help…
I dont’ know if I can trust my coach here and practice with him…The other option is doing my coach’s workouts from Greece on my own, but that is very inconvenient for the following reasons:

  1. it is very tough to practice all the way until May completely on my own
  2. on Mondays and Wednesdays the only time I can get to a track is the time my team practices, so I can’t do my own workouts while they’re there, it doesn’t feel right.

So my solution would be: practice with the team on Mondays and Wednesdays and do whatever I think is necessary for me on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Will that be too messed up? I am really concerned, because if you go back to my first post of this journal, one of my goals for the year is to “follow a program that is complete and consistent”. AAaaahhhh…

The problem with my college coach? I just don’t think we have any quality workouts (runs at full speed with complete rests). So my thinking would be to do all my quality stuff T and R and then do endurance and stuff with him M and W with the team.

I feel very tired…goodnight

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Saturday: off

Sundasy: I feel like crap. My whole body is sore, my head hurts and I have a fever. My lower back hurts the most, and the outside of my left shin when I flex my foot back. I think I have a cold or something.
I spent a night in hell last night because on top of all that I had the most terrible digestion problem from a meatball grinder I had yesterday (Ben I should have listened :frowning: ) and got up every hour nauceous and I don’t even know how to throw up my food… :cool:

It seems like I’m taking today off.

P.S. I never get sick in Greece… :cool:

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I still had a fever Monday morning so I skipped the am practice.
Felt better in the afternoon and did 10min easy jogging, then 3*500m at 70% with 2min rests, I felt tired during these, so I decided not to do 5, as it was planned. 5min jog back from the track. Ohhh the weird thing about this workout was that half the track was covered with ice, so I did the 500s only using half the track… :rolleyes:

Today: track workout (hopefully the ice has melted from the rain) and then my first lift after a rather longggg time…this should be interesting. :o

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I would take it very easy in terms of exercise -if any at all- all this week especially with that weather!
Listen to your body!

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Thanks, I’m honestly not stressing my body this week so far, except maybe today, which was inside, so I thought it was all right (except for 10min warm up outside), then quick static stretching, then:
10 sets of stairs (each “trip” was about 47-48secs), alternating singles with doubles (doubles were obviously faster, not sure how much though), 1min rest/ set
Then almost immediately after (20min rest) back to the weight room again :slight_smile:
quick warm up, quick abs

  1. back squats (Deep), warm up 5135lbs, 1min185lbs (17reps)
  2. RDL’s: 12*95lbs
  3. (max push ups+max seated pull ups)*2: 20,15,18,15
  4. step ups, 10 each leg (1 set), no weight
  5. MR military press, 12 reps
  6. shrugs, 12 reps w/35lb DB’s

Might do more abs tonight if my body allows me :wink:

P.S. it’s been a while since a nice endurance stair workout, I think it’s a good break for my body and good for my 400 too, since my second 200 is sufficiently slower.
Tomorrow should be something in the lines of special/or speed endurance (I hope).

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17 reps on BS. 1 set to failure?
you’re not training HIT style are you?

When i do stairs i always try to do doubles or even triples if i can. Thats mainly because i have the shortest stride ever though.

Good work though. Stairs are a killer. I hate when i get tired and the steps start to look blended together and trip up…

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What on earth is HIT style? :o

I really don’t know my college coach’s style…I don’t like his workouts (stairs were all right)…I’ll post later, I’m in class now and supposed to be doing research :rolleyes:

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Ok so this was my workout today, if you see any meaning to it, let me know, if you see no meaning to it, let me know too, so I can take a vote… :cool:
Personally, I felt like it did nothing to me, only stress my CNS. I felt like I was training all of my slow muscles:
warm up, static stretching, drills, 260m strides
3300m at 51sec (in Greece my 300pr just two weeks ago was 43secs…), with 5min recoveries
then 3*200m at 31sec (in Greece again, I was doing my 200s in 27-28sec), with 3min recoveries.

