Breaking 10:00 in the 3200m

10 is just a number, man. It's obvious you (sorry, your friend) don't know what you can run. Once your friend has a race or two under his belt he can think about how to get from where he is to sub-10:00. Until then your friend shouldn't stress too much about what sort of times to achieve.

Step 1 of goal-setting is know what goals are reasonable and what are giant reaches. If you don't have a good handle on this it's silly to try to do a "10-minute 2-miler" workout if you're not at that level yet, just because you think doing that workout will automatically make you a 10-minute guy.

I ran a 4:42 1600 and 9:57 3200 the next day. I'd say you should probably need 4:45 mile speed to go under 10 in the 2 mile.

lydiard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wrote:

I ran a 4:42 1600 and 9:57 3200 the next day. I'd say you should probably need 4:45 mile speed to go under 10 in the 2 mile.

Ditto. When I was a freshman, I ran 9:52 in the 2mile but rarely cracked 4:45 in the mile. The day that I ran the 9:52 I came back later after a 4x800 and ran 4:43 so I knew I had potential. It all came out at states and I ran 9:56 and 4:34 the next day. I'd say 4:40s is a good indicator of 10min. 2mile ability if you have the endurance for it. If you have a coach, just let him know that that is your goal, and I'm sure he'll be happy to work toward it with you.

I ran 10:20-10:30 for a bunch of races in 9th and 10th grade. Junior year I ran 9:56 and senior year 9:36. The difference was doing increased mileage over the winter (50 vs. 30) and doing some steady aerobic runs (circa 6:20 pace) as part of it. I kept up with the speedwork (10 x 300-400m intervals at just faster than mile race effort, with equal time rest) and improved my mile PR that season from 4:54 to 4:42 as a result, but really those workouts and mile races getting better (eg I went from running these 400 intervals in 72 as a frosh to 66 as a junior) was just an indication of the hard mileage work I'd put in over the winter. The speedwork was the same effort; more miles at harder paces over the winter was what made the difference. I'm sure with more mileage increase and more of those quality aerobic efforts (6-13 milers at c. 6:20 pace) I could have run better than 9:36.

Good luck.

lydiard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wrote:

I ran a 4:42 1600 and 9:57 3200 the next day. I'd say you should probably need 4:45 mile speed to go under 10 in the 2 mile.

Tripplito. A mid 4:40's in the mile converts to a 10:00 two mile.

As for workouts and mileage, I'd say push mileage to the 50's and you should make it. Talk to your coach about workouts.

When I was at this level I was doing a lot of repeat 400's (pretty old school training). My staple workout was 20 x 400 in the low 70's with a 200m jog in between. I would not recomend this workout, but it did work for me quite well. Eventually my workout style turned me into a miler who really didn't have the stamina to hang in a 5k. So if I had to do it all over again I'd do 20 min tempo runs and repeats of 1k's or something for my workouts.

No workouts right now. Just do 70mpw base and you should be set for sub-10 3200 by the first race in say March.

ladc wrote:

No workouts right now. Just do 70mpw base and you should be set for sub-10 3200 by the first race in say March.

Is that the training that elite athletes do? Maybe you know better than them?

When I broke 10 in the 2mile (9:57) my mile PR was 4:50...that being said I probably had not run to my potential in the mile because I had absolutely no interest in shorter distances, was running really high mileage (for a high schooler) at the time, and raced the 2 mile almost every week and the mile very sparingly...when I did break 10 (about 2 weeks after the 4:50 pr was set) I went out in 4:52 and came back in 5:05, so my top mile speed was probably a little faster than 4:50 at the time (maybe in the 4:45-4:47 range)

i say sub 4:45 1600 and be of a more endurance specialist....find hard to believed a person who has never broken 4:50 for the 1600 cure break 10 for the 3200. if that's the case...then you don't know how pace your self on the 1600....probably go out in in 2:15 and die completely...

Im the friend he is talking about. My freshmen year I ran 5:16 and 11:33 I was avg.16 miles a week. My Sophmore year I ran 4:53 and 10:35, I was not there mentaly and was avg 28 miles a week. This past XC season I ran 17:07 on a medium course and a 17:19 on the state course Holmdel Park. I was avg.45-47 miles a week. I ran too easy on my easy days untill the end of the season I started doing faster stuff. I had a low LT pace due to all the easy work.

