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Have been training as per usual. We had an awesome training camp between 26th-31st of December. Basically twice-a-day training with recovery in-between. I missed the first two sessions but managed to get the last four days in. It was crazy. Ice baths really helped, but the pain during the baths was intense. Being an elite athlete must just be a constant battle with pain.

We're having a mid-season break from gym work as it was closed over training camp, so we've been doing the fitness circuit again instead. Will do that up until end of January, then back to weights. The rest of the schedule is pretty much the same. I got up to 135kgs for 7 and 150kgs for 3 for squat, which works out to be above 2xBW. But this time around it's something I can do twice a week with plyos beforehand etc., rather than a single rested max of 2xBW like last year. Which is cool.

Racing has been really annoying. The people running the amateur competition are absolutely hopeless. I ran a 100m in mid-Dec that felt very fast, probably between 11.8-11.9ish, but the timing malfunctioned! I went back and ran a 12.3 five mins after but I was cooked. The next 100m wasn't until this weekend past. Had a really nice run, again, felt like a mid/high 11s but they fucked up the times again! They gave me a 12.19 later, but apparently when they mix up the times they have been looking back at athletes' previous times and just adjusting for the wind. So I have no idea what I ran. Really disappointing, I only have three 100m left and still haven't officially broke 12sec yet!

I've been doing some SVJs and RVJs when I can. SVJ is around the 34 mark as usual, hasn't improved much lately with no squatting. I was away over Xmas and went down to a school and just messed around. Broad jump is ~2.90m and SVJ is ~34'', did some strating drills as well for fun on the oval. I wanted to do more RVJs but didn't want to jump on concrete too much.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cOnz6ILhbM" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cOnz6ILhbM</a>

OK so here are your results then:

Broad jump: ~2.4m

Highest touch: 9'2'' --> need your reach to calculate SVJ but it looked maybe around 20-22''

5 DL bounds: 11.5m

Flying 60m test:
20m - 2.97
50m - 5.90 --> is this meant to be a 6.90? Otherwise you're running a 2.93 30m split, followed by a 4.9 split...would make more sense to be a 3.93 and a 3.9
80m - 10.8

180m: 25.72sec

1200m: 4:53.54

Pushups: 40 // Pullups: 12 // V-situps: 30

Firstly, well done for doing everything. Here's how I'd rate it all if I were a coach:

Power: average to low --> broad jump: average to good // SVJ: low // 5 DL bounds: low

Speed: average --> flying 30m @ ~3.9-4.0 is not elite pace (for example, I run ~3.2-3.3 for ~12sec 100m FAT), but you maintained an approximately even split for the two flying 30m segments, which is good.

Fitness: average --> 180m was slow, indicating a lack of speed endurance atm (no surprise as you haven't been running far enough to improve your lactic threshold), although conditions didn't sound too good. The 3 lap test wasn't too bad, good work getting under 5mins.

Strength: hard to measure exactly because we couldn't see your form, lighter guys can knock out a lot more bodyweight reps, but 40 pushups and 12 pullups sounds pretty fair. It seems like you have decent strength endurance.

If you were to go out and run a 100m FAT tomorrow, based on these results I'd estimate you'd run about ~13.3-13.4 sec. You definitely have improved your speed to potentially a 13.0 level, but I'd say your fitness in the last 40m would slow you down. Your 200m wouldn't be pretty, maybe around 28.0 Again, you'd need to improve both your top-end speed and fitness a lot if you wanted to run a fast 200m.

Moving forward, you have to ascertain if you can train at the track and gym regularly. Your hill sprint program won't get it done if you really want to improve from here because they won't train your biggest weaknesses directly. I can give you workouts to do but it's really if you have the facilities to do them in. Also, joining a group again would be HUGELY beneficial for you.

australians know who johnnie cochran is?

Yep, mainland Australia got TV in 1995 just in time for the trial. Before that we had to ride our kangaroos down to the local post office to get the news headlines via telegraph.

 

Thank you soo much, Will try and do those.

The one I fear the most is on friday, 1200m 3 laps go hard, I won't be able to do 100% but I will try find a good strong pace.

Will see if I can find a week, where I can do all of these in a track or a gym.

I don't have any spikes either, I can only get them online, will have to find one at a reasonable price.

Have some planning to do. But all seem doable, but I feel I may get tired in the middle of the 1200m run and then I will probably move at a walking pace.

pc

No. No, no, no, no, no. You HAVE to go 100%. That's the only way we'll know where your fitness is. Seriously, my coach loses his shit when he can tell people aren't trying in the fitness tests. You might think I'm being pedantic but trust me, if you have any ambitions about truly getting faster than a competitive 50yo masters athlete then you've got to train hard even in the non-sprinting parts of training! This is a turning point for you: you can either do these tests really hard and get some traction moving into your next phase or you can wimp out as usual. If that happens, seriously, think about playing croquet or something easier. Take heed from Johnnie Cochran's T&F coach brother: if you can't commit, you must quit.

