Jay,

Just wondering why you left out the multiple throws (i think there were 4 different exercises) in her warm-up? I remember seeing multiple throws after the plyometric accelerations in your middle distance warm-up for Colorado last year.

Also, did she still do a 100m blow out (15m run in, 70m max, 15m run out), following a couple strides?

Great video, one of the best so far!

Today is a big day at home and I will respond to all questions in detail tomorrow.  Thanks to Travis for taking the time to get this on tape...too bad she was sick, but it worked out and she got a PR out of it.  I can/will share more of training if you're interested as today she did a 55 minute circuit with 700's at 6:00 pace then 2-3 min of hard exercises as the recoveries.  Anyway, back to indoors....

MoodRunner -

Good question. I'm going to borrow an idea from Dan Pfaff - "What's the athlete's best bullet?"  In Sara's case she is an NCAA DI cross country all-american, but to be blunt she would have been about 100th if she was a male in that same race; she can run aerobically, but she's not an "aerobic monster" but rather is a "wired" athlete (again, relative term - not wired the way Erin Donohue...how cool is it she Donohue won the ACC Jav as a freshman and then went on to be an Olympian at 1,500m).  In that context the Plyo Accels are specific to her warm-up and I do not put those in every athletes WU, even if they are running the 1,500m.  But there is nothing about her mechanics that relates to this point, just the fact that she has a little better nervous system than most women who were NCAA cross All-Americans.

Her warm-up for today was as follows:

    Aerobic Work Warm-up (50m down and back)

1    Skipping, Arm Circles, down and back
2    Lateral Shuffle with big arm, down and back
3    4xSingle Leg Squat, run out 75% to 50m mark
4    4xSingle Leg Squat, run out 75% to 50m mark
5    Skipping, both arms across body, down and back
6    Skipping, one arm across body, down and back
7    4xWide outs, run out at 80% to 50m mark
8    6xSpeed Skaters, run out 80% to 50m mark
9    10 x Mt. Climbers Singles in, run out 80% to 50m mark
10    Backwards Run (Heal to Butt)
11    10 x Mt. Climbers Doubles in, run out 80% to 50m mark
12    Backwards Run (Heal to Butt)

She was sort of dying at the end of it, but again, it's mid-March and we want her to rock in 3 months and then run for another 6 weeks in Europe...that's a LONG time from today, so on a day like today I think it's appropriate for her to be tired.  And I should reference my good friend Mike Smith (Kansas State) for introducing to me the concept that the WU is a great place to get some work in.  But back to the video you watched, that workout DOES NOT make her tired...right?  I mean, the video is long and uncut for a reason...she's never uncomfortable in that WU, yet for most 16 yr old boys who can run 2:00 that WU would tax them, yet if I worked with an bunch of 16 year olds I'd have them do similar work at this point in the season before workout to get more work in.

The only change for a 5k race might be some running at half marathon pace (see article below) but again, for this athlete, the longest she'll run this year is 3,000m so we keep the WU the same as the 1,500m WU.  

Okay, more tomorrow and thanks for writing in.

Just to clarify - "Her warm-up for today" was for March 17th in Boulder (30 min run, 7-8 min hard WU then 50-55 min circuit), not for the race you watched in the video.