Track Training Help (Read 534 times)

Hey guys,

I'm trying to train for track, so that I may open the season sub-5 (at least sub-5:10) for the mile/1600, and sub-2:05 (at least sub-2:15) for the 800.  PR's from last track season (about)- 800: 2:20; 1600: 5:20; 3200: 12:48 (ran this once, I'm assuming it would have been 12ish had I ran it for my last race). 

I have a general conditioning workout from my cross country varsity training group.  I have learned (sadly, the hard way) that I need to run with a constant speed (attempting 7 flat), so I plan to do that.  BUT, I realize that that alone will not lift my times to my goals.  Therefore, I need help developing speed workouts.  I don't live conviniently near my school to use their track, nor do I live near a public track, so I'll have to run in my neighborhood (luckily, I have a GPS watch though).

Help would be appreciated.

Currently, I have.. (can be changed)

Monday: Some kind of speed/distance to keep up milage for the week

Tuesday: Distance

Wednesday: Speed workout/distace (maybe, as this day will be more speed)

Thursday: After school extra curricular, can't run.

Friday: Distance

Saturday: Distance

Sunday: Distance/Rest (depending if I ran Thursday or not).

I agree with maybe throwing some hill work in there--either a session of hill repeats sometimes (I coach D-3 XC and we have our kids replace a track workout with hard, fast hill repeats occasionally), or build some good hills into your distance runs.  I purposely choose some really hilly routes for my own distance runs and it obviously helps with hills in road races, but I also think it helped me build good leg strength for a mile series that I did in August.

Even if you had the chance to run the 3200 in late races last year, 12 flat is still relatively slower than your 1600, which is relatively slower than your 800.  For middle distance, you will benefit from a lot more endurance, so building up miles with your XC routine will help.  Get to 40-50 mpw, mostly easy running, and you'll be amazed at how much faster you get at middle distances.   Then when you get to start spring practice, you will be able to benefit much more from the intense speed that you'll get in practice.  Much of winter track training for HS middle distance is to prepare to handle the intensity in spring, rather than do the intensity before season.

For now, one workout per week focusing on speed is enough; don't get too far ahead of yourself with such workouts, or you'll be peaking in March rather than May.  You can still throw some useful elements into some other runs.  As suggested above, hills of varying size and steepness are def a positive.  Suggestions

Find one short, steep hill, and incorporate hill sprints into your routine (here's a link:  http://running.competitor.com/2012/03/training/steep-hill-sprints_9050).  Note: Take the FULL recovery between.  This is a strength and efficiency workout, not hill repeats for endurance. 

A weekly session of drills like high knees, butt kicks,skipping (various type - like regular, high, long), bounds, mixed in with strides, and maybe a some 200M intervals for form, not speed. 

Plyometrics, and selective weight training.  I'd hope your school has some sort of winter conditioning program; once or twice a week will pay off.

For your once/week speedwork now, tempo runs, initially 20-30 minutes at (guessing for you, based off last year's times) 6:15 to 6:30, and building to 35 minutes at that pace, will be very helpful.  As you get closer to season, you can shorten them down to say, 2 x 10 min at ~6 min pace, and maybe some intervals a little faster. 

Even if you had the chance to run the 3200 in late races last year, 12 flat is still relatively slower than your 1600, which is relatively slower than your 800.  For middle distance, you will benefit from a lot more endurance, so building up miles with your XC routine will help.  Get to 40-50 mpw, mostly easy running, and you'll be amazed at how much faster you get at middle distances.   Then when you get to start spring practice, you will be able to benefit much more from the intense speed that you'll get in practice.  Much of winter track training for HS middle distance is to prepare to handle the intensity in spring, rather than do the intensity before season.

 

For now, one workout per week focusing on speed is enough; don't get too far ahead of yourself with such workouts, or you'll be peaking in March rather than May.  You can still throw some useful elements into some other runs.  As suggested above, hills of varying size and steepness are def a positive.  Suggestions

Find one short, steep hill, and incorporate hill sprints into your routine (here's a link:  http://running.competitor.com/2012/03/training/steep-hill-sprints_9050).  Note: Take the FULL recovery between.  This is a strength and efficiency workout, not hill repeats for endurance. 

A weekly session of drills like high knees, butt kicks,skipping (various type - like regular, high, long), bounds, mixed in with strides, and maybe a some 200M intervals for form, not speed. 

Plyometrics, and selective weight training.  I'd hope your school has some sort of winter conditioning program; once or twice a week will pay off.

For your once/week speedwork now, tempo runs, initially 20-30 minutes at (guessing for you, based off last year's times) 6:15 to 6:30, and building to 35 minutes at that pace, will be very helpful.  As you get closer to season, you can shorten them down to say, 2 x 10 min at ~6 min pace, and maybe some intervals a little faster. 

I agree 100% of what you said principle-wise.  But, with the actual details, I would not agree so much.

