Help Me Fix/Clarify My Mileage Progression?

Weird Guy

Help Me Fix/Clarify My Mileage Progression? 5/16/2012 12:17AM

Here's my training background. I am a junior in high school looking to be very good in cross country next year (track has not been perfect). The summer before cross country season I made a huge mileage shift. During, and even before my sophomore year I was averaing around 50-55 miles per week. When I hit summer, I was perhaps a little bit to hasty by jumping to 75-80 miles per week. A typical week would look like

Sun: 15 miles Mon: 9 miles Tues: AM 8miles PM 4 miles Wed: AM 9 miles PM 5 miles Thurs: 6.75 miles Fri: AM 10 miles PM 5 miles Sat: 9 miles

Despite this, all the runs were very slow. I was averaging about 7:50-8:20 pace for most of my runs. I was very fatigued all the time. I did no extra strength, speed or threshold workouts. Just jogging.

I definetly improved however. For most of my cross country courses I improved by 25-35 second, and for the more hilly courses, almost a minute. At Woodward park for state, I ran in the low 15:40s, high 15:30s. During Cross Country season, I typically ran around 65 miles per week, at a slightly faster pace for my runs, and pretty standard long interval sessions.

The Winter before track season, I averaged around 65, and kept that throughout track.

My main, and final question is:

Should I expect more improvement by: 1) consistently running 90-95 miles per week, at a 7:40-7:30ish pace

or

2) Maintaining 75-80 miles per week with a focus on utilizing this mileage into more quality aerobic sessions. Two progression/long tempo runs would be introduced in the week, and on recovery days I would be running at a 6:40-7:10 pace.

As well as this, strength sessions would be introduced into both of these schedules.

I have the goal of running at least sub 15:20 at Woodward park, and am wondering which one of of these blueprints would help me achieve my goal best.

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