3200 Meter Goal 9:45

Looks good. My only advice is to start running on Saturday before you add doubles. No sense running twice a day if you're not running seven days a week.

Your PRs are very similar to mine the year before I ran 9:45. I went from 4:38/10:10to 4:28/9:45. I ran somewhat more (70-80 mpw, 3-4 doubles) but I was also older: that was my senior in high school. I ran 16:29 the fall before that track season, though I probably was in slightly better than 9:45 shape.

Especially early on, don't obsess about the pace of the tempo run. Effort is more important. Likewise for easy runs.

Just be gradual building up mileage. You have plenty of time over the winter.

5-6 Mile tempos @ 5:30 pace

5x Mile w/ 4:00 rest @ 5:00

12-14x400m @68-70 w/ 90 second rest walking

15 mile long runs

these workouts got me 9:44 and 4:36

To: youngin96 When did you start your 400m? How much mileage over winter did you do?

youngin96 wrote:

5-6 Mile tempos @ 5:30 pace

5x Mile w/ 4:00 rest @ 5:00

12-14x400m @68-70 w/ 90 second rest walking

15 mile long runs

these workouts got me 9:44 and 4:36

0/10

Bump

Started Base training for track around mid november/ beginning of december.

I would start out with 6-8 Mile Runs with one 4 mile tempo a week and a long run on saturday, building them up over the whole training phase.

4/5/6 Miles

11/12/13/14/15 Miles

Would start doing 8x400m in mid january and progress from there

bump

youngin96 wrote:

5-6 Mile tempos @ 5:30 pace

5x Mile w/ 4:00 rest @ 5:00

12-14x400m @68-70 w/ 90 second rest walking

15 mile long runs

these workouts got me 9:44 and 4:36

Lies

Really hoping to get as much advice as possible before I start my base phase of track. I really want to achieve this goal bad. Thanks

This plan looks real solid. I was in a similar position as a 9th grader, but my XC times in 9th were slower.

Ran everyday over winter freshman yr (40-50 mpw), every 4th week was a down week (30-35 mpw). Had a great coach as a frosh.

4:50 - 1600 / 10:20 - 3200

... but I ran the 3200 every meet and the 1600 only 4x.

Ran 60 mpw for 10 weeks over summer. Ran sub-17 three times as a soph. 16:58, 16:52 and 16:40. These were real courses though.

Ran 4:38/ 9:50 as a 10th grader.

I think you may be shooting a little low with 9:45, but you aren't going to make it to 9:30 prob (that is for NEXT year!), so maybe leave it.

Should be able to make it to 4:32/9:45.

7:45 pace will probably be SLOW for you, but better slow than hammering everything like so many people do. Start with your plan for 5 weeks (Nov + Dec). Then ...

1) increase long run to 12

2) increase long days to 10

- try hard 10 miles one day

- hard 7 miler another day

- 3:00 hard / 3:00 easier one day

do this for about 5 weeks (Dec + Jan). Then ...

1) increase LR to 14

2) increase effort on long days to around 5:50 for 10 milers, 5:40 for 7 milers.

3) do some other sport you like on Saturday. not because it is good for training, but you will miss it otherwise. If you can play hockey, basketball, swim, skate, ski with your friends, that will help.

do this for about 5 weeks, until Track starts.

The last weeks will look like this:

Sunday 14 Mile Long Run Easy (7:45-8:00 pace)

Monday 6 Miles Easy (7:45-8:00 pace)

Tuesday 10 Miles Total Warm Up; 5-7 Mile Tempo 5:30-40 pace

Wednesday 6 Miles Easy Stride 6X (7:45-8:00 pace)

Thursday 10 Miles Steady State or Light Fartlek Workout

Friday 6 Miles Easy 6X Strides (7:45-8:00 pace)

Saturday Off or other sports.

This is "only" 52 mpw not including strides, so not too bad.

The EASY pace on your easy days will keep you from straining, the day off should keep you fresh enough.

what's the highest mileage you've done? You probably shouldn't be doing 55-60 miles if you haven't even done 40.

Also it would be better to do more like 40 miles but at least 7:00 or faster on you normal/long runs. You're not getting anything out of running 8:00 pace.

Workouts look good. Basically just do tempos and fartleks for most of the winter. And 100/200s at the end of every workout to build your pure speed.

ye olde college guye wrote:

Looks good. My only advice is to start running on Saturday before you add doubles. No sense running twice a day if you're not running seven days a week.

Your PRs are very similar to mine the year before I ran 9:45. I went from 4:38/10:10to 4:28/9:45. I ran somewhat more (70-80 mpw, 3-4 doubles) but I was also older: that was my senior in high school. I ran 16:29 the fall before that track season, though I probably was in slightly better than 9:45 shape.

Especially early on, don't obsess about the pace of the tempo run. Effort is more important. Likewise for easy runs.

Just be gradual building up mileage. You have plenty of time over the winter.

This advice is spot-on. Especially the third paragraph. Don't use a Garmin and don't time your easy runs, or at least DON'T push them. If they are 7:00 pace fine, if they are 8:00 fine. Better to just run 45 minutes on your "six mile days" and 60 min on your 8 mile days and assume that they are that distance.

I had a Lydiard book when I was your age that just prescribed 45/60/90 minute days (I think?) ... no mileages.

Also, on your HARD days (like he said) push based on effort and note your time each week. More important that they are moving gradually faster than if you ran 5:48 or 5:56 pace or whatever.

Tony Benson has a good book that (I think) has a good, modern interpretation of Lydiard that is aimed at 5k training, which is the same as 3200m for HSers. it looks like it may be out of print now, I didn't think it was that old! But it pretty much makes out a schedule just like you did.

Wow. Thanks everybody. Great to hear I was somewhat close. I did lots of research and pieced things together.

My highest mileage week was 49. But averaged closer to 44-45. Thanks again

Going in to my junior year track season my goal was to run 9:45 after running 16:34 in cross. I ended up running 9:30 that year and here is what it did.

Novemeber:

All easy running with the weekly long run(8:00) pace

December:

Mix of medium runs (anywhere under 7:00) and easy runs with the weekly long run

January:

Started to move some hard runs which i started as doing 4 miles and under 6:15 once(move up to 5 by the end of the month), then twice a week as the month progressed. Most of the other days were medium, with some easy and the weekly long runs.

February:

At this point i was doing 2-3 hard runs a week at either 5 or 6 miles. All other runs were medium and i did my long run.

Also,i started at 25 miles a week in november and built up to 58 a week in february, which is where i stayed until i tapered.All long runs were at 8:00 pace.I would also take days off every other week with my mileage at 50.

Hope that helps, I found that when practice came around in march i was fully ready for the interval workouts and i peaked incredibly at the end of the season. Best of luck

^^^^ Sounds promising

Hey OP...

Quick note, I went from Grade 9 PB's of 4:52 and 10:30.

I think your training looks very similar to mine except a little bit more mileage. My advice would be make sure you don't over do anything. I found I ran my best when I just made sure I never put myself quite into the red zone with training.

Now I don't mean that in terms of any single workout being too hard. I mean run your workouts hard as hell, but don't force yourself to run 8 miles easy the next day. If you really pushed your workout and feel you'd recover better with say 4-5 miles the next day, then do so.

Put a LOT of weight in your Long run and your workouts. Outside of that MAKE SURE everything else is recovery.