What does a week of training look like for a 100/200 runner?

One program I have seen:

Mon - long repeats, for example 3 x 400 or mid season 400, 300, 200. Preseason might be 3 x 600 for strength - the guys hated it but it helped.

Tue - top end speed, for example 5 x 60m. Can be 30 fly / 30 sprint, or full 60m with running start.

Wed - easy jog, stretching, light movement drills, maybe 2 miles total

Thu - speed endurance, such as 4 x 150m

Fri - blocks & starts. 3 x 20m, 3 x 40m early season.

Sat - meet (if preseason, plyos & lift)

Sun - off

Late season:

Mon - shortened down to 3 x 250m or 200m

Tue - same

Wed - same

Thu - blocks & starts

Fri - off

Sat - meet

Sun - off

Sub-8 Mile wrote:

One program I have seen:

Mon - long repeats, for example 3 x 400 or mid season 400, 300, 200. Preseason might be 3 x 600 for strength - the guys hated it but it helped.

Tue - top end speed, for example 5 x 60m. Can be 30 fly / 30 sprint, or full 60m with running start.

Wed - easy jog, stretching, light movement drills, maybe 2 miles total

Thu - speed endurance, such as 4 x 150m

Fri - blocks & starts. 3 x 20m, 3 x 40m early season.

Sat - meet (if preseason, plyos & lift)

Sun - off

Late season:

Mon - shortened down to 3 x 250m or 200m

Tue - same

Wed - same

Thu - blocks & starts

Fri - off

Sat - meet

Sun - off

That volume is just so low...can't even call it volume, it's like the absence of volume.

The ingredients are good, just low in quantity. I've been playing around with doing more than the typical volume. Which seems to be...

12 x 30m

8 x 60m

Instead doing...(built up gradually, even using shorter distances instead of only changing # of reps)

20 x 30m (you can start as short as 15m)

12 x 60m (you can start as short as 40m)

On days you're "not feeling it", it's okay to do half the reps. Or shorter reps.

It's too early for me to have any meaningful results yet, as to whether it's "better"...so just food for thought.

If you don't plan on racing anything more than 200m. You don't really need to run anything much longer than that tbh. 300-400m(70-80%) early season I suppose would be okay.

Speed endurance can be anywhere between 80m and 150m.

I agree that later in the season, 200s or 250s(95%) with full recovery would be good.

Good advice from Sub-8 Mile.

Hurno wrote:

Sub-8 Mile wrote:

One program I have seen:

Mon - long repeats, for example 3 x 400 or mid season 400, 300, 200. Preseason might be 3 x 600 for strength - the guys hated it but it helped.

Tue - top end speed, for example 5 x 60m. Can be 30 fly / 30 sprint, or full 60m with running start.

Wed - easy jog, stretching, light movement drills, maybe 2 miles total

Thu - speed endurance, such as 4 x 150m

Fri - blocks & starts. 3 x 20m, 3 x 40m early season.

Sat - meet (if preseason, plyos & lift)

Sun - off

Late season:

Mon - shortened down to 3 x 250m or 200m

Tue - same

Wed - same

Thu - blocks & starts

Fri - off

Sat - meet

Sun - off

That volume is just so low...can't even call it volume, it's like the absence of volume.

It’s friggin 100-200 training. Mileage?

So what time of the year?

It will have.

- 2 x proper gym sessions, with Olympic lifts, ancillaries like glute and hammy circuits.

- accelerations, including sleds moving to rope with spikes

- top speed as you move into season, like 60s, fly 20s etc

- Speed endurance, repeat 300-250-200s on a long to short basis

- plyos worked into those sessions

- maybe a tempo session a week.

I actually know what one Olympic semi finalist in the 100 does. But he is much more 100 than 200. 200 involves a lot more work.

Also into season - tough CNS sessions like 120s, 150s, or 60-60-80-100-120 fast.

Good luck asking a real 100/200 person to run a 600. It is wildly inappropriate.

Also "strength" comes in the weightroom.

Only endurance coaches call running something long as "strength." Again, wildly inappropriate.

Hurno wrote:

If you don't plan on racing anything more than 200m. You don't really need to run anything much longer than that tbh. 300-400m(70-80%) early season I suppose would be okay.

