2012 OATCCC Clinic

Hi Coach Jay.
Do you really believe in the Threshold running?
In this mythical point where the best develop their capabilities?
I think that after 12 minutes of maximum effort that is about the speed of 3-5 km race nothing special is happening in our body.
Obviously, the faster training of the more burdensome for our body.
But I do not think that something special is happening in the body during the hours of the race. What’s more I believe that at 40 minute and 90 minute race happens the same thing (run the same processes), which at 60 minutes.
What do you think about this?

I received the following question from a coach following the clinic.

I’m in a new environment in coaching. I was Head Middle School Coach in a Division 3 school and now I’m an Assistant Coach at a Division 1 school. Obviously quite a difference, but from what I see in terms of times are not exactly close to the state caliber time you had projected for the practice schedule. In fact last year, I believe only one distance runner went to the District Competition. I’m looking for advice/guidance on where to go in terms of your suggested schedule. Do I change times/distance etc.?

This is a great question.

The progression for all of the ancillary work (so the 6th page of the first handout) would stay the same.  No need to alter that progression and even the neyophytes can handle that amount of work.  They’ll be working hard, but they can handle it.

One big change would be to take out some tuesday workouts and let them race more.  It’s with the veteran who will run at the state meet that I was recommending fewer races throughout the year.  But as you probably heard from Coach Jeff Howard of Woodbridge High School, running a lot of races throughout the year and then making practices such they they never go “to the death” is another approach…and one that I really like for the developing athlete.

In terms of mileage, I think most of the volumes of the workouts can stay the same.  The only obvious change is that 6,400m of 150m at 800m pace fartlek.  I would change that to either a 3,200m or 4,000m fartlek for a young athlete.  But they can handle that – that’s only 2.5 miles of running.

I hope this helps.  Bottom line is that you want to keep all of the General Strength and Mobility (GSM) in the young athlete’s daily training.  That will best ensure that their body will then be ready to handle more mileage come summer, arguably the most important training phase for a high school athlete.

We have at least 3 or 4 weeks in our season where the varsity kids run a dual meet and an invitational on the weekend (with one day apart) in the same week. Our league is competitive enough that they can’t coast to a win very often. That pretty much eliminates any workouts for the week other than a light fartlek or some other aerobic workout. I have to monitor their stress level pretty close and am not afraid to hold them out from a meet or  two if they are overdoing it. Girls especially tend to break down about 6 weeks in or so if we’re not careful. It’s a tough balance between winning dual meets as a team, PR’ing at invites, and being prepared to do well in the post-season. I’m curious how other coaches do it.

Shake Out….what is it?  This question has come up several times and my apologies for not detailing it in the notes.

LM and leg swings from Myrtl, then a short aerobic run (probably 10-15 minutes for HS athletes…20 min for collegians or post-collegians), then back to the track for some dynamic warm-up work.  Specifically, I would write a competition warm-up for athletes that had skipping and some dynamic work like speed skaters, wide outs, etc.  This video shows those exercises - http://vimeo.com/4553427

Then I would have them change into spikes and do some strides.  3 x 150m In-n-outs, then if they’re running a 1600m the next day, maybe 2x200m at pace, then 2x300m with each 100m getting faster, then end with 2 x 120m at 800m pace.

Then I would end with Myrtl or, if early in the season and the meet the next day is one that you’re training through, then you could do Cannonball.

Thanks for sharing Jay. Good stuff. I think this is a good place to ask a question that has been nagging at me for a while: What is the place of the long run in training for HS track? For me that question raises a lot of other question: How long should the long run be? Say you run a ten mile progression, the first five easy the last five progressive till the last mile is PDQ, does that give you the same/similar stimulus as threshold/tempo work? How long should the weekly long run (should the long run be weekly?) be part of schedule? What percentage of the weekly milage should it be?

Part of the reason I ask is I feel last year we might have abandoned it too soon.  I like what Ron Dixon says in this articlethis article at Running Times:

“The long aerobic run is your home,” says Dixon, one of a long line of New Zealand distance stars to embrace Lydiard’s training methods. “Home is where you find comfort. It’s where you go to sleep, to rest. Your long aerobic run is your home base. It’s where you go to feel comfortable.”Interested in hearing what others have to think.

Be well Thos