Why am I not improving? (High mileage summer, no improvement)

Just keep racing for a few weeks and see what happens.

The extra mileage should slow you down some but as you do more workouts and race, you should end up a lot faster than last year. It just takes a little time. The point is to run fast at the end of the year when the races are more important.

Having the same problems here. Workouts and races have been pretty mediocre so far, but I'm chalking it up to it being the beginning of a long season. Some guys start out fast and fade by the end, some guys are the opposite.

Your previous race pace was 2 @ 5:15. The work this summer was mostly 10 miles a day in doubles @ 7:30 to 8.

Where's the work bridging the gap between 7:50 pace and 5:15 pace?

You're right, I have not gone that low in a while. I did workouts during the summer of 400 meter hill repeats, tempos, and just started some track work. However, I don't think any of my workouts have gone that low in a while. More around 5:30 pace. I thought my paces would just increase naturally as the mileage increased, as that's what all the threads suggest and my past training suggests. Should I suggest to my coach running mile repeats around that pace? Most of our repeats are 400-800 meters, which I personally think is too short.

fred wrote:

Your previous race pace was 2 @ 5:15. The work this summer was mostly 10 miles a day in doubles @ 7:30 to 8.

Where's the work bridging the gap between 7:50 pace and 5:15 pace?

Yup, too much slow mileage. Gotta do lots of tempos and strides.

But I had been doing strides and workouts throughout the last part of summer. That is why I am so stumped.

What kind of tempo?

SadSenior15 wrote:

But I had been doing strides and workouts throughout the last part of summer. That is why I am so stumped.

You overtrained and or not enough hard aerobic workouts

How did your first race this year compare to your first race last year? That is a better sign of improvement than comparing your first race of this season to your best race last year, which I imagine came at the end of the season. If you're ahead of where you were last year, then calm down. If not, then maybe there's a problem, or maybe you just need to get the season rolling and you'll be fine soon enough anyway.

I've kind of had the same thing.

I'm a junior and put in quite a bit of mileage over the summer. But my first race was almost a minute slower than my PR.

Then my second race a week later I PR'd by 15 seconds on a slow course and felt like I didn't leave it all out there.

This Saturday I'm running at a faster course and plan on obliterating my PR.

For me, doing mostly mileage makes me feel really stiff, and it takes a while to knock out all the cob webs.

So just keep racing and maybe try some actual speed workouts like 300s at faster than mile pace.

I wondered if it was over training, but I have taken several lower mileage weeks with no effects. We usually do at least two workouts a week, and this has been the case for about five weeks (Not counting the workouts I ran during the summer and the 2-3 easy weeks due to nagging injuries.) I have not been performing as well in the workouts as I would like either. Hopefully more aerobic workouts will allow me to sharpen up.

Well, in fairness, we really have done that many tempos. I did a couple over the summer, usually of 4-5 miles, but since team practices started we have only done about two. Our team focuses on repeats usually, whether that be hill repeats or track repeats. I'd like to do more tempos and I think they could help me improve. Any way I could incorporate a tempo workout into my Sunday long run? Or should I keep that strictly slow?

Ferritin?

im a big mileage guy as well, workouts don't get me that much further in terms of fitness. but my biggest error all the time was the thinking that weekly mileage was everything that counts while in reality it was the 'run mileage' that really is important for fitness. 10 miles in doubles a day is okay but the biggest boost i ever hard came from switching to 10 consecutive miles. when i started i only did this 2-3 times per week (so 20-30 mpw!!) and no real intensity, just honest and progressing pace but my fitness skyrocketed. after 6 months of doing this i am at 3-4 10 milers a week and still improving way more than i did in the past at 40mpw with high intensity sessions, doubles and all this stuff.

7:50 pace is way too slow unless you're tired from workouts. Lots of slow mileage will make you slow. Your low end stamina is gone as you haven't run any long tempos or long repeats during summer. The strides you've been doing may have maintained your turn-over but nothing else. Your top speed and form is probably gone, unless those strides were kinda hard. Your racing fitness is also gone, but that's normal, as that's what you should have started training now. But the worst is that you're not even injury free.

You botched your summer training. Next year, try summer of malmo. It will build the two lower parts of the pyramid, i.e. endurance (mileage) and aerobic strength (tempos/repeats), as well as the raw speed and good form (200s). Autumn training would then add to this and fill in the racing specific components.

So what to do now? I'd say try to keep the little you got from your summer training, i.e. keep your mileage up, even if it's slow. Apart from that, trust your coach, and follow his/her advice.

I really wouldn't worry about it mate. I had a similar experience in the track season of 2014. The year before, I had just started running and improved with every race as I bumped my mileage up. I thought that improvement would be almost instant, I would bump up to 50 miles one week and be a whole load faster the next Monday.

That's not how it works though, it turns out.

In 2014, I started racing on the track in May, and although I did run a marginal PB over 1500m in my opening race, it was nowhere near the time I was expecting to run from my sessions. I had expected to run 4:18, but ran 4:23 instead, fading on the final lap despite about a month of track work in my legs and loads of mileage over the last 4 months (usually 50+ miles/week).

But with every race I became faster, putting the pieces together, getting used to the lactic burn, running harder sessions, an dropping my overall training volume. By the end of the season my PB was 4:08, and to set that I ran a 60-second final lap.

Racing is by far the best training, so long as you have a decent base of fitness to support it. Nothing else improves your fitness as much as getting out and racing hard a few times before a peak race.

Let us know when your times pick up again!

#1 Sleep more, for some people 8 hours is not enough. That means getting your homework done early and going to bed when everyone else in the house is awake. It will be good practice for next year in the dorms.

#2 Compare early races to early races year to year, you may be bad at running in the heat.

#3 The point of the summer is to get in shape to do the workouts in the fall those include early races. You are in better shape than last year. Now do the work and run fast when it counts.

#4 The races don't become easier just because you are in better shape.

#5 If you are the type that has to worry, go get your iron checked. There are some good threads on here about what you need to know.

Long slow running makes long slow runners.

It's nice that you ran that much, but 7:30 to 7:50 pace is not going to benefit you that much. You have to run faster, unless it's a recovery day.

Some other posters have it right. Too much slow mileage. I made that mistake once, putting in 36 straight 100+ mile weeks, nearly all mileage as 5 mile -20 mile runs at easy pace. My results were worse than when I had been doing 60-80 with lots of hills, striders, repeats at race pace, tempo runs, etc. My training lacked quick stuff. However, with this great base, I took off 2 weeks completely, then began running 50-70 mile weeks with lots of varied high-speed quality (but on hard day/easy day approach with striders or hill sprints on most of my easy days) and made a quantum leap, improving all PR's significantly from the 800 to the 10K. My last 2 years in college were then my best 2 years running ever and I never did a 100 mile week again (I'm no marathoner). The base likely helped a lot, but I didn't get faster til I added speed.

My recommendation? Cut your mileage by at least a third, add lots of quality, make sure you're getting proper sleep and nutrition, and you should see your times begin to drop, possibly significantly, after about 2-4 weeks or so. Your season is not lost, far from it ! Good luck !