Training for a sub- 4:20 Mile, sub 9:30 2 mile

11/26: .5 warm up, 6.5 run, very easy. First official run of indoor, went ahead of my team mates with 1.5 to go, finished it off hard.

6x100m strides after, working on form and a nice, long stride

Weights:

3x12, 30 sec rest between sets Tricep pull-down @ 8 (8 correlates to some weight, not sure without looking at the chart on the machine)

3x12 Back machine @ 4, 30 sec between rest

3x12 Squat bar shrugs, 10 lbs on both sides, 30 sec rest between

3x Planks, 1:30 each; 1 forward, 1 left side, 1 right side

Myrtle Routine for the hips, 50 calve raises

11/27 .5 warm up, 7.3 run @ sub 6:30 pace, didn't start picking it up until ~18 mins in. Pretty big hill at 2 and 5 miles. Felt real good. Very relaxed. 7x100m strides after, again, just working on form and getting used to being on my toes in track spikes.

No weight room today, only Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Going to do some resistance band stuff (hips, ankles)

you remind me so much of myself when i was in high school. i wish i could sit down with you and tell you to take a deep breath and don't overthink this. it's better to be 10% under-trained than 1% over-trained. got it? don't go all gung ho in the next 3-4 months and be burned out before it matters in your track season

i was a 400-800-1600 guy in high school. 49, 1:55, 4:19.16:10 5k. 30 miles a week. one 6-8 mile run and everything else was quality. speed speed speed. we lifted and did the occasional sprint sessions in the winter but nothing crazy. for you, i'd say lift/abs 2-3 times a week. this makes you explosive, strong and prevents those injuries that people get if they jump into too much running too fast.

do a 10 mile run where you pick it up at the end, some fast intervals with enough rest and do a 5 mile tempo run once a week. everything else can be easy. i wouldn't even think about the pace (i know, that's super hard and you want to write it all down in your log but it'll mess you up if you obsess) find a nice place to run trails and just go run. running slow won't hurt you if you put in quality when it matters. speed speed speed. if you can run a fast 400m and have the lungs to run a good mile, you can become very good on less miles

Thanks, man. My coach wants to work mostly on speed this season, so that'll help a lot, I think. I really gained a lot of strength from cross country, so with the speed work that we'll be doing I think I'll do really well. But yeah, I agree with doing the little things that'll keep me from getting injured. I also agree with forgetting about the pace; I run my runs how I run them, and then afterwards I figure out the pace. If I feel like crap or I need to recover from a workout/for a race, I'll definitely go as slow/fast as I want. I try to always listen to my body, and then afterwards figure out what I did. I appreciate the advice

You seem quite similar to me when I was in high school. My junior year, my PRs were 4:54, 11:09, and 17:34 for the 1600m, 3200m, and 5000m respectively.

Before my senior year of cross country, I did about 45 - 55 mile weeks and ran around 15:50s for the 5k. The following track year, I ran 4:21 and 9:19 for the 1600m and 3200m.

I did easy miles until the beginning of January. Long runs every Saturday, averaging about 12 - 14 miles. That helped a lot early season.

Did a balance of intervals and tempo runs. Ran very easy on my easy days. Get plenty of rest.

However, one of the most important things to have is a hungry mind. I ran every race not worried about pacing or PRing but winning. You'll be A LOT more successful at running if you have a huge desire of winning over PRing. PRs will come with winning.

Eat healthy, get plenty of sleep, and imagine yourself winning every single day. That's what I did and I went from 11:09 to 9:19 in the 3200m in one year.

I was sub 4:20 and 9:20 senior outdoor year (no indoor @ my HS) My coach was an 8:53 2 miler and state champ so all I had to do was shut up and listen - not always easy for a 17 year old.

Winter training was pretty mellow: 40-50 mpw of just getting out and running. Nothing real specific except a long run (10 miles) with the coach weekly. Although I never timed these, he always did and by the end of the winter, we were running them under 60 minutes. Prior to that, my long run had been nothing more than 7, maybe 8 miles and never that hard. Those 10 milers did wonders for my fitness. Also, weekly 5-6 runs where I felt good and went hard were probably tempos, although we never called them that. No speedwork that I can remember until the season started, but I liked to finish runs where I felt good hard.

