freshie 1600 time

You have some talent kid, you need to be running 2x - 3x as much mileage.

thanks, i will definitely try to incorporate that this winter... any specific workouts/tips? i'm dedicated but i'm certainly not gung-ho

You mentioned you are more suited to shorter distances. What are your 100-400 capabilities? If exceptional, it would be a shame to waste fast-twitch fiber capabilities on predominantly slow-twitch, high mileage training. If not, I agree that higher mileage, with inclusion of some interval/speed sessions, would be in order.

i ran a 13.7 ish for 100 in practice for fun... i'd guess for a 400 around 60-62... definitely not outstanding. i think my sweet spot is 800, maybe 1600. not sure though

Yes it is definitely possible. I hit those freshman times and that was my first year of running ever...and judging from your 8th grade mile and mileage before I think if you have good training it can happen

Oh boy. This is gonna be fun. You have some serious talent. During cross country you really need to raise that mileage. Here's my story. In 8th grade my mile went from 6:20 to 5:40. Nothing outstanding but it was decent. Some other kids my age ran 5:20's. Cross country came and I ran a 19:00 5k. The other two guys my age ran low 18's. Indoor track came and I ran 5:40 at the beginning and ended at about 5:20. I wasn't good but I was decent. Outdoor track came in and I immediately popped a 5:04 with the other two guys right ahead of me. I ended that season with them too. I ran 4:45, another ran 4:46 (he gets a lot better with more distance too btw.), and the other guy ran 4:38 (he's built perfectly for the 800 and 1600.) One reason I could stick with them was because I worked a lot harder at practice and ran 2 miles home uphill after practice every day for a few weeks. Work hard and run on your own a lot but not to the extent that you get injured. I think you could potentially run sub 4:40 if you really want it and your 800 should be about 2:05 by the end of the season. Good luck.

Hey, thanks for these encouraging responses! Really good information. Jayordon, you seem to have made some massive jumps really quickly... I know you said you worked hard in practice and ran after practice, and I don't wanna press you for a day-to-day plan, but any other general ideas? I know I need more mileage and consistency, too.

But one other thing though, I was kind of worried how I've been going backwards, running a 5:23 and then three weeks later 5:29 this season, while every other freshman PRed at least once (some only ran once).

Once again, thank you guys for your responses. If interested, I'll keep this thread updated through this year and maybe future years if interested :)

Oh also I'm taking a week off now, maybe I've just been going too long w/out a break.

Breaks after seasons are a great idea. No more than two weeks though. Most of what I did was just whatever my coach told me to do. He really knows what he's doing (he was all-american in college). But he had us do intervals probably 3 times a week. A lot of the time it was 8-12 400's at target mile pace. I was running like 75's at the beginning of the season and by the end was going for 70's. Also added in some 800's to replace a few once a week. Like 2 800's at target mile pace and then 4 400's. Also had us do some at 2 mile pace sometimes. There was one workout with 22 200's at 800 pace. After practice I just ran 2 miles uphill to my house. I probably would've been better off running just 3 miles at an easy pace every day or two. Run 5 or 6 miles on saturdays as well.

Sounds good. I may start a new thread in a couple of months or keep this one alive to update y'all. But any ideas as to why I got slower? Don't mean to pester I'm just a paranoid person in general ^_^

15 miles isn't enough to do much improvement wise by the time you get to highschool so you may have just stopped growing. As you grow you'll improve naturally but when you stop its hard to improve much without training very hard (you were within 5 seconds the 3 weeks later so don't worry about that... but why are you doing mile time trials during cross country season?)

You may have not had the right preparations. Also, you might not have been used to pacing yourself for the mile if you hadn't run it in a couple of weeks or more. Those are the two biggest things I can think of but with it only being like 6 seconds difference, I wouldn't worry about it.

at 15-20 mpw you do need to increase mileage. Not because increasing mileage is how you get better, but mileage will need to go up in order to actually hit the systems that need to be trained.

In very broad and non-scientific terms. Most weeks should have a: longer run (based on what your avg distance + ~2 miles), an aerobic run (faster tempo run), and interval speed day. Everything in between is filler based on the type of runner you are. More slow twitch longer distance runner can fill other days with mileage. Faster twitch runners can fill those days with, a day off, a short slow run day, and a short normal run day.

The thread may be dead, but in case you check again Jayordon, out of curiosity what were your hs prs? If you don't want to share them, that's fine, but it would be cool to have something to compare improvement with. Just a thought. And thanks every1 else for other responses

moran

obvious 0/10

horrible effort

Lmao you actually think this is a troll?

1600/800 guy wrote:

Lmao you actually think this is a troll?

0/10

no "freshie" writes and thinks like your post

Ok mate first of all you need to listen to your coach. But if you don't have one or you coach isnt sure you can follow the advice below.I coach overseas and had a 15 year old freshman run 4:04 for 1500m last year and a 16 year old female run 4:32 (she has only been running for 1 year). They are both highly talented. I just had this past week a 14 year old boy run 9:50 for 3k and another 14 year old run 2:09/4:32 1500m.

12-15 miles per week is fine for an 8th grader but the above boy ran that time off about 20-25 miles per week with swimming and cycling sessions. The female ran that time on 4-5 runs per week on similar running volume.

What is the secret? Nothing really new just consistency and smart training.

Program they follow: Preparing for track season

Monday Hill repeats will generally have threshold effort before repeats

session 1 10-12x 8 second hill sprint (steep)

session 2 8-10x 100m hill

session 3 2x5x 30 second hill

session 4 6-8 x 300m hill

Repeat if necessary add a few more efforts or better yet increase time of threshold

Tuesday Off

Wednesday 30-40 minute run

Thursday Fartlek on grass

sample session 1 4x4min run as 1 min at 3k pace 1 min at relaxed but not jogging pace 2 minutes btw efforts

Friday easy 30 minute run

Saturday 40-50 minute run over a hilly course where pace starts out slow and gets faster

Sunday Go ride your bike/swim

Track season

Monday track session multi paced efforts run at 3k/1600m/800m pace.

Sample session my training group did 2 weeks ago

3x800 at 3k pace with 2 minutes recovery

3x400 at 1500m pace with 90 seconds recovery

3x200 at 800m pace with 45 seconds recovery

Thursday stays the same fartlek and longer efforts 5x3minutes with 90 seconds recovery is a favourite but always on grass.

Saturday stays the same 45-50 minutes

Other days remain the same

I would recommend you run 400's during your track season running 4x400 is good

My athletes recently started their season by running a 400m race after a morning run of 8-10k.

Good luck and enjoy the journey. The results will come!

Call me educated.