Whats the point of the indoor season

[saskatchewan]

Dec 13, 2009 11:14:37 GMT -5 justlikepre said:

Ok so I know the indoor season is to get people back to running shorter and faster, but i keep hearing if u run too fast in the indoor season, you will burn out before OFSAA track. If so, whats the point of going to races to run like shit.

Just by way of example, Bekele has successfully used a short indoor season to sharpen up for world x-c as well as add to his WR collection. This year he is targeting Komen's 3K WR in Birmingham. In the past he as run fast at 1500m - 5K indoors, with WR's at 2K, 2 miles, and 5K.

www.iaaf.org/WIC10/news/kind=100/newsid=55188.html

So in reply to your original question, running fast indoors does not necessarily preclude a successful outdoor season. As with many things moderation is the key.

Lydiard followers will tell you that Peter Snell and company often used a double peak (running the NZ summer season and then the European outdoor season) to great success. So i would argue that it is possible to run fast on the track at two distinctly different times of the year; just keep the indoor racing and anaerobic training in moderation (which is what many other posters here are advocating as well). Of course Peter was running outdoor track in the NZ summer as there was little indoor track outside of the old hockey arena tracks in the US during the 50's and 60's.

As an aside, I always find Bekele's indoor WR's interesting (especially the 2K WR) as Ethiopia has no indoor track and so he seems to do all his prep work for his indoor racing on an outdoor track (as he always seems to stay in Ethiopia until the last minute before a race).

Hope that helps as way of example.

[powerboy]

As we just completed a solid aerobic workout yesterday, the benefit of indoors is obvious-you can run better tempos and long workouts in ideal conditions rather than outside in the -12 conditions.
I think a race every 3 weeks is a nice reward and incentive and should assist most people in getting fitter for outdoors.
As for sprinters, I think they would go crazy without some indoor races.

[mlfs11]

[/quote]

.... If your primary race distance is a 10k, I really don't know why you would want to run indoor track.
[/quote]

Note that Bekele is also very fast in the1500m and a world record holder in the 2000m indoor. If you want to be able to run a fast 10,000m you better be fast in the shorter distances. Never stray too far from speed or for too long.