I did a ton of cross-training in the winter. Some weights, a lot of surfing, cycling and a little bit of moto-cross. The cross training was big for me, but it was all in moderation (well, all of it except the surfing maybe, we all have our vices). I remember coming into the season spitting nails and by default becoming the 3rd leg for our 4 x 400 relay until early May when the real athletes finally got in shape. I think that forced speed work in a race situation, as opposed to just running a hard 400 or doing repeats, was huge for me. The myrtle drills and any and all core work are musts. I really wish I would've known about and done these in HS. Adding them in college was tremendously helpful. Anything that helps your core I would recommend. Looks like you're putting a lot of emphasis on weights. I'd be cautious here. If I had the option of running an extra hour a week or lifting, I'd take the running every time.

Finally, once your season starts, there is no substitute for racing. I echo the earlier poster's comments about not going too hard too early. Wait for the season to really get after it. I know opinions differ here, but mixing up distances and doubling (and tripling if you're on the 4 x 400) in early season meets that don't mean a lot is fantastic training. If you want to run fast in the 1600, you've got run 800s. If you want the strength to bust 9:20, you're gonna have to double back after a 1600 or 800 and tough out a sub 10:00 3200.

Good luck and post back with results.

Thanks! I forgot to mention that I'm a junior now. 5'9, 140 lbs. I'm gonna be doing a 10+ mile long run on Sundays, may tempo it some days if I feel good but may just run it solely for the benefit of running for 70+ minutes. During the regular season, I'll be running anything from the 1000m-2 mile, with an occasional 600m and the 4x400 and occasionally the jv 55m if I so desire. 2-3 speed days per week, most likely 2 with meets and invitationals. I imagine we'll be doing mostly 200s and 300s, probably some 400s. I'll have to ask my coach some specifics; all he said was "more speed". I'll post back later with my run from today. Nothing exciting yet, workouts start next week.

Here's what I did to take me from a 9:50, 4:30 guy to a 4:20/9:20 guy my senior year of high school.

10 mile runs every day at an easy pace for February and March. Not too much in the way of hard training except for the occasional tempo run. In April I jumped the intensity up a lot: 3-4 workouts a week incorporating everything from 800 pace to 5k pace. I doubled or tripled every meet and used that to replace my workouts. Easy runs were usually 10 miles long and were done at a slow pace to recover from the hard workouts. Here's an example of what a typical week was:

Monday: Interval workout at 3200 pace working down to mile pace

Tuesday: 10 miles easy

Wednesday: Interval workout at 5k pace with a few mile pace repeats at the end

Thursday: 10 miles Easy

Friday: 6 miles Easy

Saturday: 3200m race in 10:00, 800m race in 2:04

Sunday: 6 miles Easy

Total mileage for the week: 50-60

By the time May rolled around I was in about 9:30/4:25 shape. A couple weeks of tapering and I ran 4:20/9:20

Nice. I'd double and triple distance events if I could but my league doesn't allow double distance, which I think is stupid. So the most I can do is a distance/4x400 double, which definitely isn't bad but it'd be better if I could triple mile/2 mile/4x400 or something.

Wednesday, 11/28:

6.5 easy, 6:30 pace. Again, didn't start picking it up until 2 or 3 miles in. Just feeling good, not pushing myself much.

4x150m accelerations (starting at ~stride pace, finishing the last 30-50m hard)

Weight room:

2x 1 minute sprinter curls (hard pumping of the arms w/ 5 lb weights)

1x Shoulder lifts (difficult to explain, but it's something like 50 reps of lifting with 5 lb weights)

3x12 Shoulder presses, 20, 20, 15 lbs. 30 seconds rest between each set

9 minute abs (3x3 minute abs, no rest. 30 sec crunches, 30 second left side crunches, 30 second right side crunches, 30 sec leg lifts, 30 sec bicycles, 30 second v-sit)

Myrtle Routine

Overall a good day. My coach clarified, by "speed work" he meant 200-400m intervals, which isn't too far off of what we did for the bulk of our season. He just wants to skip doing threshold thousands or longer repeats for the first week because of all the work we did in cross country, which makes sense to me. First workout is on Saturday.

11/29

8 Miles, start off real easy because the run that we were doing makes it hard to get rolling early (rolling hills, tight turns, single-file paths) but after 3 miles we started going sub-7 naturally and then the last 3 miles we finished going 6-flat average. Good day. Nothing too difficult at all.

4x150m accelerations (50m stride pace, 50m picking up, 50m close to all out)

Plenty of foam rolling and stick-ing after. Feeling great thus far.

Edit:

Thursday, 11/29

8.25 miles @ 6:30 average. Forgot to put that in.

Weekly total so far: 30

Expected total: ~ 55

What did you do a 1600 in when you were a 8th grader