I been running on the treamil and ran some good time trials, I ran 3 miles at 6:44 pace then did a 4:57 and my other one was a 3 mile in 16:11. I saw the post above and I like the 6:20 pace runs and started doing this. I do feel my LT leval is geting better since XC ended a month ago and hope for a good indoor and outdoor season. My first race will be a mile indoors and hoping to run 4:45 but I will live if I can just PB and run 4:52. I will then focus on the 2 mile for the rest of the season.

Thanks for the info and advice and, Marry Christmass and a Happy New Year.

i ran under 4:40 in high school and never broke 10:00 in the 2 mile. It all depends what type of person you are

Even though a mid-4:40 "converts" to 10:00, most high schoolers are better at one mile than two. That's because they don't have a well-developed aerobic system to support them at the longer distances. In my experience, most sub-10 guys are in the high 4:30s (36-38) when they crack 10.

The best workout you can do (in December) to be a ten-flat guy this spring? Go running. Don't worry about intervals or anything. Run about an hour a day during the week, do a 90 minute-ish long run on saturday, go an easy 30 minutes sunday. Bam, 50-60 miles a week. Do strides twice a week if you can. Not much to it.

So jogging or running relatively slowly 50-60 miles per week is the best preparation to run 2 5 minute miles. How long does the training go on for? If its for 1-2 month that's fine

By the way I know you need a base but is a base on which to form your training not the whole training plan!

It seems like on the is site the armchair experts training for every event from 800m to the marathon is to run steadily 60 + miles per week for 4 months, do a couple of interval sessions then race

Is this really how the professional train?

By the way strides are the best way to get injured if it's cold - espeacially as most young runners cannot resist the temptatation to change the strides into sprints

Actually, 10:00 ~ 4:39/4:40 for adults. And a lot more High Schoolers break 4:40 than 10:00.

My mile PR was 4:32 before I finally cracked 10. Then again, my only goal in the 2 mile at the HS level was to break 10.

shutoff valve wrote:

Actually, 10:00 ~ 4:39/4:40 for adults. And a lot more High Schoolers break 4:40 than 10:00.

That's probably because there are a lot of talented 400/800 guys that can do well in the mile and go under 4:40, but if you're going to run a 3200, you pretty much have to be a distance guy. I was assuming the poster thought the 3200 was his best event, so I'd say if he's a distance guy, low 4:40s is a good indicator that you can break 10.

ukathleticscoach wrote:

So jogging or running relatively slowly 50-60 miles per week is the best preparation to run 2 5 minute miles. How long does the training go on for? If its for 1-2 month that's fine

By the way I know you need a base but is a base on which to form your training not the whole training plan!

It seems like on the is site the armchair experts training for every event from 800m to the marathon is to run steadily 60 + miles per week for 4 months, do a couple of interval sessions then race

Is this really how the professional train?

By the way strides are the best way to get injured if it's cold - espeacially as most young runners cannot resist the temptatation to change the strides into sprints

When did I say jogging? "Easy mileage" isn't necessarily jogging. And really 3 months of 50-60 miles a week is about right. 1 or 2 isn't really enough. It'll take a month just to build to 60 miles a week if you've only been doing 30 or 40. The first season I broke ten consisted of about 3 months of 50-60 miles a week, no real planned workouts. If we (group of training buddies) felt good, we'd go fast. Now, perhaps the ideal training program would consist of a planned tempo run or progression run, strides, drills, strength, blah blah blah, but 10 flat isn't like 4-flat--you don't need every last thing to be perfect to hit it. And where's the fun if somebody tells you what to do every single day? Most every (male) high school runner is capable of breaking 10 if he has a few years to train for it.

He likely has a coach to plan out the in-season workouts, and I'm sure he'll be hammering those too hard, like every other high schooler in the nation, so why hammer even more now? I'm sure the last thing that coach wants is this guy to come in and say "well letsrun says I should do THIS workout."

And of course the professionals don't train this way. They've already built up their lifetime base over many, many years, and thus can consistently maintain a schedule that consists more or less of high mileage AND several hard workouts a week. They are at a constant level of fitness, and are really only a few weeks away from specific fitness at any distance.

777...wrote:

Most every (male) high school runner is capable of breaking 10 if he has a few years to train for it.

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That's a dubious claim. I doubt if most hs runners can break 10 for 3200? In hs I was 5:01 and 2:05 for 800. Didn't run the 2 mi in hs. It was years after hs before I broke 10 for 2. I was running low 16 for 5k at the time, on 50 mpw.

A sub 10 3200 is not superstar stuff, but I think it's beyond most hs runners.

what is this? i didnt break 10 until my mile pr was 2 4:25 and it wasnt like i wasnt trying :(