I’ve posted a couple of journals here before, and figured that this time instead of posting all my workouts one by one, I would wait until the GPP was over and the races were starting to post what’s been happening in my training. I’m 38, and started sprinting at age 33 with zero background. I was too skinny and weak in high school to consider sprinting, but I enjoy the training even though I’m pretty low on the genetic totem pole. I may run slowly, but I take it seriously! I want to run under 25.00 outdoors this season.
Last year, I was close to 200 lbs. when I was competing indoors, and basically ran the same times that I have run indoors in the 60m and the 200 for the past few years (8.04 and 25.72). Then I spent the summer down in Austin training with my Pfaff-style coach. Indoors I ran 25.72, and outdoors after two months of heavy summer training (with an admittedly sketchy outdoor prep preceding it in which I ran 26.01) I ran 25.74, which was no better. We spent a LOT of time on 30m accelerations, an area that is never going to be my strength.
Overall, I haven’t broke 25.50 FAT either indoors or outdoors in two and a half years. This year, I was starting to think about trying something a bit different, but I train at York University in Toronto, and most coaches work short to long. I am extremely lanky at 6’3, and very lightly muscled.
In late September, I went to visit ESTI in Michigan, and he convinced me to try KitKat’s program. He has had a lot of success with it. He said it best, “What you’ve been doing isn’t working, so why not try something new?” What can you say to that? It was time to try something new. I talked to my coach in Toronto, and he was OK with me trying KitKat’s program, so we got to work. We did two 6 week GPP blocks, followed by a 4 week transition block.
Overall, here’s what happened;
First 6 week GPP block tests:
60m: 7.56
150m: 19.24
300m: 41.29
Prior to this, I had never run faster than 42.50 hand times in a 300, and that was during the outdoor season on an outdoor track. I was shocked it improved that much in six weeks! We repeated the GPP, and in the second set of tests results were as follows:
60m: 7.48
150m: 19.20
300m: 40.95
The 150m time was surprisingly static. This may have been because I ran the 300 test rather erratically this time, rather than in the smooth way I ran the 300m test after the first GPP block. I ran the 150 about 20 minutes later.
During the 4 week transition phase, I was able to get down to San Antonio for a week of outdoor training, and ran 39.86 on an outdoor 400m track into a reasonable headwind. After I returned to Toronto, I headed up to Ottawa to run a 300m race at their indoor 400m track. It’s a pretty slow surface, the lanes are surprisingly tight, and I drew lane 1, but I was hoping to run 40.x and who knows, with a little luck possibly even threaten the 40 flat barrier.
I was absolutely ridiculously nervous, and was fighting terrible negative self-talk before the race began. I don’t know why I was beating up on myself, but I had a hard time getting myself to forget everything and just settle down and run. I was in shape, and just had to go out there and execute. (Interestingly, I had a much better attitude when I was out of shape and running the 200m at the Canadian Masters meet in June!)
My race plan was to drive out and relax, and just take it home without blowing up. I had never run a 300m race before. In retrospect, I was too cautious and should have taken it out harder in the first 150. The words of Angella Issajenko rang in my head after the race. “You have to take it out hard in a 300, because you aren’t going to run a negative split!’” I ended up running 41.11, which was still way faster than I could have hoped to run last year, but I’d like another crack at that distance.
After that, I continued with the last week of the KitKat transition phase. I raced indoors in the 60m and 200m about a week ago, and ran a very pedestrian 8.15 in the 60m, and 25.90 in the 200m. Still, I’m not really worried. Improvements on KitKat’s program came in the longer stuff first. Since starting on KitKat’s program my 30m time has definitely suffered, but everything else has moved ahead.
So basically, we transitioned into a traditional short to long setup for the last 8 weeks prior to my goal race (the SE runs start out at 2x200 however, and drop down in distance from there). We are currently in week 2. I think that since I’m now fitter (dropped from around 200 lbs. to 186 lbs. since October) I may benefit more from the short speed work I’ll be doing now than I would have at the beginning of the season. It seems my 30m time is coming back down. My coach would hand time me from first motion at 4.04 in the 30m last year, and about a month ago it was in the 4.24 range. Last week it was back under 4.10 which is positive.
Basically, we will continue with a short to long program on Mondays and Wednesdays, and the SE on Fridays will continue to drop in volume and increase in intensity as we get closer to the big indoor meet on March 10-11. There will also be some maintenance work in there for the longer runs so I can perhaps run a 400m race.
I feel like the KitKat GPP program worked better for my body than a traditional short to long setup, which I suppose is not surprising. I know in his materials Charlie repeatedly mentioned that taller leaner athletes tend to have a lower nervous system capacity for speed work, and I think that is clearly true in my case. Though KitKat’s program is not a traditional long to short, it is definitely less taxing on the nervous system than a short to long while still addressing speed elements. Overall, I am less sore, have better general fitness, I’m making steady progress, and doing the workouts feels like I’m working with my body instead of against it, if that makes any sense. Oh, and my ability to handle volume seems to have gone up as well!
I will post workouts, and race results.
Coming up are races on the following dates:
February 12th: 60m, 200m
February 26th: 60m, 200m
possibly something in early March
March 10th: 200m
March 11th: 60m, possibly the 400m