Coach Kedge has shared with us one of his key workouts, a workout that he uses in the track season for his 3,200m runners.
Objective: For kids to “see” what goal 2 mile pace is. I use this workout during the mid-season period of training to develop speed, a sense of pace, and confidence for 3200 meter runners.
Pace set up: Athletic tape and think markers are used to place goal pace marking on the track in lane 1. See calculation table below.
Time period:
- The workout is usually scheduled in the meat of the season as kids are progressing from mid- competitive season into early peak season. Estimated time period is about 4 – 6 weeks from the State Track Meet.
- Workout is usually done on a Monday or Tuesday of an invitational week (Saturday meet)
Warm up:
- 10 minute warm-up run
- Dynamic flexibility
- Sprint drills (grass or track)
- 2 x 50 m accelerations
Running workout-
10 x :90 seconds for distance track repeats at goal 3200 meter pace with :90 seconds walk back to 400 meter start line. See calculation table below.
- Note: I usually let kids get carried away with the workout and run it on the harder edge of effort instead of completely controlling the pace – I let them “go for it” if they feel good.
Post workout:
- 10 minute jog cool down
- Static stretch
Modifications:
Workout can be modified the following ways:
- to fit a 1600 meter goal pace workout by doing 5 – 6 x 90 seconds at 1600 meter pace by taking 2:30 recovery instead of 1:30 recovery. Our middle school team traditionally does this with marker that range between 7:00 / 1600 m pace down to 5:00 / 1600 m pace.
- to fit a faster or slower runner by simply extending the pace chart – calculation process listed above.
- to fit a 5K or 5K cross-country workout by moving to grass surface, using a wheel or GPS watch to mark distances, and adjusting to 12 x 90 second repeats. Time markers can then reflect 5K XC goal times. Time markers can be posted with cones.