Tempo Tuesday

There are countless blogs, message boards, and websites on training so I won't go into great length on why I train the guys how I do. The main idea is that distance running is largely aerobic exercise. Aerobic running forms the house one is building with all their training. All other training makes the house nicer but not necessarily bigger. As I said yesterday I'll leave the more specific work for the high school and college coaches. I'll just work the extremes. The muscles and nervous system to make them stronger, faster, more efficient, and capable of handling more work. And the aerobic system to raise their thresholds and build their houses so in the future they can do more specific work to race faster.

With that in mind here was today's work for the "top" guys:

1. 1200m W/U
2. Drills
3. 12-15 min between easy and steady with 4 x30seconds in the last half
4. (Back to the track) 2 laps of ins and outs (stride straightaway jog endzone) on the football field
5. 3-4 x 800m at 3:30 with 60-90 seconds recovery
6. (After a few minutes recovery) (to the back straightaway of the track) 2 x 90m strides (getting faster every 30m) walk back to start for recovery
7. 2 lap C/D around perimeter of football field
8. Stretch

Only 7 guys (out of probably 16) did this. The rest had the same day through number 4. Instead of 2 laps of ins and outs they did 4-5. Afterward they did a 2 lap cool down on the football field. I wish everyone could do some specific threshold running. But for some of the guys the "general" running is what is needed more than getting on the track, trying to determine threshold pace, and then have them try to run it. They benefit much more from an easy-steady aerobic run with some faster running thrown in.

Thursday we'll unleash the lions (RWTB) in our first meet of the year. Look for most of the guys to run 4x8 and 4x4 (I'll field two teams in each of just distance guys) with the rest in the open 800m and 1600m races.