Long Hurdler Championship Prep Workout
by Steve McGill
There are levels to this thing, as the saying goes. Meet prep in championship season is a lot more intense than meet prep during the regular season. In March and April, meets largely serve as high-intensity workouts, so training through those races often is the best option to choose, as those meets let the athletes know where they stand, what is working well, and what they still need to work on. But once we get to May and June, it’s time to significantly decrease the amount of reps athletes do in a training session, and to significantly increase the speed and recovery periods between reps.
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While I have a few workouts I like to use for my 300/400m hurdlers, my go-to workout hasn’t changed since my early years of coaching, as it most accurately provides an indication of what time range my long hurdlers are capable of running in the upcoming meet.
The workout I’m about to describe should be done at least two days before the first day of competition at a major meet. Preferably, if, say, the meet is on a Friday, this workout would be done on Monday. And the days between the workout and the meet should be light days or days off.
I’ll describe the workout for the 300m hurdler first:
2×200 over the first five hurdles, with 10 minutes rest between reps.
This would be done out of the starting blocks, with spikes on, with full starting commands. One coach would give the starting commands, and another coach (or teammate) would stand at the 200 mark timing each rep. In an ideal scenario, two or more hurdlers would go against each other competitively, or a sprinter teammate whose flat speed is good enough to challenge the hurdlers but not so fast that the hurdlers will fall too far behind. If no teammates are available, then the hurdler will have to run against the clock, which should be enough motivation anyway.
In timing it, I have the starter give the commands with one hand raised up, then on the “go!’ the starter whips the hand down. The timer starts the watch as soon as the hand starts to come down. I know it’s old-school, but it works.
Also, to get the exact distance right, I use a measuring wheel, measuring the distance from the inside line of the lane the athlete is running in.
The workout serves as a race indicator based on the following logic:
I base my race prediction time on the per-100 meters pace the athlete does the fastest rep in, and then I add a second for the fatigue that would be a factor in the last 100. So, if the athlete completes the fastest 200 in 26 seconds, that’s a 13.0 pace. And 13×3 = 39.0. Add the fatigue second, and our target race time will be 40.0. One of the athletes in the video at the end of this article, Tessa, ran a 28.4 for her 200 when we did this workout, which meant she could realistically believe she could run 43.6 in her regional meet. Her personal best heading into the meet was in the 44.3 range. She ran 43.9 at regionals—a personal best, and only .3 slower than the workout predicted.
The 400h version of this workout would be two 300m reps over the first 7 hurdles. The rest would be a little longer — 12 minutes. Also, if the first rep goes really well, it might end up being the only rep. So the math for this one would go something like this:
If the athlete runs the 300 in 45 seconds, that’s a 15-second per-100 pace, which would add up to a 1:00 pace. Add a second, and 1:01 would be the target time for the upcoming race.
The warmup for this workout needs to be just as intense as the warmup on race day. The mindset and focus needs to be the same as on race day.
Below is a clip of Tessa and her teammate Nyle doing this workout before their regional meet two weekends ago.
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