Workout of the Day: 4 x 800m, 6 x 600m, 12 x 400m
4 x 800m, 6 x 600m, 12 x 400m
Intensity — 800s at 5,000m pace, 600s @ 3,000m speed, 400s @ 1500m speed
Recovery — 80m jog recovery in 30” between each rep, 15 minutes jogging between reps
Exertion — 9/10
Context & Details
This session can be found in Toby Tanser’s cult classic book, Train Hard, Win Easy — The Kenyan Way.
This was a staple session for 1990s distance running star Richard Chelimo, silver medalist at 10,000m in the 1992 Olympic Games and a one-time world record holder at 10,000m (27:07).
You may think this is an “impossible” session, but it’s not. Here’s why: humans are highly adaptive organisms. This fundamental truth is the basis of all training theory. I don’t think there is any confusion on this point. Where confusion on training starts to arise is when we begin talking about specifics such as progressions of training and timelines.
Humans, generally speaking, like simple and easy. Runners are humans and have a bias for simple and easy concepts. “The hardest worker wins” is a simple concept which has some truth to it. However, many interpret the hardest worker as the worker who works the most. In the case of runners, “the most” means most mileage covered in a period (days, weeks, months, or years). However, the runner who runs the most miles usually doesn’t win. And this is where things get a little more complex, and some start to check out.
When you accept the runner who runs the most doesn’t win then you have to ask what “hard work” really looks like.
As I’ve tried to show in past WOTD and Bell Lap blog posts, hard work as I and other coaches of elite-level runners, define it as hyperfocused bouts of very intense work which punctuate generous corresponding periods of restitution, or recovery.
Canova’s Special or Specific Blocks are very long and very hard days (for marathoners, usually 40K - 50K of hard running broken into 2 sessions) but they’re surrounded by 3-4 days of very easy running (8:00/mile pace) of one to two daily sessions lasting only 40 - 60 minutes. If your definition of “hardest worker” is who runs the most weekly mileage at the fastest average speed, then this week looks like a step back. But if your definition of” hardest worker” is who can elicit the biggest stimulus and specific adaption from their training, then this week is quite effective at accomplishing that.
Getting back to Chelimo’s session.
This session worked for Chelimo because it is a) very intense (due to the combination of paces of the reps and the hyper short rest intervals) and was b) hyper-specific to his goals (sustaining recording breaking speeds over 10,000m and condition his body to be fatigue resistant to those speeds). It’s a great example of a session that incorporates high intensity and high density in a way that elicits a strong adaptive response in a specific direction. Provided a session like this is coupled with an appropriate amount of recovery, it will result in a bump specific fitness for a world-class 10,000m runner in the final weeks of their preparation before their target racing period.