Photo Credit Josh Terry
Hey guys, Ralph Havens here, Beyond Limits Physical Therapy in Bellingham, Washington—beautiful Fairhaven.
This is a message for coaches, runners, and people who have had some success at the state level, national level, and beyond. I’m asking for advice. My name is Ralph Havens, I’m a physical therapist, and I help people get over running injuries and other chronic conditions.
One thing my son and I do—he’s a 4:49 1600-meter runner in middle school—is that we’re students of the sport. So, the long and short of this is: if you want to skip ahead, I’m looking for advice on training as he finishes up his spring season in 8th grade and gets ready for an amazing time at Sehome High, the perennial state champions in cross country.
Where we’re at—and what we need advice on
The things we believe in and see are that mileage counts. Beyond that, staying healthy is very, very important.
Progression of miles—but at a dosage and frequency that keeps the runner healthy, happy, bouncy, and excited about life, enjoying the process.
Mileage building safely is number one.
Tempo is the next most important piece. Tempo is a very specific speed, as most of you know. It’s not just calling something tempo. It’s the pace that, if you were running an all-out hour run—maybe a 15K, or a half marathon if you’re world class—that’s the pace.
Repeat miles like 800s, 1000s, mile and a half, continuous two-mile runs—but at a tempo you could sustain for an entire hour all-out. So it’s not super fast, but:
Tempo pace is very important and builds the anaerobic threshold.
So, staying healthy and happy, aerobic mileage progression, and threshold for the anaerobic component—those are the biggest pieces. Beyond that, to be healthy, happy, and enjoy the process, have goals, a great team, a great coach, and just enjoy life.
Speed training: “Feed the Cheetah”
The next part we add is speed—very specific speed like 800 and mile race pace. We do something called “Feed the Cheetah,” which I learned from a sprinter.
After an interval at mile race pace—say 100m, 200m, maybe 400m—you take complete rest (maybe two minutes), and then do another one. This works the system of speed. A little speed helps.
Understanding saturation
Now we talk about saturation—the idea that if you do a lot of speed, you’ve gone past the saturation point.
Doing speed five days a week is not good. VO2 work—hard 5K race pace stuff—has a very low saturation point; it doesn’t take much to get the benefit. You might as well just run a race. We don’t find much benefit in training for VO2 work because you get the effect very early, and adding more doesn’t help.
Threshold, on the other hand, has a very high—maybe unlimited—saturation point. As long as you stay healthy, you can keep adding more threshold. That’s why people do double and triple threshold days.
Over the years, increasing the volume and frequency of threshold to the optimum level is really key.
The full picture
So, we’ve got:
- Speed at mile race pace with lots of rest
- Threshold which you can keep building on
- Aerobic easy running—keeping the easy runs easy, even if you progress them over time
That’s what we’ve found as key. And like I said before:
Staying healthy and happy is one of the biggest keys.
Mindset is also huge—having a coach, a team, and a support system that believes in you while you believe in yourself.
That’s a whole other talk, but that’s what we’re finding as the most important components to build a middle school or high school distance runner.
We want your feedback
I’d really love your opinion—whether you’re with Nike teams, college teams, high school coaches with state champions, or middle school coaches with national-caliber athletes. I’d love to hear your thoughts as we get ready for the next phase.
Alright, you guys:
Recent Comments