Disclaimer - I'm no expert. But I'll share to the best of my understanding. My limited background is I trained briefly with a sprint group after taking a year and a half off from running, returning to train for 400/800. My coach had me do easy running and lifting for 2-3 months for basic foundational fitness, then to develop speed reserve needed to do the workouts for my disciplines he had me work with the sprinters for 2-3 months before focusing on my actual events. It wasn't long, but I did get to experience the program and see how it worked, then when I stepped up I continued to observe what they were doing (and why).

You can find this on youtube -- IIRC Carl Lewis has said that under his and Leroy Burrell's program, the 100/200 group does 400, 300, 200 once a week, year round. Sessions like this can serve an important purpose. It's like what what distance runners need for building "strength".

If you aren't doing anything longer than 200m, then I think you probably may need to include some tempo repeats in lieu of long repeats. The purpose/intention would be the same. (I don’t know if one is better than the other, though)

For example, for my "Monday" suggestion, instead of long repeats you could do 8 x 200m at 70-75% with 2 min rest (3 min for less experienced athletes) preseason. This is extensive tempo.

Say if your macrocycle is 10 months then you might keep the 8 x 200 for 2 1/2 months and then start reducing it by something like 1 rep per 6 weeks while increasing the speed. Ending up at the same 3 x 200 type session as above, 10 min rest, 98% speed. This is similar to a Clyde Hart type approach but not starting with 12 x 200 as you would for the 400m group.

.............. wrote:

Good luck asking a real 100/200 person to run a 600. It is wildly inappropriate.

Also "strength" comes in the weightroom.

Only endurance coaches call running something long as "strength." Again, wildly inappropriate.

Yes, they HATED those preseason 600m repeats. Those workouts were an early part of a long-to-short component of the overall program. And it was nothing like what mid-d runners would do for that session. More akin to an 800m program's preseason 8 x 1000m repeats. Tempo. Strength. Fitness to perform well in, and get benefits of, upcoming workouts later in the macrocycle.

The 600's made midseason 300m repeats easier to do, with more intensity, and less "wiped out" the next day. And then (given months of at the same time also doing pure speed work and speed endurance sessions) when brought down to late season 3 x 200m at 98% with 10 min rest, the athletes were well prepared to do it.

Yes, this is what I meant by "strength" -- speaking on a mostly distance oriented forum, I thought that would be a helpful way to talk about it.

Yes, of course if you are talking about actual muscular strength, that comes from the weight room. From context, I hope it's evident that's not how I was using the word right there.

.............. wrote:

Good luck asking a real 100/200 person to run a 600. It is wildly inappropriate.

Also "strength" comes in the weightroom.

Only endurance coaches call running something long as "strength." Again, wildly inappropriate.

Correct. I still find that use of strength odd.

If you want to run 100s, you need serious power. Gym and lifting, plyos and sleds are the main ways you get it.

+2

Can't see the need of ever running more than 150 in practice. Either the quality would be horrible or someone pulls a hammy.

Plyos, Hills, Med Ball tosses

Karma Police wrote:

.............. wrote:

Good luck asking a real 100/200 person to run a 600. It is wildly inappropriate.

Also "strength" comes in the weightroom.

Only endurance coaches call running something long as "strength." Again, wildly inappropriate.

Correct. I still find that use of strength odd.

If you want to run 100s, you need serious power. Gym and lifting, plyos and sleds are the main ways you get it.

as a distance coach, i agree. it's like they are fishing for ways to apply the word "endurance" to different scenarios. it's a bit of a reach.

Karma Police wrote:

.............. wrote:

Good luck asking a real 100/200 person to run a 600. It is wildly inappropriate.

Also "strength" comes in the weightroom.

Only endurance coaches call running something long as "strength." Again, wildly inappropriate.

Correct. I still find that use of strength odd.

If you want to run 100s, you need serious power. Gym and lifting, plyos and sleds are the main ways you get it.

You are always great in these threads. I teach at a very small school with all multi sport athletes. How would you deal with the kids who only have around 10 weeks to train 100 through 400? That's it. No preseason. Just those 10 weeks. And most of these kids are not true sprinters, so they are gonna need the swiss army knife program to go 100 through 400.

