Any references on the 400m debate you mention?
Any references on the 400m debate you mention?
http://8.4e.84ae.static.theplanet.co...thread&id=4657
The old eightlane forum has gone, and I can't seem to get beyond page 1 in this, but you get a little flavour here.
THis was my submission to UKA regarding the proposed rule change in Oct 2011 (part of a wider email on several proposed rule changes)
What about Schools athletics - will they drop the junior Boys 400m from their event list? Unlikely I would have thought, so if UKA ban, we will have U15s going to County Schools and English Schools with little or no race experience of the event.
A ban would seem draconian to me yet again. I can see the logic as to why, but why not just discourage it? Make it a rarely run event - otherwise if we accept the logic of this, we are going to see many other track events amended for the same reasons such as we have with U13 Girls running 75m and 1200m and the NATYAL.
Perhaps the NATYAL could be persuaded to drop the U15B 400m and 4x400m as they are not needed and will free up the day a little?
Last edited by Witton Park; 21-05-2013 at 11:42 AM.
http://www.theinsidetrack.org.uk/wp-...ec2012-1-1.pdf
Have a read of this. Quite scathing of our coach education system and quite notable that this review was requested by the Chris Jones the CEO of England Athletics and it has been published openly.
Looking at a NATYAL program only the U17 boys are allowed to race 400m. I must say, from my observations as a coaching assistant, I have not noticed any particular distress in training around the 400m distance. Indeed, most, even the 15/16 year olds, given the choice, would rather run 400m than 600-1,000m.
I've coached now since 2005 and I've also trained for quite a bit of that time (of course I am a senior)
I rarely set 400 reps for my juniors, but I do 75 sec and 90 sec sessions. So in a 75 the lead athletes will be at or close to 400 and in a 90s set beyond 400, maybe up to 440/450.
I would suggest the big change is when a track rep moves from 400 - 500m.
Someone repping at 60s in a 300 session will manage 81-82 through a 400 session, but drops close to 110 in a 500 session.
One session I do on a Thursday is a straight forward 150m effort, walk 50, jog 200. It allows athletes of all abilities to train together, they can do as many as they want and some of the younger end can take a break with me and my assistants at the water jump area (the 150 point on our track).
I tend to leave it up to the athletes how meant they do with generally an 8 - 10 target or maybe more subject to the weekend ahead.
Typically 1/3 will do the top end, 1/3 will do the bottom end and 1/3 will do a couple short where they've taken a breather.
In another session - a Parlauf - runners are put in pairs. (Sorry if you know the session) - Runner one starts at the mid point of the straight and runs 200m to hand over to their partner at the mid point of the other straight.
Whilst runner 2 then runs 200m, runner 1 jogs across the middle of the track (recovery) to time the recovery with the effort of their partner.
I did this first time with 3 x 6 minute efforts - 3 mins recovery between sets (when whistle blows at 6 mins we finish the laps off so it can be a little more than 6)
All athletes completed and managed around 14 - 18 x 200m reps.
The 1/3 that do the top end tend to train well at their level whatever the session.
But it was really interesting to see that this session with a team, or partner element brought a foxus and enthusiasm to the session from the other 2/3s that the 150 session sometimes didn't.
The parlauf is difficult for us to do as it needs the infield to be free for us to use (and not waterlogged) - and perhaps some of this difference is down to the session being different and seldom used.
Thanks - it is helpful and interesting to hear what others are doing. We often do shuttle runs on grass - cones at 25/50/75/100m - doing 1-2-3-4-3-2-1 is 800m, 12321 is 450m, 1234 is 500m. They do 4 - 6 different distances, which creates variety, and the direction changing adds agility/acceleration to the mix; it is also easy to skip a section for the slower runners. It can also easily convert into a pairs relay.
As I said above, doing the shuttle distances, they are happier with 450/500 than 800! They, of course, control how fast they run, within the limits of the recovery we give them.