* As for hill sprint, I'm a STRONG opposition to Hudson's short hill sprints.  Well, there's a time and a place for it but personally I feel it's very dangerous to recommend this workout to young high school kids.  I was in Boulder a few months ago and I had a big talk with Lorraine Moller, Steve Jones, Mark Wetmore (among others) about this type of workout.  Like I said, there's a time and a place for it; but just throwing this workout anywhere in the program is "crap shooting".  For one, when you tell a young kid to sprint up a steep hill, however short it may be, he would "struggle" because then the objective would become "get up there as fast as you can".  What would happen is that a good form would go out the window.  I see all those un-conditioned high school football players doing short, sharp hill sprint, thinking (well, mostly coaches thinking) this is the quickest way to get in shape.  Well, so much for "efficiency".  They would hunch back, clinch their fists, their shoulders tensed up...footprint mostly sprayed outward, knee lift goes out the window as well...  Wetmore was quite adamant about AGAINST this kind of workout.  He told us a story with this very well-established runner that he had...  He wanted to "give this workout a try".  So he told him that he does that, he's done with him.  Lo and behold, Wetmore was driving around one day, spotted him doing the short sharp hill sprint with the other guys.  He stopped the car, went over and told him; "You're done with me!"  This guy ran 13:2X in college under Wetmore.  He said he had never run faster after college, doing this kind of workout.

* Drills are good but I wouldn't do 200m intervals for form EVEN IF it's not for speed.  In fact, you probably want some level of speed.  For a high school kid, I would limit the distance of "strides" maybe 120m max.  I'd actually go even shorter.  For a high school kid, a good workout would be to do this fast run for, say, 80m, over the straight on the track; jog around the rest of the track while doing some, not much, drills the other side of the track.  The idea is; you want to incorporate the moves that you taught your body with drills in the actual running action.  

* Plyometrics are good.  Of course, I love hill bounding exercises!!  Weights are a bit different.  It's fine to do them but make sure you have some knowledgeable strength training coach.  I'd much prefer more natural setting; fartlek, hill bounding and springing, downhill striding, etc.  All those would actually strengthen cores and even upper body if done correctly.  At least enough for running.  

On the beginning part, you said to do mostly easy running and volume up the mileage, which I would totally agree.  But toward the end, you are now mentioning about mixing up with intervals and tempo runs.  Well, then it's no longer "building up".  I think it would work well for the OP for spending a month or two of nothing but just piling up mileage FIRST and THEN add some faster runs like tempo or intervals, preferably you do some hill training or running over undulating terrain before you move on to that even.  Once you start to mix things up too much, then it tends to become "crap shooting".  Sit down and map it out.  It doesn't have to be as precise as some fancy training program; but write down what your strengths and weaknesses are; try to work on your weaknesses first (endurance).  Don't just mix up different types of workouts; map it out so you'd work on one development from another; one energy system to another.  When you finally put everything together, it should be right before the actual target race; not 3 months prior to that only to satisfy yourself too early and come flat on the important day.  And don't assume you should be able to run sub-5 without any foundation for that assumption; otherwise, you'd only get disappointed when you couldn't achieve it.  Work your way through intelligently and the time will come to you naturally.  Don't pick the number from the air and shoot for it; that's a backward thinking.

The first question to || run || is when is your goal? How many days, weeks, months until you want to run this good mile / half-mile.

Assuming that you'll start workouts with your team about a month before that first race you want to show someone up at, then you don't have to do a whole lot of speed on your own, the extra distance you put in before that will let you get more out of those workouts.  Doing more easy mileage with strides a couple times a week WILL get you that fast.

Second question: you say you need to run at constant speed, and plan on trying 7 flat. Do you mean that 7min/mile is what you're running for your 'easy' pace? I'd guess from your 3000 time (I know, it's that weird yankee 3200) that your easy pace may be a touch slower than that. My times are a touch faster than yours, and I'm usually closer to 8 than 7. Not always, but you need to slow down when it's not easy anymore.

Now, on weights and plyometrics and crosstraining:

Weights is a touchy one for a  lot of people, and I don't have a strong opinion, except that my best running has come while I've been doing a lot of body weight exercises at high intensity about once a week - something crossfit-like, say 15squats, lunges, situps, and pushups followed by a short shuttle run or something, done as fast as I can for 20 min.

I've also had a coach (best I've had) have me doing light weight work on abductor, adductor, hip flexor. This isn't directly about being faster, this is about not getting injured (which is step one to getting faster)

My 2 favorite plyometrics exercises are hopping on stairs and running in place on a crash mat. 

I do 2-3 sets of run up a staircase, hop with both feet, hop on one foot (each foot), run skipping steps, hop both feet skipping steps, hop one foot skipping steps. Most people I do that with stop before the one foot skipping steps.

Now, other sports. Do you play any? If you're playing hockey, basketball, soccer, or something like that and putting in some decent effort once a week, that'll be more than enough 'speed work' during base building. It's my favorite way to do it.