Workout 1111/1212/1313/1212/1111 w/50m walk b/reps & 200m walk b/sets … 15 pace

Marcell – 16.0/15.9/15.6/15.8, 15.7/31.2/16.4/29.9, 15.7/44.3/15.7/44.4, 15.2/28.1/15.4/27.4, 14.3/15.6/15.3/13.8

Chris –16.0/15.9/15.6/15.8, 15.7/31.2/16.4/29.9, 15.7/44.3/15.7/44.4, 15.2/29.8/15.4/28.4, 14.3/15.6/15.3/14.2

Eric –16.0/15.9/15.6/15.8, 15.7/31.2/16.4/29.9, 15.7/44.3/15.7/44.4, 15.2/29.8/15.4/29.0, 14.3/15.6/15.3/14.6

Averages

Marcell – 15.0

Chris – 15.1

Eric – 15.2

Other workouts today:

Rob – 10min run (re-aggravated hamstring over break while “possibly running my strides too fast”)

Devon – 2x(10x100m) @20/20 drill w/5min between sets

Dmetrius – Fig. 8 (only did 6 strides) … first day out this fall

Well the good news about today was that all three of the guys doing this workout got through the entire thing. And the other good news is that after explaining to them that this was supposed to be a more ‘recovery/rhythm’ type running workout, they listened and I wasn’t seeing any 13’s and 42’s like last time (though Marcell appears that he could handle those paces and still have it be the type of effort I’d like; problem is, he’d pull the others along… more on Marcell later). Last time they did it faster (Marcell, 14.3; Chris, 14.5; Eric, 14.2 partial wkt), but worked much harder.

The bad news is that they didn’t look as easy as they should’ve been, given that the pace was slower and that they were coming off a rest cycle. Eric, especially, was struggling with the workout. He admitted to basically doing nothing over break (5 days, wed-sun), but still I would’ve expected that it may have made him look a little out-of-sync, as opposed to out-of-shape. I’m picking up on something in his workouts that I just can’t quite peg… and it’s especially confusing because he is supposedly the best of our longer sprinters, and also our 400mH. This leads me to believe that he’d fare better at some of the ‘longer’ or ‘strength’ or even ‘aerobic’ type workouts we do. Instead, he doesn’t nearly seem to be responding as well as the others, or as well as I would’ve thought. I wasn’t going to look too deeply into today’s results after he told me he took all of break off, but now it makes me think that perhaps this is just revealing the problem more prominently to me.

Also on my mind today was Marcell, and what I should be doing with his training. I feel like I could go different directions with him, and at this point both seem equally logical to me. So if there is any insight, please feel free to comment. He’s the former 24’5” LJ and 47.9 open HS athlete who after some quad injuries is here at Cookman. He’s had problems staying healthy to the point that he stopped the LJ (though he really wants to do it again) and is just running. He has a really tough time doing anything with his hip flexors (pedestal routines, V-ups, hanging L’s)… like REALLY hard time; I think because his torn quads don’t let him flex as well (though this is just a guess). Anyway… he always comments that instead of some of that GS stuff I should just let him run more. And during our workouts, he is by far the smoothest/strongest. He’s also run 1:55 in the 800m indoor last year in one of his first attempts at it and just screwing around. I think he could have some serious potential in that event, as well as the 400m. But my focus with him is still going to be the 400m/4x4, with a couple 800m’s possibly thrown in for variety (and perhaps as a ‘teaser’ to see if he’s as good as I think he could be).

I digress… the directions I’m thinking of going with him… Since he’s always had a problem staying healthy, and is by far staying the healthiest of any of the guys right now, I’m really tempted to keep his training the same. However, I do feel like I’m severely under-training him because of this. Instead of our accelerations on Monday he’s been doing a 20min run + strides, as well as the Oly lifting (due to class conflicts). I attribute some of this to his feeling fresher on Tue. However, he’s still just looking like he’s Kobe going back to play in HS again and just having the easiest time with things. The other direction I could go is that I could change his training plan to be doing different types of workouts, probably a little longer in nature and a little more ‘appearance’ of mid-distance type stuff. I think metabolically that might be the best thing for him. However, that would mean he’d be basically on his own training plan, and that might mess him up psychologically.

I’m torn about whether I should challenge him more in the current training plan, whether I should change the training plan more to what I think his metabolic capabilities are, or whether I just keep things as they are because he’s staying completely healthy! (Even though he’s got potentially 46 speed in him this year – not to mention sub-1:50? – his top goal that he has repeated to me over and over is just to stay healthy… “I just wanna stay healthy, because if I stay healthy I know I can run fast” he always says.)