Too hard too early?

Listen to your coach.

Your coach is wrong. In fact your runs could even be a bit faster. For a 4:17 1600 your easy running should be anywhere from 6:15-6:40. What's important though is the workouts you do. Also what are your 400 & 800 PRs?

Sahdude wrote:

Your coach is wrong. In fact your runs could even be a bit faster. For a 4:17 1600 your easy running should be anywhere from 6:15-6:40. What's important though is the workouts you do. Also what are your 400 & 800 PRs?

52 high and 1:56- very little speed training but a fair amount of work at mile pace stuff. Did strides 3-4 times a week and 200's at 800 pace once a week.

Woah that 52 is pretty good. I see now that you need more mileage. That 52 is enough to become a champion in the 1600/3200 at high school level. As for the 800 if you'd want to be equally good (1:48-low 1:50s) you'd want to drop about three seconds or so. For you more miles is really the only thing I can advise. Your 800 time isn't on par with your 400 time. With a 4:17 mile you should be running about ten seconds faster for the 3200. Build the miles gradually over the remaining of the summer and early season. Good luck, you sure got potential!

"am currently in the 35-40 range, with a planned big jump next week. My runs have been all around 6:30-6:50 pace,"

You call this training? I know it is summer but if you run in the morning do you even break a sweat at 6:50 pace? Did you run at all last summer?

Has your coach ever coach someone who didn't run during a summer but still ran 4:17 and 9:19 in the spring?

My guess is that he hasn't so he is going to be learning how to train you as you go along. You will not burn out doing what you are right now.

Have you considered doing Summer of Malmo workouts?

http://www.bunnhill.com/BobHodge/rtp3.htm

Right now and especially when you hit 50 mpw next week you are getting ready to train. It would help if you did some easy SOM workouts to make sure you keep the coordination necessary to run fast. Jogging at 6:40 pace will leave you with a lot of catching up to do when practice starts.

Jzargo wrote:

Listen to your coach.

I'm going to second this. Letsrun is full of D1 people who don't remember being in high school and what you can or cannot do at that maturity level. Slightly slower running is okay, especially if it is supplemented with Summer of Malmo style workouts. You do not need to be fast right now, you need to build base. 7:00 pace is more than fine, especially if you couple it with a 4 or so mile tempo run that is much faster once a week. And running slower removes injury risk.

It's only july brah, i'm sort of in your situation (4:19, 9:07, 15:21). Apparently i have more strength except I don't feel good enough to be doing 6:30 - 6:50 pace runs everyday. Whoever said 6:15 should be your easy pace is actually insane. I do my easy/recovery runs at no faster than 7:30. The real work starts in late august/september. Just be patient.

Slow down maybe and have faster bouts of running during your runs.

Somewhere, there is a kid who is running more miles and most importantly, unlike, he has a PLAN! One day, you will find yourself alongside this guy in a race, and he will surely pull away. You will try to respond, but....nothing.

Thankfully most of these "plans" are devised by idiotic HS coaches who read a few books and is now an expert in running.

Thankfully those kids will either burn out or be injured.

Thankfully if you are talented (which you are), you will be able to destroy the hardest working best trained kid with no talent, just because of your better genes.

When doing easy running, all you need to do is get your heart rate in the zone to receive aerobic benefit. Those zone is usually 140-160 beats per minute. The pace needed to sustain the heart rate will get quicker as you get into peak shape, this is why pace isn't important.

On your next run start off like you normally would, and 2 miles into the run, stop for 6 seconds and count your pulse, multiply by 10 (stick a zero on the end of the number) and that's your heart rate. Pace is not important, if it is 90 degrees out, you need to slow down from your 6:30 pace or whatever, if it's 55-60 you can probably maintain that. Just run with your heart rate. If your heart rate is above this threshold you should slow down because A. Running faster on easy days produces essentially the same aerobic benefit as running slower with your heart rate in the zone B. Running faster on easy days adds un-needed stress to the skeletal-muscular system. C. You will recover less quickly if you run your easy days too fast.

Also, you don't need to run fast on easy runs, look at Ben True's strava account, he does easy running at the pace you describe and sometimes slower, and his 5k PR is 3 and a half minutes better than yours. I also know that the top 5 guys on my college D3 XC team freshman year (went to nationals) were all sub 15:30 and did the vast majority of their easy running at 7:00 pace or slower. I say vast majority because the end of long runs would turn into a tempo run. All recovery days and filler easy mileage were 7:00 per mile or slower.

Slow down on your easy days!

I want to thank everyone for taking the time to respond to my thread. I went over the Summer of Malmo link and notice that is often refrenced and is well known through out letsrun;however, the proposed raising of mileage and gradual incoporation of more intense stuff is exactly what my coach is waiting to do. I cross train 3-4 times a week for 40 mins and just run everyday; no tempos/ intervals etc. the only speed that im getting are strides which i do nearly everyday after my runs. My coach is planning to not start workouts until september, but raise mileage and add tempos and slight harder stuff throughout august. overall, I think she is an exceptional coach as she has assembled some state winning teams and overall solid runners. I improved from 4:33 and 10:05 to the aforementioned pr's from freshman and sophomore year without much physical maturing ( i'm a physically developed african teen who probably at most has one growth spurt left). I think I'll play it safe and run at easier paces from now as mileage is suppose to increase and will see if things need to change when the season starts in August. I do have a gps watch that takes heart rate, but the heart rate monitor can be inaccurate alot of the time Thanks again for all the feedback.

This is very good advice. OP: pay heed. There is other good advice along these lines in this thread.

Happy running. You have talent. Treasure it.