So I'm an unattached (for now) junior in college, trying to get ready to run a reasonable mile in February. My definition of "reasonable" is probably irrelevant, but a 4:20 would be nice. I effectively lost my XC season because I had a surgery during the season (everything from the surgery is fine now). Some of my PR's are:
400: 51
800: 1:55 (senior year of high school, matched that time my freshman year training alone, injured sophomore year but I'm pretty sure I can improve here)
1600: 4:30* (only raced it once per season. In my best 800 shape I think I was capable of 4:22-4:25)
5k (road): 16:55
Normal 4-mile tempo pace: 6:00 (and I suffer kind of a lot at that pace)
At the moment, I'm doing 40 mpw (pace between 6:45 and 7:30 depending on the day) and no workouts as I've only been back training for 2-3 weeks. The most I've ever run is 60 mpw. The drop off from my 400/800 to the 1600, and especially my 5k, implies that I'm very deficient in endurance and would hence "need more mileage". However, it might take me 1.5 months to get up to 60 mpw based on my training history.
Anyway, I have two real questions:
1) Can I do speedwork just every other week, and speed endurance stuff for the rest of my workouts (2 per week, mileage the rest of the week) to build my endurance for the mile? Building mileage would take an awfully long time. Below are my definitions of each type of workout, which I can typically do within a month of training:
Speedwork: 200s and 300s (about 28s per 200, with 3 minutes of recovery between 300s and 1.5 minutes between 200s)
Speed endurance: 10x400 with 1 minute rest (around 70 each ... this is hard for me), 800s at 2:30 with 1 minute rest
2) Do I bother building the mileage at all, or just jump into workouts soon? My 10x400 workout classically would be considered very slow for my current mile PR, as would my 800s I think.
TL;DR:
Trying to run a fair mile, but only started base from a few weeks ago from extenuating circumstances. My area to improve is clearly endurance, but I don't have that much time to build my mileage. Do I start workouts now or later?
Thanks for the advice. If you read this much, you deserve cookies.