4:06.3 Mile
on 14 miles a week?
Josh Spiker's coach Bill Tokar
explains the secret:
cross training
by John Dye
RALEIGH 6/15/00 - Ventura CA star Josh Spiker stood on top of the
mountain last October when he ran away from the Mt. Sac cross country
invitational sweepstakes field in the super time of 14:42.60 (pictured after
the race below). A few days later he was down for the count with a
serious stress fracture.
Spiker
did not return to competition until April 2000. Although he made the
California State Meet finals June 3, he was not a factor in finishing a distant
second to Ryan Hall in the 3200. The following week he went up to
Sacramento for the Golden West Invitational mile.
Upon arriving at GWI, Josh told me he was about 70-80 percent back to his Mt.
Sac form and was running only 15-20 miles a week. It was quite a surprise,
then, to see Spiker chase Don Sage in his 4-minute mile attempt and finish
second in 4:06.3, a personal best by a bunch and the third best mile in the US
in a very fast year.
This week, the fine Southern Cal track writer Rich Gonzalez wrote on Doug
Speck's CalTrack web site that Spiker ran his great race on only 14 miles a week
training. This set off a sarcastic thread on the t-and-f list (a world
wide Internet mailing list with a collection of 3,000 track experts, junkies,
poseurs, runners, coaches, media and lurkers). No high school runner could
go this fast on so little mileage, the experts said. And if by some
stretch of the imagination he could, why wouldn't he train harder and run
sub-4:00?
Spiker's coach, Bill Tokar, then posted a detailed description of Spiker's
recovery training. With permission from coach Tokar, here is his
post:
Josh's running mileage includes his "junk" miles. It includes
warmup, jogging between intervals, and warmdown. Fourteen per week is accurate,
although I believe his highest mileage was actually 16 one week.
What the mileage does not include is the tremendous amount of hard work on
the elliptical trainer, on the stair climber, and in the pool that he
accomplished since January. This training helped him to regain his base and work
on his "anaerobic threshold" during the early season. Josh basically
simulated on the elliptical trainer the training progression/periodization plan
that he would have been doing as a healthy runner. He probably was able to work
certain aspects of his cardio-pulmonary function to a greater extent cross
training than running. In terms of time spent working out, I am sure he
surpassed the 100-mile/week guys until he began racing in mid-April. Once he
began running in mid-March, the cross training decreased in proportion to the
increase in his running intensity.
His running workouts were distilled into what I believe, after working
with him for four years, the most productive intervals possible. He did very
little overspeed as I banked on his natural leg speed to carry him through these
two months. He did almost no repetition type workouts, as these were simulated
earlier on the machines or swimming. Most of his running intervals were longer
race "callousing" type units. He did 2 x 800 once at 2:02.+ with an
800 jog. Another workout he ran 1 x 1200 at 3:04.+, then a 90 seconds later ran
a 400 at 62. Another workout he ran 8 x 400 at 60 - 62 with 60 sec recovery.
These workouts indicated he could run in the 4:06 - 4:08 range for 1600m.
However, most weekends in May he was out of sync with fairly sore quads, not
unlike the typical mid season soreness a lot of runners experience prior to
moving into the competitive period in their training. Unfortunately this was the
competitive period in his training. Deciding to run only the 3200 at the state
meet rather than doubling through, finally allowed his muscles to recover, I
believe. (He doubled 16/32 with increasing intensity each week, the first four
weeks in May. We felt that the 3200's would help his try for a sub 4:10 come
June.) He ran a fairly quick but easy 8 x 300m at 1600m pace with 60 sec
recovery the Monday prior to the 4:06.3. That was the first time he really
looked sharp. The rest of the week before the Golden West consisted of a little
easy cross training or an easy 3 mile day.
Anyway, not to bore you all with this, I just wanted to clarify the
article about Josh. I was joking about the "how do you cut down from 14
miles per week" bit in the article. I did not mean to belittle the
incredible amount of hard work it takes for high school runners to run sub 4:10
and sub 9:00. Last season Josh ran up to 45 miles per week plus pool work to
attain 4:12/8:56 for 16/32.
Funny thing about Josh's Golden West race was that I was so enthralled
watching Don Sage make the gutsy go for a sub-4 that I neglected watching Josh
closely until the last 100m. Some coach huh.
--Bill Tokar, Ventura High School Distance Coach
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