Anaerobic Speed Reserve and the 2 x 325m Indoor Workout

It’s January and that means indoor training and racing for certain parts of the world.

The article on 3×300 or 2x325m raised some concerns. Doing this workout outdoors in cold rainy weather really sucks. Doing this indoors on tight non-banked turns could lead to injury.

Knowing this workout, if you were forced to go indoors, consider doing a 4x60m workout with very short recovery and I mean very short (i.e. 30 seconds or less). Focus on running near top speed, or 400m EARLY race pace speed (not AVERAGE 400 race pace speed), and holding form. If the times degrade too much after 3 x 60m, STOP the workout.

The workout is simple. Setup up cones 60m apart (or shorter) with about 10-15 meters to spare on each end before you smash into a wall. Setup high jump mats of you have to. Run into the line and sprint at 95% speed from cone to cone. Slow down carefully to a stop (10-15 meters, or better yet, use a crash mat). Stop, turn around, breathe, and wait for the signal from the coach and go. Rinse and repeat.

If you have to do 4 x 50m because of infrastructure limitations, that’s okay.

Vancouver BC does not have an indoor facility, so we simply used several pieces of Mondo rubber and rolled them together to make one long stretch. Duct tape is a man’s best friend (who watches the Red Green show on CBC?).

Keeping an eye on performance is crucial. There’s no place for a garbage 60m segment with bad mechanics. You are better off going outside doing 20x100m tempo on grass with short recovery and work on aerobic conditioning.

Target Times, When to Stop the Workout

Remember the Anaerobic Speed Reserve (ASR) model to predict performance? Where a 3 or 4 second sprint can be used to determine theoretical times for up to distances of 3 minutes? There’s a lot of truth to that correlation.

Using the 3×300 or 2x325m workout, we can extrapolate a 50 second 400m race model like this:

50 seconds = 1 + (11.5 + 11.5) + (12.5 + 13.5)

A 50 sec 400m runner typically has a PR of 100m of 11.50 FAT (give or take) or is capable to run 10.5 on the fly. His 60m PR could be around 7.20 – 7.50 seconds. Running a flat out 60m on the fly would be around 6.2 – 6.5.

Thus, the projected times should pose no problems:

11.5 fly time for 100m is 6.9 sec for 60m fly
12.5 fly time for 100m is 7.5 sec for 60m fly
13.5 fly time for 100m is 8.1 sec for 60m fly

If you only have 50 or 55 meters of “straightaway” between cones, then adjust the times accordingly with the math above.

So depending on the athlete and time of the season, I would stop the workout if the 60m segment hits 7.5 seconds or slower for this particular athlete.

If I see something wrong with the biomechanics, I would stop the workout as well.