I’m alive…and Off to Europe…HS training
So, I’ve been horrible at updating this thing. In all fairness I’ve been busy travelling all over, but it’s mostly my summer lazyness.
My Canadian race series didn’t go too well. I had some allergy trouble in Vancouver/Victoria so those were pretty much useless. Although going through 1200 in 3:01-2 and then running like 53-4 for my last 300 was pretty impressive… I don’t think I’ve ever fallen apart so bad. On the bright side, I did come through 12 in 3:01 feeling pretty good.
The other race was a road mile that went okay. It was a lot of fun and a well put on race, just the course was a little crazy. It made for an interesting and entertaining race at least. There were a lot of sharp/tight turns, so lots of momentum killers, which for a rhythm runner like me isn’t the best, but it was a lot of fun racing there. So, if you want an interesting race that’s pretty fun, check out the Northlands Edmonton road mile next year. The race director, Matt Norminton, does an excellent job, especially for a first year event.
After Canada I’ve been back in Houston, with the exception of a couple day trip to Cancun, Mexico to see my friend Paulo get married. The wedding was a lot of fun and it was good to catch up with old friends.
The Houston heat and humidity has been killing me. You forget how bad it is until you come back and experience it. It made the first weeks worth of runs pretty rough, but I’ve been bale to string together a series of very good workouts, especially considering they are done at 7:30-8am in the morning when it is “Only” in the upper 80’s with about 1000000% humidity.
On the Fourth of July I’m headed back to D.C., and then a couple days later I’m headed over to Europe to race. I’ll try and update this blog frequently while I’m over there so come back often.
As I get everything sorted out, I’ll post my race schedule too.
Lastly, as I promised earlier, I’ll post the training of the HS kids track season for whoever wants it. Feel free to ask questions, critique it, or whatever. I’m always trying to learn and adjust. I don’t believe there are any secrets in training. In addition, I’m a huge believer in individualization, which is why I have no problem posting the following training. It was designed for a certain number of athletes with unique physiological characteristics. Someone more talented than these kids could do the exact same schedule and fall flat on their face. Why? Because there makeup might be different, or there previous training might be different.
Remember that the training below is the results of basically a 3yr progression so far. So that each season, each training period, each year, builds on the other. So, keep that in mind when looking at the workouts.
HS training:
http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddxkx76j_0f8xxkrc7
Thanks for the ideas for training. I am coaching CC as a head coach for the first time this year (only an assistant the year before) and I have a rough outline for the season. Care to look at it and give suggestions?
In WI we can't have any contact time with our kids during the summer. I bet the most kids are running is 20m per week. I hope I can change that next summer.
Steve with your runners do you have a set system for how you progress their specific endurance. You seem to use a lot of mixed pace work but using the same length of intervals from the start of blending it to the end.
You seem to use around 800-1200m of 3200 pace from the time you introduce your mixed pace workouts to the end.
Do you think your runners would adapt better to progressing them at the same speed. i.e. starting with 600s @3k moving to longer more challenging intervals.
I like to create specific endurance in a number of different ways.
I mix it up based on how the athletes have responded in the past. Generally, athletes will "prefer" a certain type of way of creating specific endurance.
Still, I like coming at it from at least two different ways. One, is usually from short intervals w/ short rest, increasing the length of the intervals. Another is with alternation work, starting with a slower pace and bringing it down.
Mixed workouts are great for transitioning speed endurance or strength endurance into something specific.