Awesome Track session

[Deleted User]

I fancy some variety and would be interested to hear some ideas for a really tough but useful track session. I could dream up one myself but would be interested to hear what other people do.

So come on who can do better than 10x400m?

[Deleted User]

pyramid mate? Tried that?

[Deleted User]

Er, 10 x 800m?

cougie

11 x 400m

(this is easy this)

[Deleted User]

At the risk of sounding a bit patronising - we need to knowe a bit more. e.g what event are you aiming for? what have you done in the past? what level of fitness are you at now?

etc.

There's nothing wrong with doing 10x400m, but 10x400m with a 15 second recovery between each one, and 10x400m with a minute recovery between each one are very different sessions. 10x400m uphill is another variation, as is 10x400m with the second 200m being quicker than the first. The permuations for interval work are endless, but it's usually best to start off with a goal and tailor your sessions towards that, rather than simply try to come up with an 'awesome session'.

[Deleted User]

do some drills beforehand also to really sh@g yourself out
if your not finished after that and your 10 x 400's what about some sit-ups and press-ups

[Deleted User]

I couple of demon sessions I have done recently have been pyramids between 400 and 1600, 1600 x 5 and 4 x 800 but running every second lap with a faster runner. Made my eyeball bulge. A few weeks at this has really improve my 10 mile and half marathon times.

God I feel good when it ends.

Allie

Hilly

It would be good to post good speed sessions for different distances. As I'm not a regular user of the track I tend to stick to 6-10 * 800 aiming for 5k pace (although normally falls between 5k and 10k!) with a 400m jog recovery. I do this for improving distance of 10k to 1/2m.

I'd also be interested to have other sessions to do for these distances.

[Deleted User]

I was being coached by a while by a guy who had some quite unusual ideas about track sessions. He wasn't exactly coaching me but rather I hooked up with his group after the group I was training with had disintegrated. Anyway, he had been a very useful runner in his youth with times ranging from 14:40 5k up to 2:23 for the marathon and had only taken up coaching after his daughter had shown some promise. She was county x/c champ and he wasn't happy with the (lack of) coaching she wasn't getting at the club which was why he took over. Quite quickly he attracted a lot runners - he was very friendly, funny and enthusiastic with lots of good ideas.

So, these are the some of things he made me do (bearing in mind my target was a 15min 5k):
"tonight Barry you're going to 400m reps in 72 secnods with a 200m jog between each one."
"okay, how many?" said I
"as many as you can" he says. "I want you to run between 71 and 72 seconds for each one and as soon as drop below that you stop. If you're aiming for 15min and can only get to 8 or 9, then there's something wrong. If you get to 12 we're on the right track. If you can get to 16 we'll be looking at a sub-15min."
I managed 13 between 71 and 72. On the 14th I worked too hard and ran 69 and on the 15th rep and blew up and ran about 80 seconds. Time to stop.

I'm not 100% what the lesson of that session was! ... but it made me look at things a little differently. Perhaps when doing interval work runners still concentrate too much on the distance and not the pace. If you are doing a session and each rep is getting progressively slower then something is wrong (I've know this to happen to loads of runners) but still we soldier on (I MUST DO X NUMBER OF REPS, I MUST, I MUST). So perhaps it's better to do fewer reps at race pace than more reps at slower than race pace.

A regular seesion during the winter on a Tueday was 20 x 300m at roughly x/c race pace (5miles/10k pace) with 100m jog between each one. The jog used to end up being not much slower than the intervals!

Thursday evenings would be hill sessions or perhaps a pyramid session on the track.

Another unusal session we did was this: 15 seconds hard, 45 seconds easy X4 - 30 seconds hard, 30 seconds easy X4 - 45 seconds hard, 15 seconds easy. That's it. Only 15mins of running but completely knackering, we would often do it on a Thursday if racing at the weekend. The coach invented this session when he was at his peak - to fit in a second daily run he ran at lunchtimes round his local park and apparently found this a great way of keeping up his speed when he didn't have much time. I've used it many times over the years and it is surprisingly effective.

Anyway, I didn't quite break 15mins but there you go and John stopped coaching when his daughter got to her late teens and lost interest in the sport. Such is life.

Does any of that make sense?

Hilly

They're tough sessions, but I suppose if you want good times that's what's needed.

Thanks for those ideas bazza.

[Deleted User]

No session is meaningful without knowledge of what the runner is trying to achieve and their level of performance.

The ultimate is to pick any distance, run it flat out, take bugger all recovery and keep doing it until you throw up.

Or we can try and learn the science behind exercise and apply that to our own needs.

[Deleted User]

Some good sessions cheers guys.

Bazza interesting point about speed sessions being dependant on the distance run. I thought speed work is speed work.

Currently running just under 1hr 22 for half marathons. Thing is that there are only a few seconds a mile difference between my 10k pace and 1/2 marathon pace. I'd infer from this that my stamina is probably quite good and to progress from here I need to raise my flat out pace. Am training for the marathon in April but beyond this looking at 10k's and halfs.

Quite like the look of the session where you run 400's at a set pace and see how many you can do.