Sub 16:30 5k

PR's*****

griffintg wrote:

I'm going into my junior year of high school and am training for my upcoming XC season. What do you think it will take for me to run a sub 16:30 5k? My sophomore PRd was 17:17 for the 5k, 4:48 for the 1600, 2:09 for the 800, and high 54 for the 400. Also, I just started running 40 mpw for the past 2 weeks, raising it from 35. I'm trying to get it around 45-50 before the season starts. All answers are appreciated. Thanks. 👍🏻

griffintg wrote:

PR's*****

griffintg wrote:

I'm going into my junior year of high school and am training for my upcoming XC season. What do you think it will take for me to run a sub 16:30 5k? My sophomore PRd was 17:17 for the 5k, 4:48 for the 1600, 2:09 for the 800, and high 54 for the 400. Also, I just started running 40 mpw for the past 2 weeks, raising it from 35. I'm trying to get it around 45-50 before the season starts. All answers are appreciated. Thanks. 👍🏻

What a helpful comment!

Anyways, I would recommend working a lot on tempo runs. Mileage seems fine for a HS junior. Work on building your aerobic base by running long tempos (20 minute ish) after a long warmup (20-30 minutes). That way, you'll be able to sustain a hard pace even towards the end of your races. After a while, you could probably get the tempo pace down to 5:45-6:00. I usually do one tempo a week, one hill/fartlek a week, and one long run, with the rest being recovery days. Of course you need to talk to your coach before you do anything though.

Also make sure you are making the most out of your workout days. You should be getting the most mileage on workout days. Recovery days should be used as, hence the name, recovery. You really don't need to go above 7:30 pace or else you're going to wreck your legs.

Good luck!

i think it will take an average of 5:18 miles to get to a sub 16:30 5k.set smaller, more manageable goals. GOAL 1 - Get under 17:00GOAL 2 - get under 16:50. GOAL 3 - get under 16:40.I thin it's possible, but just focus on getting a little better each race. Keep going out in the race at a goal pace, and see how long you can hang at it. You won't find much success going out in 5:18 when your PB pace is 5:33small moves. it'll boost your confidence to keep improving and you'll go after it and stay hungryDid you happen to have a growth spurt last spring/this summer? I ran 10:23 3200m, 4:47 1600m, 2:05 800m. 54 400m early in my sophomore track season and then kind of fizzled out. I guess I grew about 4-5 inches and gained 20 pounds from january to augustI did my first ever season of cross country as a junior and ran 16:21. I continued to grow (i was 5'-8", 135 lbs december of soph year and 6'-1", 160lbs in spring track junior year) That spring in track i ran 4:29, 1:59, and 50.5 I was running 25-30 miles per week, focused mostly on speed stuff. My longest xc run was 6 miles, my hardest xc workout was 5 x 1200m @ race pace. We were rested and used meets to train hard. I was also new to the sport and very eager to race and improve. I got faster every race that yearI'd say, just keep your head down and get in the miles without injury. make small, manageable goals and check them off the list.don't wear yourself out and do strides/150m repeats at 5:18 pace to make your body efficient and get used to running fastgood luck

griffintg wrote:

I'm going into my junior year of high school and am training for my upcoming XC season. What do you think it will take for me to run a sub 16:30 5k? My sophomore PRd was 17:17 for the 5k, 4:48 for the 1600, 2:09 for the 800, and high 54 for the 400. Also, I just started running 40 mpw for the past 2 weeks, raising it from 35. I'm trying to get it around 45-50 before the season starts. All answers are appreciated. Thanks. 👍🏻

I would say his mileage is on the low-end, and would target peaking at 60mpw this summer (aiming for 70-80 by his senior year).

Like most 17s runners, OP is probably running all his training runs at a pace that is too fast or too slow (that terrible "middle zone"), so I'm not sure long tempos is the correct solution, although you are technically correct.

My suggestion is, make sure you are running 2 relatively hard runs a week. And by hard, I mean properly hard, like an actual tempo run at the correct pace, and a fartlek or hill run. The rest of your runs should be at the correct "slower" or "easy" pace. Not too slow, but definitely not fast.

If you are feeling hardy, feel free to add a third "hard-ish" day, meaning a progression run day, where you accelerate somewhere around the middle of your run so by the end you're going pretty hard and near tempo pace.

VA Runner, what are your PRs?

focus on small goals wrote:

GOAL 1 - Get under 17:00

GOAL 2 - get under 16:50.

GOAL 3 - get under 16:40.

I don't have any serious issues with the rest of your post but this part is horrible advice.

There is so much variability in cross country courses that locking yourself into different "goals" can lead to frustration and be debilitating to a runner who feels pressured to meet these time thresholds regardless of how hilly, muddy or rainy a certain course may be.

A better example would be to try to improve his "course record" compared to last year with each race by [x] amount of time.

Thanks for the advice! Do you think I should take a rest day every week, or would that be too much?

I will definitely take small steps like you said because I almost burned out in my 1600 my sophomore season. My freshman PR was 4:59 and I brought it down to 4:51 my first race. Then 4:48 my second race, and I just kept trying to get under 4:40 every time, so the fastest race after that was 4:49. Thanks for the response!

NC Runner wrote:

VA Runner, what are your PRs?

