Running a four-minute mile is tough enough on its own–but can you imagine clocking that at the end of a 7-km workout? Team USA’s two-time Olympic bronze medallist Grant Fisher made it look easy in Tuesday’s Track: All-Access YouTube video, which captured his hefty workout in preparation for Sunday’s season opener.
“We’re going to bookend the workout,” Fisher’s coach, Mike Scannell, said. “It’s gonna be aggressive on the front end and aggressive on the back end. In the middle we’re going to do VO2 max, that’s going to be a mild pace. And then we’ll do some strides–pretty simple. Long breaks in between, because it’s going to be fairly aggressive.” During the warmup, Scannell observed Fisher’s turnover–the snappier his legs, the better.
The workout took place at the Hamilton High School outdoor track in Chandler, Ariz., Scannell said that with Fisher’s season opener just a couple of weeks away, the workout was meant to simulate a race, with a quick start and finish and more relaxed laps in the middle. Throughout the session, Scannell also regularly tested Fisher’s blood lactate to make sure he wasn’t exceeding his aerobic threshold.
Workout/splits
Set 1: 2,000m (hard effort). Split: 5:08
Set 2:4 x 800m (mild effort). Splits: 2:06/2:09/2:08/2:08
Set 3: 1,600m (hard effort). Split: 4:00
Rest: 5 to 8 minutes between sets.
For the majority of the session, Pro New Balance runner Sam Gilman paced Fisher, hopping in and out of the workout to join for beginning and ending laps of the longer reps. “[I feel] pretty good,” Fisher said after final mile. “I’m happy with it. [I] felt a little bit of fatigue halfway through, but I’m happy with how I could wind it up a little bit at the end.”
The 27-year-old holds the American records in the 3,000m, two-mile, 5,000m and 10,000m. At Paris 2024, he became the first American to medal in both the 5,000m and 10,000m at an Olympic Games.
“My first race will be a 1,500m, so that’ll get the wheels sharpened a little bit more,” Fisher said. He is set to open his season at Sunday’s New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in Boston. “The really important stuff will be a 3,000m and 5,000m indoors–hopefully those go pretty quick and fast, should be some good competition in both,” he added. He says those three races will make up his entire indoor season, since his main focus is the upcoming outdoor season.
