The Track & Field Middle Distance Speed Workout

Over my years as an athlete, I probably had the most fun when I was a freshman in college running under Tommy Robinson. Tommy's claim to fame was setting the NCAA record for the marathon as Washington State University in 1972 at 2:22. These days, while some college students still run the marathon, it is not officially an NCAA sanctioned event.

But we weren't running the marathon. We were running the 800 meters. A tough event to boot and even harder to train for. But here is a sample of those workouts that we ran.

5K warm up
Warm up Exercises 40M x 2 each exercise
High knees
Butt Kicks
Over strides
egg shells (run at the end of the exercise)
3 sec slow, 10 seconds fast, x 3 sets x 2
Run at the end of each 3 sets 40M
80M x 8
120M x 8
170M x 8
30 Minute run to warm down

The schedule for the workouts was as follows

Monday -- 8 Miles LSD
Tuesday -- Speed Workout
Wednesday -- 8 Miles LSD
Thursday -- Speed Workout
Friday Rest / 3-5 mile run
Saturday Race day
Sunday 5-6 miles easy

* LSD = Long Slow Distance

This is a tough workout but we used to have a lot of fun with it like racing in the last mile of the warm up or doing backwards running on some of the fast runs just to break up the monotony of just training all the time. Try this if you are running 400M to 5km.