I'm a high school male junior, 16 years old. I'm 6' 0" and about 165-170lbs. Not built, but muscular.
My freshman year off of no training at all I ran 21:20s in the 5k. Did Nordic skiing where I tried hard d and made rapid improvements. In Track I ran 1:04-7 for the 400 (didn't race, relay splits) 2:36 for the 800, 5:47 for the 1600, and 11:56 for the 3200.
Summer in between I ran a total of 90 miles. Just here and there. No consistency. Longest run of 11 miles. All at about 8:30 pace. No cross training. Maybe ran twice a week.
CC was 19:10 for the 5k. Thrilled with results. Wanted more.
Did Nordic skiing and trained hard. Skied on weekends. Made large improvements again.
Track ran 0:59, 2:11, 4:51, 10:51. Consistane training in track. Ran on weekends. Began to understand how to train. Worked really hard. Never had the 3200m race of my dreams, but was decent. Only raced the 800 twice. Surprised with my times and excited. Wanted to be about 17 flat in the 5k, the average time for state qualifiers in our region.
This summer. Ran 500 miles in 10 weeks.
Mileage was:
5 (recovery), 40, 36, 45, 50, 61, 60, 65, 71, 66
Here's an example of my 61 mile week. About average for how I trained all summer:
S: 10.5 mile run 1:25:30
M: 1 hour of strength (w/Nordic ski coach. Former Olympian in biathlon) +10 mile run, 1:18:00 (treadmill)
T: 2 hour roller ski w/intervals on a large hill, 10 mile run 1:28:35
W: 10 miles 1:29:17
T: 30 minute of strength, then 3.6 miles of ski walk/run up hills, 7 mile run about 1:00:00 (normal Thursday included ski bounding up an alpine ski run with strength. This day was easier)
F: 8.8+1.2 miles 1:30:26
S: 7+3 miles 1:31:07
My coach is a high mileage coach. He told us not to worry too much about pace. Just to go out and run. Which is what I did.
Took a lower mileage week to recover. (About 25)
Then inseason average about 40mpw. We do two workouts a week. Such a Kilometer repeats. (3:30x5) and hill.
First race: 17:51 (possibly slightly short course) went out too fast
Second race: 17:53, first mile was flat and fast 5:18, then a large hill twice to a down hill finish.
Had pain in my IT band after this race. Took several easy days before my 3rd race.
Third race: 18:45, muddy, 5:25 first mile. Times were slow across my team.
Got sick after this race. Forced to take 3 days off.
Came back to practice. Was sick for on race. Then normal practice for a week. Then my It band started to hurt again. I roller skied for 2 days then an easy day leading up my fifth race.
Fifth race: hilly, hard course. 19:13. Went out conservative at 6:05 but still felt tired.
I know I can preform better and get back to the 17:50s.
Is my performance about right with my training? What can I improve on for next summer?
Am I just not a Long distance runner?
Any tips or (polite) critiques appreciated.
I know I will see improvement for track after skiing. I'm a good skier and hope to be top 50 in the state.