A Year-Round Speed Program for Mid Distance Runners, Part I

By Luke Watson


Speed Work.

The very phrase conjures images of an athlete drowning in a lactic acid bath of brutal 400m repeats, run as fast as your failing muscles will allow. The track surface turns from Mondo to peanut butter beneath your spikes, sucking up all your energy and dooming you to a skeleton dance of agony. Your muscles seethe in hell's hottest fire and your calves lock up as if they're an engine in those motor oil commercials where the engine is devoid of oil and run until failure. You cross the line trying to push away the fiery-red-and-black tunnel vision while grabbing your knees, for this desperate act is the only way to stay on your feet. Someone get a trash can. It's pukey time.

While that is certainly one type of speed workout, not every speed workout should be so torturous. Indeed, for mid-distance runners, speedwork is a year-round necessity, but in many different forms.

In this series I will discuss various techniques to improve and maintain speed. I will outline how I phase these techniques throughout the year. And I'll give you some workouts that will have you playing with the lactic demons. Please bear in mind that my approach to mid-distance is still very much aerobically based, but what I outline here are the tools we use to build and maintain speed within that aerobic focus.

PART I

TOP GEAR SPEED WORK

The method I use to improve and maintain top-end speed for mid-distance athletes is something I call the HAF method. HAF is Hills, Accelerations, and Flys. The first thing you might notice is that none of these workouts are deeply lactic. The primary energy system is anaerobic alactic, though the anaerobic lactic system will certainly engage, especially on the hill workouts.
In addition to the HAF method, I invoke some more traditional track work that is still not deeply lactic. It is not what I would consider true top end speed work, but is effective overspeed training.
I avoid deep lactic work when developing top end speed because the muscles tie up when they go lactic, and that causes one to run slow. The whole point of top end work is to run fast.

HILLS
We begin with hill work in order to strengthen the muscles that provide most of one's speed. Hill work simulates running on flat ground at a faster pace. Thus, uphill work can provide a deeper muscle stimulus than simply running on flat ground.
To develop sprinting power, I use a short, very explosive workout of 6-10x 40-80m very steep hill. This hill is steep enough to make running difficult, but gentle enough to retain one's ability to actually sprint and not bound. A hill of this grade would be about the steepest paved road available, maybe 8-12% grade. The recovery is a lazy walk down, 1-2 minutes. This workout, done at 95-99% of full effort, is for pure explosiveness.
Another workout is slightly less intense but longer and consists of 12-24x 70-100m on a similar grade with a walk/jog down recovery of 45-90 seconds. This workout, done at 85-95% of full effort, teaches the body to produce a very explosive force many times over.
The final hill work project is downhill running. Downhill running is a great preseason speed technique which again involves a deep muscular impact, this time because of gravity. Downhill running also allows an athlete to run at full speed with less effort, or to run faster than full speed (hyperspeed). For this type of workout, I recommend a smooth, grassy hill surface of just a 2-5% grade (I use a slight knoll on the golf course) and do 6-10x 100m (walk up recovery). Using a tailwind on windy days can also mimic this workout. Downhill or tailwind running is also useful into the regular season and post-season as a speed developer akin to Flys.

ACCELERATIONS
Accelerations provide a perfect bridge to hill running and top speed running. Accelerations allow the transfer of muscular power (developed in hill training) into speed on a flat surface. I use 4-10x 30-50m accelerations at 95% effort from a standing start. Accelerations remain a great muscular resistance workout as the athlete overcomes a new force, this one being inertia (the force overcome in hill work being, of course, gravity). Accelerations are typically done during the late preseason and into the regular season. During the preseason the athlete may work on accelerations and hills in the same training phase, and during the early regular season the athlete may work on accelerations and flys in the same training microcycle/mesocycle.

FLYS
Flys are top gear speed work. Flys train the athlete to convert all his muscular strength and explosiveness into speed in a straight line on a flat track. A typical fly workout is 4-12x flying 30m sprint. There is an acceleration zone that allows the athlete to build up to top speed before the fly zone start mark, then 30m of top end sprinting, then a gradual deceleration. Walk back recovery. This is the capstone for speed work and is typically done more in the month leading up to key races; however, flys may be used sparingly year-round as top speed maintenance. Because this is a top speed workout, I always have athletes do flys on fresh legs, i.e. before a workout (often as part of the warmup). Downhill and tailwind running may also be used in a similar fashion for hyperspeed training.

ADDITIONAL LOW-LACTIC OVERSPEED TRAINING
This helps the athlete adjust to fast running for a slightly longer duration. With plenty of recovery, the athlete should feel good doing this and use good technique. These workouts are ones that are refreshing; the athletes often come out of the workout feeling better than they did at the start.
4-8x 100-200m with plentiful recovery, 2-3 minutes.
In the fall and early season, I use 150m repeats in which the athletes accelerate every 50m. This begins with 50m accelerating, 50m at 1500m race pace, and 50m at 800m race pace, and progresses so that in the end the athlete is doing 50m at 800m race pace, 50m at 400m race pace, and 50m @FAST. @FAST is slightly faster than 400m race pace.
Often during the winter and early spring, I will use 4-6x 200m with 2:00 recovery at slightly faster than 800m race pace. This is not a hard workout, just a speed maintenance tool. Later in the year if we want to work harder on speed, the repeats will be faster and sometimes the volume will increase.

These low-lactic overspeed workouts, in combination with short hills, strides, and some accelerations, are the only speed workouts I have mid-distance athletes doing during the fall and well into the winter. On the aerobic side, throughout the fall and winter they will run plenty of distance, do some tempo runs and lots of cruise intervals, and do VO2 Max work starting in October/November. In the middle of winter we add lactate tolerance work and longer, more gradual hills for lactate tolerance... the topics for PART II of "A Year-Round Speed Program".