Speed work for the win!

[mitty140]

I saw someone post a workout that looked good so I thought I would post the workout I designed that helped me increase my speed.

Start off with doing Plyometrics:

10M of standing long jumps
10M of high skips
10M of high knees
10M of butt kicks
10M running backwards. Focus on reaching back to stretch out your legs.
Do 3 times through

Conducted on a 400M track:

Run 200M and do 20 pushups
Run 400M and do 30 pushups
Run 800M and do 40 pushups
Run 1200M and do 50 pushups
Run 1600M and do 60 pushups
Run 1600M and do 100 situps
Run 1200M and do 80 situps
Run 800M and do 60 situps
Run 400M and do 40 situps
Run 200M and do 20 situps

*Should done as fast as possible and the second half of running should have faster splits than the first part.

Next accelerate for 20M, sprint flat out for 60M, and decelerate for 20M, after each sprint do a set of pullups alternating with dips till failure for 12 sets total.

Adjust this last part depending on how you feel but when I am done with the workout above I go cool down with anywhere from an 15-20 mile run at about a 8:00 min mile pace.

It has a lot of cals in it but it helps you mentally to push and helps teaches your body to run fast on tired legs and little energy.

Please feel free to criticize or make adjustments to make it more optimal.

[scskowron]

Are you serious???

First you start with 150m of plyo drills, then 5.25 miles of sprinting, then 0.75 miles of variable sprinting, then a 15-20 mile run? All in one workout?

Honestly I think that is a poorly designed workout. Even professional distance runners do not combine speed and distance on the same day.

Your workout totals 6 miles of full-speed sprinting...that is way too much unless you're a highly experienced professional runner. I'd recommend keep your speed work to 3-4 miles total at most, preceded and followed by a 0.5-1 mile cool down.

Save the long run for another day. As a marathon runner myself, running 21-26 miles in one day is part of my regular training, but to run 6 of those miles at full speed is suicidal. Ever heard of LSD? It stands for long, slow, distance and it's designed to get your body to build up endurance. Running that far after a speed workout will just unnecessarily deplete your glycogen supply and won't allow your muscles the time they need to grow after the speed session. Doing speed and distance on the same day will reduce the quality of both workouts.

[mitty140]

Yes I have heard of LSD. I am an ultra runner, running 100+ mile races. I know all about glycogen depletion, that is the reason why I supplement while I am cooling down.

The program never called for flat out sprinting and I obviously I forgot to mention this earlier but it is suppose to be ran at 85% - 90% your max heart rate, you know kinda like a faster tempo run.

It is your right to think it is terrible but it helped me drop my 1.5 mile time from 10:26 down to 7:41. Also with any program that is designed I would hope most people would have enough sense to tailor it to their ability starting off slower and building up. This isn't what I started with but over the course of a year have built up to.

I'm not a professional runner either, I don't care what they do. I will never be that elite marathoner breaking records so I am contempt with breaking myself.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[scskowron]

mitty if it works for you then keep going with it, you can't mess with results.

You did mention though in your first post that the speedwork should be done as fast as possible AND have negative splits which is really tough to manage.

I didn't mean any offense to you, it's just that you didn't stipulate where you were coming from. For someone with experience like yourself, that workout gives results as you state, but for 99.9% of the users of this site, it's really dangerous to do.

[mitty140]

Damn, you are right I did say that! I apologize, I should not have said it that way or been more clear about it.

You didn't offend at all bro, I appreciate your honest opinion. I did say to criticize and make adjustments as you see fit so you only did what I asked so I can't get mad about it =).

Again you are right, I had a very strong mileage base before I started it and even then I didn't start off with that one above. My problem is I can design very good programs for people but I have a hard time trying to explain it on the net.

I've coached numerous beginner runners on how to finish a marathon and taught them the tools on how to get faster in person...terrible at it on the internet haha. The one thing I always tell people when I am working with them that all those programs the elites are doing are way too advanced for a beginner and if you attempt those you are begging for an injury. It's smart in my opinion to take that approach with all programs you see. Take it easy for the first couple workouts to gauge how you match up with the program and make adjustments accordingly because the person who designed it could be years ahead in conditioning and experience.

Next time I'll try to be more clear!

Thanks again for your thoughts!

[Nihilo]

Hey mitty shouldn't you be at BUD/s already..****

[Illmaxic]

nihilo, try and make sense when you post... some of us don't speak the jibber jabber

[scskowron]

Damn, you are right I did say that! I apologize, I should not have said it that way or been more clear about it.

You didn't offend at all bro, I appreciate your honest opinion. I did say to criticize and make adjustments as you see fit so you only did what I asked so I can't get mad about it =).

Again you are right, I had a very strong mileage base before I started it and even then I didn't start off with that one above. My problem is I can design very good programs for people but I have a hard time trying to explain it on the net.

I've coached numerous beginner runners on how to finish a marathon and taught them the tools on how to get faster in person...terrible at it on the internet haha. The one thing I always tell people when I am working with them that all those programs the elites are doing are way too advanced for a beginner and if you attempt those you are begging for an injury. It's smart in my opinion to take that approach with all programs you see. Take it easy for the first couple workouts to gauge how you match up with the program and make adjustments accordingly because the person who designed it could be years ahead in conditioning and experience.

Next time I'll try to be more clear!

Thanks again for your thoughts!

Hey Mitty I just wanted to apologize again for my comments even if you weren't offended, on second thought I feel like I didn't show you enough respect. I've seen some of your other posts on this site and you seem to be an amazing runner. Out of curiosity, what do you for a living? Are you in the teams, service, or just a runner?

It's just that whenever someone comes along and recommends doing like 25 miles of running for speedwork it's just a little surprising because this site doesn't get many ultramarathoners. Good luck and please post any other running advice you have because I'm very interested.