I finished with about 65 mpw, 15:34 5K, 4:28 Mile, 9:32 2 Mile

griffintg wrote:

Thanks for the advice! Do you think I should take a rest day every week, or would that be too much?

Generally I would say only take one if you feel like you need one. So ideally no, but if you feel wrecked (wrecked enough that rolling/elevation/stretching won't help at all) then definitely take one.

After running 17:17 in the fall, you should have done much better than 4:48. Did you run 6 days a week all last winter? Training doesn't work if you keep stopping and need to start from scratch over and over.

My suggestion is to run EVERY day so it becomes a habit and every week brings you 40+ miles closer to your goals. Set your weeks up as say 9, 7, 4, 7, 7, 7, 4 so you have 2 short days for recovery. Then between seasons instead to taking a week off that really ends up being 3 wasted weeks, take a week where you run no more than 3 miles every day and mix in some strides 3 days so your first week back you can do 40 easy miles with the same 3 days of strides.

At this point your mileage seems ok but are you doing easy SOM workouts?

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

My suggestion: know what your goal is, then completely forget about it and focus on your training. It's not difficult to achieve 16:30 on 40mpw, much less 25-30, if you train intelligently. If you run six days, do two work outs, one tempo run of at least 4 miles, one long run, and two days where you either recovery run or do whatever. Throw some hill sprints in there one day. Use a training calculator (Jack Daniel's vdot is the best) and fiddle around with the times he suggests. Push a little faster than sgguested tempo pace some days do interval work outs on a regular basis and up the reps to the point where the pace becomes a physiological reflex. Get to know your body and what it responds, and the results will follow. If you put an intimate relationship with your physiology and learn how to push yourself in the appropriate ways, you'll hit your goals faster than setting a bunch of smaller goals to reach the big one. Plus, it makes running a lot more fun than just meeting objectives and beating other people. Just my two cents. You're also young...if you train well, 16:30 will pale in comparison to times you'll hit down the line.

I was going for sub 4:40 but I kept starting races too fast and towards the end of the season, I accumulated a minor knee injury, so 4:40 will be a goal for this coming year.

Thanks for the response! Basically my week looks like this: Long run on Monday (8-9 miles), 5-6 miles on Tuesday, tempo run on Wednesday (5-6 miles with threshhold pace intervals for 5, 3, and 1 minutes) 5-6 miles on Thursday, 8-9 miles on Friday, Crosstrain or rest on Saturday, 5-6 miles on Sunday. We are still trying to adjust our workouts so that we get at least 2 hard days, sometimes 3, and hit at least 45 miles for the week. We haven't done any track workouts because our track is currently being maintained.

Why is it horrible? The subject of his post was to get under 16:30. he didn't say anything else about goals. i think small increments is more realistic, especially if he's not good enough yet to run 16:30If it was me, i would have a time goal but would be focused with placing. it'd be soemthing like all-conference, state qualifiersectional, or all-state honors. He's not talking about placing, just times. that's all i have to go on.some courses are faster than others, yes, but there's still tons of room for high school kids in that range of talent to improve, especially with his mileagei got faster almost every race of the year, so that's my experience. my mileage was around 30 mpw max, so i'm trying to relatehere's my general recollection of my senior year (2nd season) with 4-5 easy 4 or 5-mile runs per week over the summer:17:4017:1017:0516:38 - hilly, tough course16:08 - fast, flat course16:30 conference - (ran in pack to compete, 5th place, hilly course)16:10 state qualifying16:30 - state meet, very difficult course, 20th place. everyone out in 4:50 first mile

duck runner wrote:

focus on small goals wrote:

GOAL 1 - Get under 17:00

GOAL 2 - get under 16:50.

GOAL 3 - get under 16:40.

I don't have any serious issues with the rest of your post but this part is horrible advice.

There is so much variability in cross country courses that locking yourself into different "goals" can lead to frustration and be debilitating to a runner who feels pressured to meet these time thresholds regardless of how hilly, muddy or rainy a certain course may be.

A better example would be to try to improve his "course record" compared to last year with each race by [x] amount of time.

best be doubling boy

You should never go on purpose for small gains over a distance so taxing as the 5000m.

And what's the matter of going 5:18 pace if the actual pr is 5:33 average? Positive splits are still okay.

To the op: mileage, consistency, healthy habits. That's all you need for sub 16:30.

griffintg wrote:

I'm going into my junior year of high school and am training for my upcoming XC season. What do you think it will take for me to run a sub 16:30 5k? My sophomore PRd was 17:17 for the 5k, 4:48 for the 1600, 2:09 for the 800, and high 54 for the 400. Also, I just started running 40 mpw for the past 2 weeks, raising it from 35. I'm trying to get it around 45-50 before the season starts. All answers are appreciated. Thanks. 👍🏻

If it makes you feel any worse about it I'm going to be a Junior and on the track I've ran 2:04, 4:29, and 9:54. I've 8k'd on the road in a road race in 28:22. My 5k is 16:53. Not saying you can't do it but I haven't yet with those performances.

Don't listen to 4:29 miler. I haven't came close to his track times but I still ran a 15:54 on a course 10 meters short of a 5k. Plus I've done a 5 mile(45 meters longer than an 8k)tempo run in under 29 minutes. The 800 and 1600 almost mean nothing for the 5k. You need to get in some good fartlek and tempo runs in if you want to get better at the 5k in the easiest way