altius wrote:I have heard all the rationalisation on this topic before - and still believe that neglecting the 1500 is throwing away easy points! My position is that for a guy who can run 48.33 - and should be running faster cf 100 and 200 times, a 4.20 1500 is a jog in the park - especially for someone who only weighs 190 pounds! After all it is equivalent to a 4.38 mile and that really is a jog for someone of your basic running ability.
You certainly do not need to pound out the miles either - just increase your warm up jog and double your warm down jog (both on grass) - have a long easy recovery run once a week on a golf course - run one session of 5 x 400 at race pace - ie 4.20 pace - every couple of weeks. begin with an easy recovery and then gradually reduce the recovery time. Add an occasional 1200 time trial and you are there! I doubt that amount of running is going to move fast twitch fibres to slow twitch - especially for a mature body.
Incidentally how easy is it to recover from sprint sessions or serious anaerobic sessions if your aerobic base is not really good.
Note i never said you could move from 5.00 to 4.20 in a year but then I doubt anyone could move from 5.00m to 5.60 in a year either.
This topic is close to my heart because back in the late 90s we had a decathlete in adelaide who might have given the world record a nudge but for poor performances in both of the events in question. In a score of 8490 he vaulted 5.00m and ran outside 5.00 for the 1500. "A man convinced against his will remains of the same opinion still."
keep in mind i weighed 212lbs when i went 8465. it was at least 100 degrees on the track. and it was my first meet in over a month and i was coming off an ankle injury that prevented me from doing ANY training at all.
i get what you're saying about longer warm-ups and cool downs. but you don't jack down your time like that by doing stuff every other week on the track and throwing in long runs. i mean we already do a ton more than that in fall and winter for base/work capacity training. and do harder workouts in the spring than 5x400.
and lets be honest... since when is a 4:38 mile a jog in the park for a sprinter/thrower/jumper after 9 events?
8700... mark it down
