400m - 1500m Training

I don't know much about sprint training, but that seems like a lot of hard intervals four days in row (and then nothing really hard three days in a row?). Anyone know if this is typical sprints training?

Well, I know that the routine is actually typical, but there is no mention of distance running (like a month of distance or similar). I am wondering if endurance is already assumed or if maybe the coach has his team run mileage during the summer or something...

In H.S., I was on the track team as a sprinter. Our training was as follows:

October - December: Distance 4 miles a day

January - May: Interval training with 1 distance run a week

The interval training changed as the season progressed, but it was just intervals, speed/strength training, and weights. I can't see how I could have gone straight into the interval session without the endurance training, but this coach (maybe the best 400m coach) does not mention anything about an endurance season. Will running these intervals yield the same results as endurance training? I know once we started interval training, my 3 mile time dropped insanely. It went from 21 minutes to consistently under 18 minutes and under 17 minutes on a couple of occasions and I did not push myself on the distance runs. I even ran a warm up mile in 5:13 and I was shooting for splits of 95, 85, 75, 65 and pretty much hit them all a little faster. Of course this was easy compared to running 12x400m with a goal time of 56 seconds...

DangerZone wrote:

Of course this was easy compared to running 12x400m with a goal time of 56 seconds...

Is that a sprinter's workout? That doesn't seem right. That just seems like a lot of repeats and they're pretty fast.

Maybe I misread that.

Fartlek is more like doing a normal training run, but you throw in surges (technically supposed to be random but many times it's structured such as 5x2min hard, 2min easy in the middle of a run). The "hard" isn't really a specific pace, just what feels hard for that amount of time and still allows you to be able to finish the surges and the rest of the run without feeling extremely tired. Fartleks can be hard if you choose to really push it on the surges, or it can be a lighter workout if you just go a little bit faster than tempo pace on them.

If you want to be a good 1500m runner, run 65 -75 miles a week and start out doing tempo runs and then shorter stuff at race pace and maybe a little faster like most people like 200's, I prefer 300's and 150's cause it throws off the monotony of half a lap or a lap of intervals. You can even mix in odd distance like 250 or 175 just to keep your body sharp and guessing, never getting dull.

Hey guys, Thanks for the info on Fartleks and the 1500m! I appreciate it. I am still a little bit away from running 60+ mpw. I think I am able to get around 25 - 30 mpw at the moment. I will likely do a couple of longer runs this weekend. Maybe a couple of 5 milers. Today I only managed 4.125 in 2 workouts. I did a 2.4k in 9:48 (goal of 10:00) and 2.625 miles in 20 minutes (goal of 3 miles).

You are probably reading it correctly. We did 12 400m sprints with a target time of 56 seconds on each one (target was 95% effort). We had 3 minutes recovery in between each one and 4 minutes every third. The target was very fast. There was one guy that was very close on all of them, but everyone else was a lot slower. This was the hardest workout of the year and everyone in the team threw up. I didn't, but only because I had an iron stomach, but I had the feeling of throwing up for about 15 minutes combined with an insane head ache where my head was throbbing and I heard ringing and buzzing... Oh and right after, we had weight training... I hit target on the first three, like an idiot I ran the third one in 51 and that killed the rest of them :P I only went under 60 seconds one more time and that was it.

The sad thing is that I don't know exactly what my 400m times were in meets. Everything was so unorganized. I was timed between 44 and 52 seconds (depends which timer you asked) in one meet. I considered myself running the 52, but there is a chance I went around 46 or 47 because 2nd place was about 80m behind me when I finished and his coach timed him at 55 seconds.

Normally, our 400m intervals would come around 65 - 75 seconds, that day was just "special". We did intervals from 40m to 600m. Intervals are hard, because for example, with the 200m, one day we had to do 12x200m where our rest was jogging either the curve or the straight away (depends which one we were on) and our target time was 26 seconds. This is very fast as well for doing so many. After every 3, we had a 3 minute rest. We only managed 3 sets on this one, (it was to prepare the 4x800m team for State Qualifications), and I only managed to get 4 under goal. Like with the 400m ones, I went way to fast on the first 3. I got them all in under 23 seconds, then after that they were from 25 - 35 seconds with the last 2 coming over 30 seconds. That didn't even help me, because on the meet, I had a fever, so I ran a 2:13 in my leg and we ran our "B" squad, so that 2:13 was the fastest time by about 10 seconds on our squad. They figured if I ran what I normally ran (under 2 minutes) we would qualify (we would have by about 4 seconds) and then we can run the "A" squad and maybe do ok in state. We had no chance of winning though, because our state had a 4x800 team that ran 7:50, which is insanely fast.