What do you need to achieve and what have you achieved in the past?
hello mark, I am training for an athletic event in which a 3000 meter run and many short sprints up and down hills are being done (military qualification event). How should I train for such an event? I have 7 months to prepare. (been doing the SS program for the past two months, is this the right approach?) in order to succeed in the event I must be the best out of a group of 20 other young gifted athletes, I am a 16 year old male. thank you.
What do you need to achieve and what have you achieved in the past?
A 9 minute 3km run would be a great goal. Also an ability to Sprint fast for short distances, with short rest between sets. About 100 sprints are being made in the 3 hour period. I need to be able to preform each Sprint as fast as possible.
I have achieved a 12 minute 3km run.
Stopped running and started strength training (currently at a 286 squat)
You'll want to run on your off days but as you get closer to your competition you'll want to take down the squats and deadlifts, starting with frequency, to minimize fatigue.
I would not stop running. Endurance falls off much quicker then strength. If I was in your shoes I would continue S.S. but add a light day so that you are not doing 3 heavy workouts each week, this will help with recovery. As the weight increases and gets too taxing to do both running and S.S. move to an H/L/M program. Run on the off days but not not day before your heavy day. As a young man you can do both as long as you don't overdue either one. It will take some common sense, planning, and eating to allow for adequate recovery. You will need to eat! After this is over focus mainly on lifting. Unfortunately, for now endurance must the focal point to ensure victory.
It also comes back very quickly -- it is a transient adaptation. It therefore makes no sense to train it all the time, since it interferes with a strength adaptation (which doesn't interfere with endurance). Train the endurance stuff about one month out from the event, and use the rest of the time to get stronger.
Your suggestion will definitely work for general endurance, but having ok endurance is not the goal, the need is to out run the best runners... In order to run 9 minutes for the 3km, running at least 60km a week is necessary, and building up to 60km a week takes more then a month. Yes building the endurance is fast (a month is definitely enough) but building the aerobic base takes more time.
It would be different if he was trying to go from a 15 min 3K to a 12 min one. Dropping over 1 1/2 minutes per mile from an already decent time to an average pace of about 4:50 isn't an easy task. As you pointed out, there are other events which will be going on the same day, which makes his goal even harder. I may be mistaken, but I don't believe anyone at a rugby combine has broken 9 minutes for a 3K.
I don't know what the equivalent for the BP would be, but it would be a lot harder to go from a 3-plate bench to a 4-plate one than from a 2-plate to a 3-plate one.