Peak Season Workouts
by Steve McGill
For this month’s workout, I’m going to give two workouts — one for the 100/110 hurdles and one for the 300/400 hurdles, both of which serve as peak season workouts implemented when it’s time to prep for championship races. At the high school level, athletes in many cold-weather states will be competing in their state meets this weekend or next, and there are also several post-season national meets taking place in June. The workouts below should be done two or three days prior to the first day of a major competition, as they both serve as predictors of race times in the upcoming meet. If the athlete will be competing in both hurdling events on the same day, then they should do both workouts on the same day, and the order should be the same as it will be in the meet. So, if the 300/400 hurdles come first in the meet, then they should come first in the workout. Ample rest time should be given before moving to the 100/110 hurdles — 15 minutes minimum. Also, both of these workouts require a full race-day type of warmup, and, ideally, should be done during the time of day that the athlete will compete in the event on the day of the meet.
Here is the 100/110h workout:
One rep over the first seven hurdles, with the hurdles at full spacing (if the track they’re training on is similar in surface and condition to the track they’ll be competing on) or moved in half a foot from race spacing (if the track is slower than the track they’ll be competing on). Hurdles should be at race height. Coach must give full commands (take your mark, set, go), and the athlete should be using starting blocks and wearing spikes.
As part of the last stage of the warmup, the athlete should get in two or three high-quality starts (with or without commands) over the first two-three hurdles. This workout should be done with training partners unless there simply are none. If no other hurdlers are available, then a sprinter or two will do. The idea is to get the competitive juices flowing, and to establish the big-race mindset before race day.
I generally will add a finish line after the seventh hurdle, and I’ll place it the same distance away as it would be in a race off the tenth hurdle. As for timing the rep, I’ll time the touchdown off hurdle seven. I’ll also have someone film the rep so I can time the individual touchdowns over each hurdle later, from the footage. The time off hurdle seven will let us know how fast we can expect to run in the meet. I never run the whole race in a time trial, or even go over more than seven hurdles, because hurdle seven represents the end of the second zone of the race. The last zone — hurdle 8 through the finish line, is something that we prepared for much earlier in the season, when building our hurdle endurance. So we’re gonna trust that work to carry us through the last zone. I feel that running a full race as a time trial is always a bad idea, because athletes will rarely run as fast as they want to, and can get easily discouraged. Save the full race for race day, I always say.
Here is the 300/400h workout:
For 400m hurdlers, it’s one 300 over the first eight hurdles.
For 300m hurdlers, it’s one 200 over the first five hurdles.
In both cases, the athlete will continue sprinting off the last (8th or 5th) hurdle to the 100 meter start line, which will give them the full 300 or 200 meter distance.
Same as for the 100/110h workout, this workout should be done in spikes, out of the blocks, with starter commands, preferable with training partners doing it together.
The time at the 300 mark at the end of the rep is what I use to gauge what the time should be on race day. So, let’s say the athlete completes the 300 in 39 seconds; that means they’re on pace to run a 52.0 for the full 400 meter distance. Though I know that they’ll decelerate in the last 100, I’m also counting on the fact that their first 100 will be faster on race day, with the adrenaline pumping and everything on the line. So yes, if the athlete is running a 39 in this workout, they can run a 52 on race day, no doubt. The last 100 is all about competing and not backing down from the pain.
