Coach Jay Johnson's Articles

Three Ways To Help Your Runners PR This Week

Published May 7, 2025

I hope you and your athletes are doing well and that they are ready to have their best races of the year this week.

Three things to keep in mind, the most important being:

They’re fit and ready to go, and they know how to be uncomfortable. Don’t complicate things with complicated instructions.

…that said…

📌 KEY TAKEAWAYS

"If you want to do things you've never done before, you've got to do things you've never done before"
800m: Accept that with 500m to go, you WILL be uncomfortable. Know this going in.
1600m: You must cover moves from competitors — don't let them go. Move with 500m to go.
3200m: Don't let pace slow on laps 5-6-7. Chunk the race: 600m (position) → 2000m (groove) → 600m (compete)
Consider a 3-4 second positive split in th...

📌 KEY TAKEAWAYS

When an athlete has only 3–4 weeks left in their track season, the long run should no longer be a key workout — replace it with progression runs.
A 20-minute progression run (10 minutes steady, 5 minutes faster, 5 minutes fast but controlled) gives a great aerobic stimulus without the fatigue of a long run.
Athletes should feel like they could have kept going for 5–10 more minutes at the final pace — the run is fast but contr...