The 40 fifties, week 7

G'day boys

On Thursday Al and I completed week 7 of our 16 week progressive track program.

40 x 50m runs with 50m recovery.

As this is the second time through we are running the 'on' sections as fast as we can and although there may be some limited increase in running speed its the recovery that we will hope to see significant gains in.

My progress from week 1 (10x 200s) was pretty exciting so we set the bar pretty high for Thursdays session. We were aiming to start our next 50ms sprint 25 seconds after we finished the previous 1.

For the first 10 runs we hit our targets really well, the 'on' 50s were all mid 7secs or low 8 secs and we started each new run on either 25 or 26. Hard work! I was doing o.k. and could have held that together for a few more at least however Al was hurting so we backed off the recovery time to maintain the sprint speed. For the next 30 I held my 'on' times to low 8 secs and threw in a few (maybe 30%) 7 second efforts. The recovery time went out to 35secs after a while and even up to 45secs during the last 10-12.

This session is the hardest for me, both from an acceleration perspective and from a mental point of view in that 40 efforts seams like a lot compared to 10 efforts when you are running the 200s. In terms of acceleration it always took me between 4 and 8 meters to get away from Al, after that I would extend and open up large gaps 5 to 10m over the 50m, however in the first few steps he was always with me. We spoke about this after the run and I guess it makes sense given the different playing roles that we fill.

The fourth week of the rotation is a recovery and speed week. The total amount of work is brought right down and we do some technique based plyometrics and some short distance explosive power stuff. We decided this would be good for both of us to increase the speed of our reaction time and acceleration.

Another good session boys, looking forward to seeing you all next weekend, is it the first time we will have all 24 dusty dogs together? Shoulder feels great by the way. You all have a good week and don't attempt anything Abra tells you about from his Bruce Lee gym experience.