Not Karma, but

The most important thing for a multi-sport is to keep them fresh. Don't cram workouts in.

Focus on:

form - wickets, form drills

prehab / rehab - active stretching, hurdle mobility, core work, etc

one acceleration day - low volume, but explosive - can tack on light plyo, med ball, weight room (at least 2 or days after or before meets.

Let the meets be your speed endurance & top speed training.

Multi-sport athletes are usually good at field events. Put them in and let them athlete up, don't burn them out taking jumps in practice. A few run throughs & pop ups will have to do. Remember to keep them fresh.

Sub-8 Mile wrote:

One program I have seen:

Mon - long repeats, for example 3 x 400 or mid season 400, 300, 200. Preseason might be 3 x 600 for strength - the guys hated it but it helped.

Tue - top end speed, for example 5 x 60m. Can be 30 fly / 30 sprint, or full 60m with running start.

Wed - easy jog, stretching, light movement drills, maybe 2 miles total

Thu - speed endurance, such as 4 x 150m

Fri - blocks & starts. 3 x 20m, 3 x 40m early season.

Sat - meet (if preseason, plyos & lift)

Sun - off

Late season:

Mon - shortened down to 3 x 250m or 200m

Tue - same

Wed - same

Thu - blocks & starts

Fri - off

Sat - meet

Sun - off

This is accurate for what their track stuff looks like, but the weight room is half the battle with sprinting/throwing. Sprinters are doing 60-90 minutes 2-3 times per week in the weight room, doing big power lifts and a lot of plyometric work as well, being explosive. If a sprinter only does track workouts and no weights they're not going to get as far. A large part of the reason America has so many fast people is because so many people train for football very intensively in high school, doing a ton of weight lifting and explosive plyo drills, and that stuff helps sprints.

Steroids, weights, and block starts. In that particular order. Everything else is a waste of time.

high school xc coach wrote:

Karma Police wrote:

Correct. I still find that use of strength odd.

If you want to run 100s, you need serious power. Gym and lifting, plyos and sleds are the main ways you get it.

You are always great in these threads. I teach at a very small school with all multi sport athletes. How would you deal with the kids who only have around 10 weeks to train 100 through 400? That's it. No preseason. Just those 10 weeks. And most of these kids are not true sprinters, so they are gonna need the swiss army knife program to go 100 through 400.

I’m happy to give a bit more here. I think those guys can train together with just one or two sessions different. I am in the “400m runners need to work on 100m speed” camp, not the Clyde Hart one (though I agree with some of his stuff).

Also if it’s only 10 weeks, what someone else said about using comps for training is a good idea.

SprintDude wrote:

Can't see the need of ever running more than 150 in practice. Either the quality would be horrible or someone pulls a hammy.

Huh? Nobody's pulling a hammy if, for example, they are capable of 10.5/21 or faster and they are doing 200m extensive tempo repeats at speeds from 28-30 preseason, moving down to 25-26. Or if they are doing 300m intensive tempo repeats at 36-38. Or if they are doing preseason 600m aerobic repeats slogging thru in something like 1:45-2:00. Nary a hamstring has been damaged by any of this.

Re quality concern - if you go to the gym and lift 4 sets of 20 reps, is the quality horrible, or did lifting a lighter weight for more reps serve a purpose? If a 1500m runner does a 30 minute tempo run at sub-threshold, was the quality horrible or did it serve a purpose?

I don't mean this offensively ... there are programs for sprinters that don't involve 'quality' every time they set foot on the track.

Like I said, I'm no expert and I'm just passing along what I have seen and participated in.

But again, as an informative example maybe look up what Carl Lewis says about 100/200 guys doing 400, 300, 200 more or less year round, and why. Btw his guys may be going "fast", but for them iirc it's somewhere between 80-90% speed (don't remember exactly, haven't watched it in a while).

I’m glad you got some serious answers. I was going to say throw around a football, eat some pizza, run a little, play around with starting blocks for 45 minutes…

I was a distance guy, so that’s what I saw the sprinters doing.