Aaaaahhhh…useless… :mad: too many reps (no quality), and too short of rests…if these kinds of workouts do something (except for the pre/off season), PLEASE let me know so I feel better about them!!
Tomorrow I’m doing short sprints and starts to get my turnover back…(and weights:arms).
Friday completely off, Saturday track meet. I’m running the 400 and 200. :cool:

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Stefanie,

Hey, c’mon, try to hang loose a little bit here. what % of effort are those 200m and 300m runs? Combining the 300’s and 200’s seem like a lot of work to me, especially on the 200m reps with only 3 min. rest betwixt each one. If I was in your place, I would have just run two reps of each at about 80-90% effort.

I agree on the HIT style of weight training being not the best way to train. What is your coach smoking? Too many reps with weights that are too light. Go heavy and only do a few sets of 3-5 reps. If you can do 12-17 reps with RDL and back squats, then the weight is waaayyy to light to do ya any good. Instead how about 80% of your max for 4 reps, two or three sets? Don’t take any set to failure; always stop a set feeling as if you could have done two more reps if demanded. This way, the volume is lower so you don’t overkill your CNS.

Anyway, you asked for opinions, so there is my two cents worth. Yo

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I would say those 300s were at 80%effort, but with those little rest they could only get slower after each rep…same with the 200s, I mean, we were trying hard, but with all that volume and the tight turns on the 165m track, they didn’t go faster than 31secs, with I’d say 80%effort. (Where under “normal” workout conditions, an 80% 200m run would be at around 29secs I think…)

I just don’t see any meaning to this coach’s workouts…today I went to practice thinking I was going to do some short quality sprints, and he tells me to do a fast 350m, rest, and then 3200m w/ 3min rests at 35-34sec pace!!! What good is that??? I argued, and he finally said he’d be happy with a 350 and then I could do shorter fast stuff…he didn’t even time the 350, thankfully I ran it with another teammate and tried to pace it like a 400. Then I did 360m sprints with complete recoveries and I felt fast again.

It is only beginning of February. I love going to track meets with the team, but I can’t possibly practice with this coach when I know what he does doesn’t work for me…

Track meet is on Saturday, tomorrow is off, but the coach said I could do 3*200s if I wanted to, at 34sec pace (I guess he is really fond of that slow workout)…of course I’d rather rest and do nothing than work all of my slow twitch muscles… :cool:

Ohhhh about the weights…the high rep-low weight thing is done usually when we come back from not lifting…I’m not sure what HIT training is…But I know that last semester we DID do sets until failure. Maybe now that we are in season that changes, I dont’ know…I’ll have to wait and see next week. Usually we do 12 reps one week, 10 reps the next week, then 8 reps, then 6 reps, then we have a week of recovery (high rep-low weight) and then we start the cycle again.

Today:
1)1min bench press - he had me do 105lbs, I know I wouldn’t be able to handle because I haven’t been bench pressing lately, managed 7 reps and did push ups for the rest of the time
2) MR seated row, one set of 12, one set of 10
3) Larimore lunges, one set of 10 each, BW
4) Max clap push ups + 2 regular ones: 19+2
5) MR leg curls, 12
6) MR hip adductor, 12
7) three way shoulder raises, 2 sets of 10 each w/ 5lb plates

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I have to agree with you Stefanie, this workout doesnt seem right to me.
I cant see how 12 reps, 10 reps, 8 reps etc will help a sprinter.
1 minute bench press? that makes no sense. sort of like poliquins 10s timed sets…

But its very easy for me to say this and give you the wrong idea. Its very important that you weigh everything up here and dont do anything too hasty. I’ve found when i thought like this about previous coaches i grew to disagree with everything he told me to do even if it was very good.

