Workout of the Day: 2,000m, 1600m, 1200m, 800m, 400m
2,000m, 1600m, 1200m, 800m, 400m
Intensity — 2K @ 10K pace, 1600m @ 5K, 1200m @ 3K, 800m @ 1500m, 400m @ 800m speed
Recovery — 400m jog after rep
Exertion — 9/10
Context & Details
We call the practical education of a runner “training.” Almost any training works, to some degree. However, certain methods of training are more effective than others.
Cutdown ladder workouts have proven over decades to be a highly effective means for training runners.
Why? It’s not a simple, straightforward answer. It’s multi-factorial.
In this post, I’m going to focus on an often overlooked part of the answer: the psychological impact.
Traditional cutdown ladder workouts, like this one, impose a demand to speed-up throughout the workout. I think this ask teaches a runner two important psychological aspects: patience and confidence.
Patience is gained by being disciplined not to overrun any reps, especially early, and to ensure there is enough energy available to keep increasing their pace throughout the session.
Confidence is gained by practicing faster running in an increasingly fatigued state.
This workout equally challenges, albeit in different ways, the two main archetypical runners we running coaches work with: the endurance dominant runner and the speed dominant runner.
Whenever I start coaching a runner I try to determine where they fall on the Endurance — Speed Continuum. Are they naturally, or have trained to be, better at endurance tasks like long runs or tempo running? Or do they express a stronger ability or inclination for speed work, like sprints, short hill repeats, and fast 400m repeats?
I start this discovery process by asking:
“What workout do you like more: long easy runs or fast repeat 200s?”
Their answer usually tells me precisely their orientation on the Endurance — Speed Continuum.
This workout provides both the endurance dominant runner and the speed dominant runner equally with challenges and rewards.
The endurance dominant runner sees the long, early reps as play and the shorter, later reps as work. They gain confidence by honing their strength early, then must practice patience when working to improve on their speed late in the session. The worldview of the speed dominant runner is inverted: do work and be patient on the longer reps, have fun, and build confidence in the short, fast reps.
Simple things like balancing challenges and rewards when working on both weaknesses and strengths have dramatic effects psychologically.
Everyone knows it’s advantageous to upgrade our areas of weakness, but it’s hard work and not all that enjoyable. We’d much rather practice what we’re strong at because doing so gives us pleasure by stroking our egos.
The coach’s dilemma is this: a runner is only as good as their weakest link.
But if all you do is have runners train to improve their weaknesses, pretty soon you won’t be coaching any runners. They’ll stop showing up to practice. Few people want to do things they don’t like ad nauseam.
On the other hand, if all your runners do is stuff they’re already good at or like, their improvement will stall out very quickly.
To see steady gains we need to reach a compromise and balance training between what’s seen as work and play. Runners will be more engaged, consistent, and interested in training that balances enjoyment and challenge.
And that’s what cutdown ladder workouts do so well: provide a psychological balance between patience and confidence. This results in higher engagement and an overall better training experience and effect. And because of this, it’s one reason why these types of sessions work so well for all types of runners.