Why am I not PR'ing or improving much

High School Running

9 years ago 09/21/2014 2:48pm EDT

Okay so I am currently a Senior in high school. My PR's are 4:36 mile, 10:15 two mile(cross country course this season) and 16:59 5k (road race from this summer). But my current progression this year is really bad. Last year I went 17:05 despite being injured the first month of the year and playing soccer all season. This season, i trained really hard all summer logging miles, havent been injured at all, and i have stopped playing soccer to focus on running. i really would like to get down to 16:30 this season and I have only ran a 17:10 thus far. My coach is having us do workouts ALL the time (we did 8 200's day before our meet on tuesday and 4 400's at max speed on thursday before our saturday meet). Once we begin to cut down on the workouts and increase the easy runs, would it be possible for my time to drop that much? I work my hardest every day and do everything my coach asks, and it's frustrating not to see any results yet... thanks in advance.

9 years ago 09/22/2014 8:23pm EDT

re: BRUH19

9 years ago 09/22/2014 9:30pm EDT

re: BRUH19

similar situation, I'm a more speed-oriented guy (4:34 1600, 1:58 800m) and stuck in the high 16s. I'd like to hear some ideas as well

9 years ago 09/22/2014 9:39pm EDT

re: BRUH19

BRUH19 wrote:
My coach is having us do workouts ALL the time (we did 8 200's day before our meet on tuesday and 4 400's at max speed on thursday before our saturday meet).

Are you guys training for the Mile or 5k? Your coach needs to realize that you are DISTANCE runners, not Milers. 8x200 or 4x400 is something you might do the final week of the season when you are in the sharpening phase. Right now, you should be doing Mile and 800 repeats, mixed with Tempo runs (4-8 miles).

Not Rocket Surgery.

9 years ago 09/26/2014 7:24pm EDT

re: BRUH19

Since you're in mid-season I would definitely keep running, but try some cross training (biking,lifting, abs, swimming which i love,etc.) If you're going to improve then get some of the stresses off your body by doing non-weight bearing activities. Once I started committing myself less toward running by doing a lot of cross training, you'd be amazed at by how large my PR's dropped.

My program doesn't emphasize this but I recently came back off shin-splints(from over-training) and doing PT and those above led me to being a much better athlete. I had only increased my load when I first got injured, obviously to make up for a cardio lack.

But last year I did no cross training and my times improved a lot at the beginning of the season but then I started burning out. However not to brag, I'm from a really good program nonetheless with good coaching and several all Americans. Just trust in your coach but if he doesn't want you cross training (or just doesn't care for it like mine) then just blow that off and do as much as you can - it's your development and it's really hard but being an overall good athlete is what will lead you to be a better runner.

Hope that helps!!

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Why am I not PR'ing or improving much

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