Just play it cool for a while and try not to argue with him and see how things pan out…

232

Stef,

As you already know I WON’T do those workouts…Like we discussed though, I think you should try to adapt the workout to your needs, meaning: Tell him the days you want to work on speed and the days you want to work on recovery/tempo. You need to set a definitive schedule for yourself. Then use his workouts to your own advantage, ex: When he has you doing a workout such as 8x200’s with only 3 min rec b/w ea, instead of doing all 8, only do 3-4 QUALITY ones and use the extra time to recover…

And for anyone who’s confused about the lifting, the idea behind the high rep scheme is not HIT (High Intensity Training, Stef…lol). Our trainer breaks our lifting sessions down in to 4 week cycles that goes from high to low rep. Like Stef said, we go from 12-15 reps for 2 sets on week one, down to 6-8 reps for 3 sets in week 4. It’s supposed to recruit muscle endurance at the beginning of the cycle, and then move in to pure stretngth/power by the end.

Personally I don’t completely agree with the implementation of the idea and think we should be doing MORE 4-5 rep sets, but the theory is actually kind of sound, just the way the trainer approaches it isn’t. For example, if we did 2 weeks of volume training (12-15rep and 2 sets schemes to gain muscle endurace), then 3 weeks of strength acquisition (8-10 rep 3set schemes) and finally a 2 week Explosive/power phase (4-6 rep 3-4 set scheme), it would make more sense. Right now I think the training is too erratic and “jumping” from one place to the next to accomplish the kind of gains that would be beneficial to sprinters.

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Stef,
just for now, I would do only a good warm-up the day before the meeting and nothing else.
I don’t think though that complete rest will help you after this kind of sessions -the weekend is too close for proper rest and/or lack of a “training routine”…
You need to keep your body ticking for now and see what you can do afterwards.

Good luck!

234

okkkkkk

P.S. I need a coach in the state… :frowning:

235

Just want to apologize to my “readers” for not writing for this long…
I’ve been concerned with “outside” issues (non-track) which resulted in me neglecting this journal…I know…tisk tisk…but I guess I’m not a robot after all… :cool:

I think I left off two weeks ago when I ran the Rhode Island meet…it was an all right meet, I really don’t like that track, last indoor season I ran there I also had my worst performance there, I ran a 61.8 I think? THen I ran an open 200 as well and did a 27.4 I think, and it didnt’ feel “all out” at all. I was in a bad mood… :mad:

Last Saturday was another meet at Welsayen, at the slowest track we compete on, but my times actually dropped a bit, which was good. First I ran a 4*200 relay and the competition was so easy that I literally strided to the finish (I was 4th leg). Then I ran an open 400 at 60.8, my first 200 was a 28, sufficiently relaxed. I think in order for me to go back to my 59 for America East championships, I need to run a 27sec first 200, just like I did in Athens. My strength seems to be the first 150m and then my last 100 (when I feel like it)…I really don’t know, I’m confused. Then at Wesleyan I ran an open 200 as well at 27.07, which lets me know that I could easily run a 26 next week on the BU fast track.

So Friday I have preliminaries in the 400 and the 200. My hopes are on the 400, I think I would definately have to run under 60 to make it to the finals. I’m putting all my focus on the 400 and then I don’t know why the heck I chose to run the 200 as well…my coach wanted me to only do the 400 to give it its full attention, but I just WANT to run a 26sec 200 because I can, and I haven’t done it before really…Then on Saturday there are the finals (IF I make it…- have never made it before at Championships, but this year Northeastern is out of the conference and that gives some of us hope :o ) and we are also having a 44, but that could change (we have a tradition in my team of scratching the 44 last minute :rolleyes: )

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glad you’re back, i was wondering!
I would agree that you might want to go out in 27.high to get where you want to be. I split a 59.3 last week going out in 28.2, but also had my coach threatening me with instant death from the infield during the last 150 (I had 2 people still left to catch at that point :stuck_out_tongue: ) He would have much preferred for me to go out faster, hang on and die.

