What was the most important thing you did in training before a big breakthrough?

run a lot (well, more than i had been running) of miles on a consistent basis.

essentially, i was way more consistent than i ever had been before and my times were pretty consistent.

4mile treadmill tempo runs. strides.

besides running more...a lot more of the smaller things: getting more sleep, eating better, stretching more, more core work, etc.

Curious. What were the breakthroughs and after how much time doing this thing.

My own example is a 35 second PR 14 48 5k track after 12 weeks training, but prior to that 10 weeks off due to injury. My training wasn't much different. 90 miles T,W,Sat workouts with the team. The major difference was the way I felt after the time away. Most profound change I ever had. In fact started to pr in most distances, practice and races after 4 weeks, this after 2 easy coming back training.( next to nothing)

I remember how easy training runs were 10 20 sec faster. Couldn't believe my watch. I conjecture if I had continued to train at 90 for those 10 weeks, this would not have happened.

lost weight. never consciously, weight loss just always correlates with breakthroughs looking back.

Olympic weights, plyos and max V work - Got me a 400 meter breakthrough.

Also a big breakthrough after a summer of approx. 80 miles per week - 10 -12 mile singles. Some slow - some progressive. Ran my first Fall track workout of 10 x 800 in 2:02-2:06 on 2-3 min rest. I shadowed a 4:10 miler that workout. Then I had a motorcycle wreck. (I was a 2:00 800 guy the spring before that.)

Had my best XC race after 4 weeks of 90-100.

I wasn't injured. That has not been the case for the past year.

that exact thing is happening to me right now. I missed a month of training all together, now after 4 weeks, all my runs back home from college has been 10-20 seconds faster per mile on average

ran more, ran easier on my easy days.

Plyos like Team Cook does. Healthier eating habits.

I changed my form. I was a blatant heel striker and changed my form so I would land more mid-foot. 4 months later I was having PRs at every distance.

Volume through frequency helped me a lot.

tapered

consistent higher mileage

What exactly do they do?

More milage.

I'm noticing a trend here...

The most important thing for me was to SLOW DOWN my easy runs. I went from always running 6:40 pace for my easy runs to now running anywhere from 7:10-7:40 pace for easy runs.

Everything else is a direct result from that: injury-free, consisentcy, faster workouts/long runs, etc. I also paid more attention to sleep, but the most important thing was slowing down my regular runs.

I went from a 1:13:55 half marathon in 2009 to a 1:09:28 this year....and a 2:34:51 to a 2:31:05 marathon. I've got another marathon in 10 days and hoping for somewhere around 2:28.

More sleep, ran faster (not necessarily harder because it got easy) on easy days, dieted a little to lose about 10 pounds.

Hmmm 10x800 in 2:03-2:06 shadowing a 4:10 miler... I might have to call bullshit on the guy being a 4:10 miler ... I'm was a 4:10 +/- kinda guy last spring and there is no way in hell I could do that workout...

5 miles at faster than mile pace with 2-3 minutes (400jog?)

If this was true however there's not reason why you two should not have been in sub 4 shape...