In his book, he said that some of his athletes would like to be 90% fit coming into this phase and the final 10% was come from racing it self. The main part of his training during this period was the regular intervals. Then a reduced load week is included and then another increase occurs in intensity the last 6 weeks with 70% being low/medium level and 30% high level aerobic.
This continuing to work on the Lactate threshold ensures that the anaerobic work does not lower, or take away from, the lactate threshold which occurs if too much anaerobic work is done with not enough support from LT work. Three Britons, two East Germans, one Russian, one Brazilian and one Frenchman.”As they round the top bend and are winding up their sprints, Coleman senses that Coe is drinking in the last chance saloon as he has “got an awful lot to do.
In addition to these workouts sometimes ladder workouts such as 3×800, 4×400, 5×200 and set workouts such as 3x 5x400m with 200 jog and 400m jog between sets. It also should be said that the aerobic intervals, that work on the lactate threshold, are still done throughout this period. To further Sunderland’s ideal typology of modes of speed endurance, Ovett would undertake;Despite being influenced particularly by Cerutty, Wilson realised the necessity of designing the young Ovett a training schedule which was specific to his individual developmental needs.Significantly, and in line with the philosophy of Arthur Lydiard, he would run at a variety of aerobic paces. From its inception, Steve Ovett vs Sebastian Coe was a social construction cleverly engineered by the tabloid press. Besides regular intervals, Wilson used what he considered high intensity intervals too.
As Wilson put it “your training should be sufficiently comprehensive to maintain all the various aspects of fitness, yet not so severe that it takes away the freshness that is needed to produce good race results.” Also, he suggests that there is no need to continue trying to set workout PR’s during this time. For this reason, relaxed intervals are used as a kind of anaerobic maintenance workout. These include Split intervals (3x400m w/ first 200m slower than pace, 2nd 200m faster), tired surges (400m faster than race-pace, 100m jog, 100m sprint), pace injectors (600m broken up into 200m at race pace, 200m at 2/3sec faster than race pace, and 200m at race pace), and pace increases (600’s increasing pace by 2sec every 200m). “(Steve would run the 800m 1m53.9s; 1500m 4m04.0s; 3000m 8m18.8s).We have already alluded to his use of 4 x 400 relays as evidence of under-distance work and in addition his participation at club level in 4 x 100m events in his younger days was a key facilitator of alactic energy system development.Critically Ovett was encouraged by Wilson to undertake cross country racing with the latter maintaining that, “If a runner does cross country races during the winter, this in itself will provide the necessary proportion of anaerobic work”.In being individually-centred, Wilson was able to work on the Foundational and Fundamental skills which the Varndean Grammar School pupil had engendered through his involvement in high jump, long jump, hurdles and sprinting.Wilson was crucially aware of how to train the neuromuscular pathways and ATP-CP system, pointing out that, “When Steve was in the middle of a 100 mile a week schedule, he was still running 60m indoors in about 7.2 or 7.3 seconds off a standing start”.You will have gathered by now that Wilson was a coach who implicitly understood the cycle nature of periodisation cycles and Colin Lancaster recalls that it’s often overlooked the part that rest, recovery and regeneration play in this cycle.
Colin Lancaster vividly recalls a session of 8 x 400m conducted in the later 70s with a group who were average 54s.Whilst a middle distance runner and event group specialist over 800m and 1500m, throughout his career Ovett would continually use both under distance and over distance races in order to maintain a differential pacing element to his work. 108. “It’s now become tactical and the bumping and boring we expected has happened,” he says.
Ovett was from the South coast of Brighton, while Coe had spent much of his formative years up in Sheffield. After this the next 4 weeks is 75% low level and 25% med/high level.