Kick 3! Why 300meters to go....

 Here’s a quick email to help you make sure the race plans you’re giving your 1600m runners are optimal. 

Are you going to have them “go” with 400m to go or 200m to go or some other distance? 

Going at 300m 

The reason I like moving with 300m to go are: 

1. Other athletes will have speed up at the bell, so your athlete will – if they’re keeping contact with the runner in front of them – be speeding up already. 

2. Running a hard 300m for a fit athlete is reasonable, while some athletes (younger athletes) lack the fitness to crush a 400m.  

3. If you tell them go “Fast, Faster, Fastest” within the 300m – Fast for the 100m backstretch, Faster for the 100m second curve, and Fastest for the 100m homestretch – they will at least maintain pace, and ideally, they’ll be able to execute this plan. If they can do this, they’ll be happy with the result. 

300m as 200m/100m 

For younger athletes they can have a simple plan – stay in contact with the runners in front of them, then with 300m to go run hard for 200m, then run their fastest 100m of the race on the homestretch. 

“But in Consistency Is Key You Talked About Going at 500m From the Finish?” 

Making a move with 500m to go for a veteran athlete who is fit makes a lot of sense. They can go 200m/200m/100m for their Fast, Faster, Fastest moves.  

They’ll surprise their competition by going 100m before the bell, then they’ll make another move with 300m to go, which may cause some of their competitors to give in. 

But the flip side is this is too much for your kids that finish their season this week at the JV championships. They should go with 300m and then execute the 200m/100m plan. 

What’s Best for Your Athletes? 

As my friend Jeff Boelé often responds when asked training and racing questions, “It depends.” You’ve got to know what your athlete can handle both mentally and physically. 

Article on Doubling for Distance Races

From Miller:   After your first race, part 3 is especially helpful......See me if you have questions..The article comes from Coach Jay's newsletter....Here it is:

One of the biggest questions coaches and athletes have during the track season is what to do to properly warm-up when the athlete is running two races. Great question! 

After they finish the first race of the day, the athlete should take 10-15 minutes until they feel mostly back to normal. They can choose to jog for 2-3 minutes, though this isn’t necessary. What is necessary is the following mobility work, to ensure their body is ready for the next race. If you don’t know what the following exercises are simply read the entire to learn how to access videos that show each exercise. 

1. Quick Mobility Routine

•  Iron cross x 10 – do this a bit slower than normal 
•  Low whips x 5 each leg – again, do this a bit slower than normal 
•  Groiners x 5 each leg 
•  Reach under/up x 5 each side 
•  Cat-Cow x 5 cycles 
•  Stand up and do side bends – 5 for each side. 

That’s it! Now it’s time to hydrate, and depending on the length of time until the next race, possibly refuel. 

2. Adjusted Jeff Boelé Warm-Up for Doubling

For 20m, do the following:

• Skips w/ arms forward 
• Skips w/ arms backward
• Skips w/ arms crossing 
• Skips w/ twist 
• Backward walk w/ reach 
• Backward skip 
• Butt Kicks
• Side Jumping Jacks
• Carioca

Now move to a wall or fence…

• Leg Swings – front/side
• Hurdle Trail Leg – forward/back 
• Eagles
• Side bends – L/R

Move to the ground…

• Camel/old horse
• Cat/Cobra
• Reach under/up
• Fire hydrant
• Donkey kick
• Low whips 

Finally, for 10m…

• A March
• A Skip
• A March
• A Skip

We’re doing the A march and skip twice, and taking out the B march and skip, for two reasons. First, we need to get focused for the race, and doing a technical aspect like skipping is great. But the hamstrings may be tight from the first race so we’ll keep those out. That said if the athlete never has hamstring issues you can replace the second A march and skip combination with B march and B skip.

3. Strides

Athletes can do a 5-minute jog, if they want to, but this is not necessary. After they put on their spikes, they’ll run:

1. 2 x 150m In-n-out with middle 50m at 92 percent, 94 percent.
2. Strides at goal pace:  

•  1600m: 2 x 100m with a run-in at goal pace.  
•  3200m: 2-3 x 100m with a run-in at goal pace. 
•  800m: One more 150m In-n-out at 96 percent. You could possibly do 80m from a standing start in lane 6, 7, or 8 to replicate the start of the race, but that’s not necessary.  
•  400m: 1 x 150m In-n-out at 96 percent, for an older athlete. Make sure there are several minutes between the end of this rep and the race.

Following the race, you’ll repeat the Quick Mobility Routine.

“So where do I find all of these exercises?”

You can get Jeff’s Warm-up by joining my email list and selecting "High School Coaches" as one of the emails you'd like. You'll automatically be sent the 2-page PDF with the warm-up.

You'll get a second email that allows you to log into CoachJayJohnson.com and view Jeff's warm-up and all the SAM videos on your phone (or computer or tablet). 

Also, you'll want your athletes to join my email list too so that they get access to the videos, which they can reference at practice, on their phones. Click here to join.