Workout of the Day: 4 x 300m
4 x 300m
Intensity — 400m sprint
Recovery — 300m walk
Exertion — 8/10
Context & Details
Tom Courtney was the 1956 Olympic champion in the 800m. He also set the world record 1:46.8 in the 880 yd (805m) in 1957. He’s little remembered today, but his training was captured by Fred Wilt in the hard to find book “How They Train — Vol. I: Middle Distance Runners.”
300m repeats were Courtney’s bread and butter workout.
Early season training would see him do 10 x 300m in 36” with 300m walk for “endurance.” He would do this session on cinders, three times a week every Monday, Wednesday and Friday — for 3 months. The walk would eventually become a jog.
Courtney reports the following progression: “As I get closer to racing season I reduce the number of fast runs but aim to run them faster.”
The workout then shifts to 4 x 300m on Monday and Wednesdays. Friday is an easy day as Saturday was usually race day.
In season, Courtney ran the 4 x 300m in 32” with his fastest 300m in the series ever recorded as 29.8”…for 300m.
You may be thinking, ‘no way!” And you may be right. Averaging 10.7 for 100m for 300m is pretty quick.
But he did set a world record and won an Olympic gold medal — so you never know.
Don’t get hung up on Courtney’s reported splits. Instead, focus on the principles and thinking he elected to use to answer the training questions all runners face of How Fast? How Long? How Often?
Courtney elected to prepare his body for the demands of 1950s-era world class 800m racing by accumulating 6,000m worth of weekly volume at 48”/400m per week. Over 3 months that is 45 miles of volume at 48”/400m speed. For him, endurance training was focusing on an accumulation of a specific running speed, in his case 36”/300m, so he developed a work capacity he thought could to sustain his in-season training and racing at world class speeds.
300m repeats at race pace or faster has long been a staple of middle distance runners. This repeat distance occupies a special space in training of elite runners because it’s usually the longest repetition distance that can be run in a fully anaerobic state since it’s usually completed in 45 seconds or less. It develops neuromuscular power well, and depending on how you structure a workout, regular sessions of 300s can significantly upgrade speed-endurance as well.
Here is a WOTD of 8 x 300m for the 1500m runner which digs deeper into the value of 300m repeats.
And, for fun, below is a video of Courtney’s 800m gold medal run at the 1956 Olympics.