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Foot Locker Outdoor

June 16-17, 2000 at Raleigh NC - presented by
Adidas and the National Scholastic Sports Foundation

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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