Still training! Been so busy with run-up to end of year. Going well overall. The sessions have looked like this:

Mon: pool runs+recovery

Tues: re-accelerations over 100m (usually between 4-6) + 200m sprint at the end

Wed: plyos + gym
- weighted plyos (SL and DL bounds x 5-7, LRLR x 40m with 4kg weight vest)
- gym (power pull: 65kgs x 10//squat: 1x7@1130kgs,1x5@140kgs, 1x3@145kgs,1x2@145kgs, 1x5@135kgs//bench: working up to 107.5 kgs x 3)

Thurs: speed endurance

- 3x100m/2x150m/2x100m with 8-12mins between
- [4x220m--2 mins rest--80m+20m fly] with 20mins rest between

Fri: pool runs+recovery

Sat: either competition or block start work + harness pulls

Sun: comp or gym (same as Wednesday but with SVJs after each power pull)

The training has been really hard. I've been pretty durable overall, haven't missed a session in ages now (since my calves were sore awhile ago). I still have a few nagging lower legs issues. Shin splints are still kind of 'there', not really bothering me but during the plyos they get more noticeable. The plyo load is mega intense though so not surprising. My foot is also still there, some weeks don't even notice it, but it definitely is more noticeable after bend sprinting. My feet and arches are really tight. Need to get a proper massage soon, been a long time since I've had a good one. But I'm holding up really well, all the big cylinders (hips, hams, quads, back) are more or less fine. I guess once you start adapting to the training load and do loads of rehab work at night +sleep/nutrition you can get to that nice place where you can train every day and be OK.

I missed updating the last test week. The highlights were:

- improved broad jump by ~2-3cm
- 8.40m+ in both R and L standing triples
- chopped a huge chunk of time off my flying 30m and 60m (0.13 and 0.2 respectively)
- improved my 1200m run by 11 seconds (No idea how this happened as I've barely been doing fitness work. Maybe the pool runs).

Had a few runs at comps:

100m - ran 12.12sec, not bad but was hpoing for better. Good start but faded at the 80-90m, tightened up. Need moar fitness.
200m- 24.78sec (finally into the 24s)...but again, fading dismally. See video (in the white):

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1qPHYmQGjQ" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1qPHYmQGjQ</a>

I was ahead at the 100m, if I could have just strided out and stayed in touch with the winner I'd be running 24.0...easier said than done of course, but it's slowly improving. Not that I'm that fussed about the 200m anyway.

Yesterday I ran a 70m handicap again. I got a little bump to 6m, had a great heat run and ended up making the final. Unfortunately they moved the final up 15mins but I missed the announcement. Had to rush there and didn't run as well, but still got 6th out of 8 and won $10!!!!! I'm rich biatch!! And can now say I'm a professional money-winning athlete   

fwiw, with jumping practice, i've found that even just doing some drop-steps or one-step approaches (as i did last night) can be an okay substitute for real running jumps at the rim. helps to groove the pattern at least, and it's not like you're going to be able to do real max/PR-attempt jumps with all the other volume you're doing.

Yeah for sure. It has been hard to realistically fit in a ME jumps session every week. Will do it when the opportunity presents itself. But I'm happy that what I'm doing is OK, a lot of bounding, short/long sprints, squats etc.

Thanks LB!

______________

Had a 100m last Saturday (25th Oct). Overall it went well but it was a bit blustery. Not a strong headwind but certainly some cross-wind. Ended up running a 12.36sec FAT...not over the moon but not too bad. Was hoping for a bit better. But I did beat a few in the group except for one 11.5sec guy, two guys in particular who are generally equal or faster than me at training...so there's something.

Training this week:

Mon - 25m pool runs x 12 (slowly will build up these to about 20-24) and general aquacise

Tues - Blocks and re-accels

1200m warmup, dynamic

3 individual block starts without gun over 30m

4 40m block starts with gun

4 100m re-accelerations (slow down between 50-70m, pick up again til 100m)

200m sprint

Wed - plyos/gym

Active warmup

5x5 hurdle hops

4kg weight vest on:

4x7 DL bounds

2x7/leg SL bounds

4x40m LRLRLR

Squat: 1x7@125kgs, 1x5@130kgs,1x3@135kgs, 1x2@135kgs,1x3@130kgs, 1x5@125kgs

In-between: hamstring/core exercises

Bench: 1x7@92.5kgs, 1x5@100kgs, 1x3@105kgs, 1x3@105kgs,1x7@92.5kgs

In-between: back/bicep/tricep stuff

Thurs - speed endurance

1200m jog, dynamic warmup

180m followed by 80m+20m fly (2 mins between, then 20mins rest): average times were around 22.5 sec for the 180m and 9.4ish for the 80s)

Cool-down weights

Fri - 6x25m pool runs

Sat - comp

Conditions were appalling. 6-7m/s headwinds were reported. I had the 200m but it was such a waste of time. Got a bad start and then the wind was just ridiculous. Three average-to-bad runs to start the season!

Sun - first handicapped race

I entered the 70m. Because it was my first race I got a novice mark of 4m so I was basically at the back. The race felt fine, decent start but I was too far back to do any damage to the runners 2-5m ahead. As I do more of these the handicap will improve apparently, so I might have a shot later in the season. I'll do these occasionally, mostly will focus on 70m and maybe do a few 100/120m's just for fun.

Didn't get a chance to do any jumping this week due to having two comps on. But I think the plyos and increasing squats should be helping a lot. I just need to squeeze in some running jump practice each week if I can. The ideal days are on the pool recovery days, so will try and get more consistent with it. Also doing some long jump and high jump in the comps, just haven't bothered reporting them yet.

Other notes: I never really updated my creatine experiment. I stopped taking it over winter and just reloaded again over last week. This time I did the 20g over 5 days then drop to 3-4g, rather than 5g consistently. Will see if there's any noticeable change in squats or times.

This is some ESPN-level clickbait right here scoob.