7 x (600m, 2 x 200m)
7 x (600m, 2 x 200m)
Designed for 5,000m runners
Intensity
600m @ 5K pace
1st 200m rep @ 3K pace
2nd 200m rep @ 1500m pace
Recovery
200m jog in 45” - 60”
Exertion
8/10
Periodization
Performance Period, Stabilization Block
Context & Details
Years ago, I watched Lopez Lomong perform this workout a few weeks before he won one of his many USATF national titles. More than anything this workout demonstrates the brilliance of Bowerman TC coach Jerry Schumacher.
For Jerry, a runner’s main opponent is not other competitions but fatigue. This makes the goal of training very simple: delay fatigue as long as possible.
Effective training, therefore, is any work done that stimulates adaptions to diminish fatigue at goal race pace. Meaning for Jerry, workouts are primarily extensive in nature.
In the early 2010s, I observed hundreds of his runner’s workouts. During that time, he manipulated workouts by either: 1) extending the duration of a rep and/or 2) shortening the recovery between reps. He never comprised the on the pace or preassigned recovery interval.
I saw very few speed workouts.
Jerry will admit, he’s not that good at developing a runner’s footspeed. But in his situation, he doesn’t need to. His athletes are already fast. Jerry recruits from the best talent in the world. What he looks for are runners who have world-class footspeed, but lack world-class endurance at those speeds. His training system centers around improving the endurance component of a runner’s Speed-Endurance. And as we all know, his approach with this type of athlete population is wildly successful.
To Jerry, essentially every workout for his runners is a type of fartlek. He thinks of workouts as a unitary whole. His ideal workout is anything continuous without breaks or very few slow down periods. Which makes sense — there are no breaks on race day. Therefore, the effectiveness of a workout is measured by how little rest or slowing down happens to sustain a target tempo over the target duration. As was the case with this particular workout.
I remember that morning asking Jerry was the workout for Lopez.
He said, “600-200-200 with 200m between each rep in no more than 60 seconds.”
I then asked how many sets.
He replied, “forever…or until he slows down.”
To Jerry, slow down means a slow down of pace off of the maximum rest period. For Lopez that day, this happened after 7 sets.
And this is where his coaching brilliance shines.
Many coaches predetermine how much volume of work they want to be performed in a workout and at what pace (ex: 6 x 1 mile @ 5:30 pace). They’re willing to negotiate the recovery intervals to achieve the target work volumes.
For Jerry, it is inverted. He seeks to expose the athlete to as much work as they can tolerate at the desired pace without negotiating the recovery intervals. When significant slow down happens, the athlete is done for the day. A workout stops being effective when the only way to sustain the pace is to increase the recovery interval.
Many coaches sacrifice the long term for the short term, whereas Jerry is willing to sacrifice in the short term for the long term. He knows development takes time.
At first, the runner can’t perform a lot of volume of work at pace without a significant slow down off of strict recovery. But over time, their work capacity or threshold is extended — and the point in a race when they’ll start to fatigue moves closer and close to the finish line.
It’s important to remember, this type of training philosophy works best when an athlete is already fast, as with Jerry’s professional runners. For coaches working with developmental runners (high school, college, or younger training age) speed work is just as important as extension work, if not more so.
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Good books on 5,000m training
More Fire by Toby Tanser
Run Strong by Kevin Beck
Daniels Distance Running Formula by Jack Daniels
Healthy Intelligent Training: The Proven Principles of Arthur Lydiard by Keith Livingstone