Also if you think that middle section is weak relative to your opening and closing, you really should focus on really running that back stretch and using the arms. I think that middle stretch is where races are won or lost, and that is what will make the difference between PRing or not. Adrenaline will take care of the beginning and guts will take care of the finish, but that middle stretch… crucial!

and p.s. you will run a very fast 200m at the BU track… i went from 27.47 to 26.63 at BU, and our 400m times are about the same, so get excited! I’ll be at that meet too, but i don’t know what i will be running yet.

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Hey, thanks :slight_smile: that’s some good feedback. I definately agree that I need to take that backstretch seriously…I know all coaches say to “flow” and really relax, but it has to be done FAST…

My track meet is this Friday Saturday, which is our conference championship(america east). Are you talking about New Englands? I might be going there the weekend after, I think that’s the one you’re going to be at.
I love the BU track…I remember running there 3 years ago (my first indoor season)…can’t wait to do it again…, and probably for two weekends in a row :slight_smile:

Just to get back on track about my training, today was a very easy day, just warming up with 10min jogging, then drills, then 2150 fast striders, then 255m fast (no spikes), short cool down, go home.
Tomorrow absolutely nothing, Friday race day.

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The competition went well for me,
you can check results here:
http://www.americaeast.com/track/2006/daytwowomen.htm

My opening race on Friday was the 400 preliminaries. I was doing very well, until the part where we had to cut in, and this tall girl cuts me in badly (I really tried to speed up so I was the one to cut her in, but she sped up ever more), then I lost my rhythm completely, and then a girl passed me and I just lost confidence in the backstretch, my teammate thought I was gonna walk to the finish, but I finished with a respectable 59.9, which brought me in 9th place to the finals (pfeeeew…). I gotta say though: for me to mess up my race for the second 200m, BU has one FAST track…cause I ended up running a high 59.

About an hour later, the 200. I really didn’t care about this race, bacause my coach told me to put all my focus on the 400 (I wasn’t happy with my 400). I didn’t use blocks, the race felt GOOD, I ran a 26.29, which is an indoor and outdoor PR by almost a whole second!! Anddd it felt effortless :slight_smile: I was happy. I got 13th overall, and I didn’t qualify for finals…all top 10 finishes had run 25s…crazyyyy. And one quick note: on banked tracks, I LOVE the outter lanes, especially BU track…I had the 6th lane in my 200m which is considered the worst, but I just feel like I’m on a roller coaster ride with all those uphills and downhills on the curves :smiley:
Weirdo…

Next day, my 400m final. This race was better. I felt stronger (cause nobody really cut me ruthlessly :cool: ), but it wasn’t perfect: first of all my first 100 was not as fast as it should have been, so I made it up in the second 100 and ended up with a 27.2 split for the first lap.
Then I was in the 4th place(in my heat), and I had these two girls right in front of me, who were going side to side, and I could REALLY pass them, I felt strong, but then the final curve was coming up, so I decided instead of losing tons of energy to pass both of them on the turn, to tuck right behind them and go for a strong finish. Well, it kinda worked, cause then I was able to pass only one, and got 8th place overall. OH YEAH: I ran a 59.2, PR :smiley:

And surprize surprize: we scratched our 4*400 :stuck_out_tongue: , for which I was VERY glad, cause my legs were just dead afterwards.

Now I have New Englands next weekend, I could run both the 400 and the 200, I think my coach has only the 400 in mind. My dilemma is: should I even go to that meet? My coach in Greece discourages more meets this indoor season (it’s not like I’m going for the gold or anything…), and that I should just rest and start working towards outdoors for bigger and better things :rolleyes: But then again, I really likeeee running on that track ( the meet would be in BU again) and I do love track trips…, and this is my final year of tream track.

Lets take a vote… :wink:

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Well done, Stef!

240

Thankss

Today active recovery day: about 13min jogging, some shake ups and that was that.

Tomorrow I’m taking off.

I’ll treat this week as if I’m planning to compete on Friday, I really want to talk to one of my professors first, because I keep missing Friday classes, and this Friday is a little important for that class… :frowning: But my decision is to go to New Englands.