The 4 Minute Mile
Friday, May 25, 2012
Check out the new Endurance Training Blog on the left! The first weekly post will begin next week!
Mobility:
1 min single unders
Hip Mobility with band, 1 minute each
10 Wall extensions
Floor portion of Shoulder Prep
Warmup:
4 rounds of:
Max Effort of Strict + Kipping Handstand Pushups, rest 60 seconds between efforts
Go to 1 rep short of failure on strict, then switch to kipping. Partial range of motion is acceptable. Try to get the same number of Kipping each round, do not go to total failure on your first round! If you cannot do HSPU, substitute max ring pushups.
Workout of the Day:
Three rounds for time of:
50 Double-unders
40 Sit-ups
30 Medicine ball cleans, 20 pound ball
20 Pull-ups
10 Handstand push-ups
-20 min cutoff-
Cool down:
Foam Roll Calves
10 Wall extensions
German hang, accumulate 30 seconds
Get ready to go to that special place…
Big occasions and races which have been eagerly anticipated almost to the point of dread, are where great deeds can be accomplished. -Jack Lovelock
About a month ago in my post I declared my ambitious goal of breaking the 5 min mile. A month has come and gone, too quickly I might add, and the day is now around the corner! I have been training decently, and felt fast in my runs this week (“Short Tosh” on Monday, and Tabata Hill Sprint on Wednesday), but I still have some self-doubt. Will I be able to set a PR? Will I really be able to push through the pain when I am deep down in the abyss? As you can tell, I have been stressing over this quite a bit. The answer: who knows! But there is only one way to find out! Go out and race!
Fear is the strongest driving-force in competition. Not fear of one’s opponent, but of the skill and high standard which he represents; fear, too, of not acquitting oneself well. In the achievement of greater performances, of beating formidable rivals, the athlete defeats fear and conquers himself. -Frank Stampfl
When asking around the gym if people are planning on racing next week, I get a lot of enthusiastic yes’s, followed promptly by slight deflections or excuses. The biggest one being, “I’m not in good enough shape”! I have realized that most athletes have the same fear driven self-doubt I have recently experienced this past month, and that is a huge mistake! For example, people at track night have been sharing with me their PR’s and their goal times. They show subtle signs of doubt, but based on their 400m intervals I know for a fact they are going to destroy what they thought was possible. I can’t wait.
Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must move faster than the lion or it will not survive. Every morning a lion wakes up and it knows it must move faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve. It doesn’t matter if you are the lion or the gazelle, when the sun comes up, you better be moving. –Roger Bannister
So whether you think you are ready or not, if you have been training or not, if you are the gazelle or the lion, I think you should come out and test your fitness! You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. The above quote is by Roger Bannister, the first person to break the 4 minute mile. The video of his world record setting performance on May 6th, 1954 is below, with some cool commentary from the man himself. He needed two different pace setters in order to break the 4 minute barrier. Note his commentary on pacing the first lap: as anyone running with Ashkan knows, the adrenaline from the start of the race will make you run WAY faster than you think and it will feel like you are almost going too slowly. Another cool part is his final lap “kick” that he was famous for, which he does at 3:36 in the video. Enjoy, and see you next Wednesday! It should be fun!
The 800 meter record, the records in the 1000, the 1500, the 5000, the relays: no one remembers them. The mile, they remember. Only the mile. -John Walker
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