freshie 1600 time

Apparently last post didn't go through. In it I said that our school has a coach but he makes us taper way too much every week.

Sample week:

M: Easy

T: Varsity 1 x 400 "starting" of race pace, 1 x 800 "middle" of race pace, 1 x 400 "end" of race pace, on trails, not a track. Non-varsity off/very easy

W: 2 sets of hills, 10 seconds up, 10 seconds jog back, 20 up, etc., all the way to 70 (only hard day)

T: 30 min easy

F: Day before race preparations (basically 30 min jog)

S: Race

S: Easy/long run

In short, he tapers for EVERY race. So basically no improvement through whole season. My pr was set the first or second race I think.

If I can run on my own, I may do some of the things you described. Thanks for your detailed post.

Didn't see my own post. Coach is a he btw, don't know why I was saying "she".

My pr's aren't great right now because I'm just a sophmore in high school but my prs are as follows. 1600- 4:45 800- 2:10 400- 57 3200- 10:46 and for cross country I ran 3 miles in 17:12 and my 5k pr was 17:45 (I only ran one 5k.)

When I was a freshman my fastest 5k was 17:40 and my 1600 was 4:52 and 800 2:10 and I was only running about 20-30 mpw at max but once our school got a new coach I dropped down to a 16:25 5k and expect to be around a 4:30-4:20 1600 and I've been running around 50 mpw so in the long run that aerobic base makes a huge difference in performance in distance events

Educated 1600/800 guy wrote:

Call me educated.

troll

Good luck I hope it all goes well!

You can run 4 days a week with smart training and ru 4:40's for 1600m. You need to look at what you are doing and enjoy the process.

I ran xc in 7th and 8th but not track. I ran "2 miles" around 11:30-11:50 on courses whose accuracy can't be known. My XC season in 9th was 18:35 and I opened indoor in 5:21 before eventually running 4:40 in the spring. Seems like we were on a similar pace minus your 5k XC time.

Sounds like you're lacking some miles. I think if you bump up the miles a bit and become more consistent you'll see gains and get closer to your 4:45 goal. Get the miles up and focus on the speed work and you can get there.

Here's the state of the union 10 days later:

We had a time trial on Monday, it was an 800. I ran 2:24 (not in spikes) and I was moderately tired, no clue how to pace, etc. W/ spikes and not tired: probably barely sub 2:20. I didn't make the indoor track team, which turns out to be a blessing in disguise because now I can train however I please.

So fast forward to yesterday, there was a meet thingy and I raced the 3200. I had pretty close to even splits, I ran it very well if I do say so myself :). I ended up finishing in 11:32, which I was slightly disappointed with. I had splits of 1:19, 1:26, 1:28, 1:28, 1:31, 1:35, 1:26, 1:18. Mile splits of 5:41 and 5:51. Felt smooth and relaxed the whole way, and was hardly out of breath until lap 6. Oh also it was windy as hell, it was blowing against us like half the time down the homestretch. So I'd say it was worth 11:20.

Anyways, I've been pretty consistent over the past week and tend to up my mileage slowly to get to 30+ over the winter, so I'm definitely listening to you guys :).

A typical week:

M: Hills

T: Recovery run

W: Tempo

T: Recovery run

F: 50 minute run

S: Rest

S: Long run (60 ish mins?)

Any thoughts? Still thinking I'm capably of 4:40-4:45? Sub 4:40? I know that 11:20 doesn't raise hopes too much ^-^

1600/800 guy reviving thread wrote:

I ended up finishing in 11:32 ... So I'd say it was worth 11:20.

moran

Your coach isn't training you like you should be. Here's a typical week that you should do.

M: Mileage day, 45 minutes at a pace that you can hold a conversation

T: Intervals, 8x400 at mile pace 2x800 at same pace each with 90 seconds of rest or 14x200 at 800 pace again with 90 seconds of rest

W: Easy day, 45 minutes at easy pace

T: Intervals, 4x800 at 2 mile pace and 2x1000 at same pace with 90 seconds of rest

F: Easy day, 45 minutes at conversation pace

S: Mileage day, 7:20-8:00 pace for 6-8 miles

S: Rest day

Also, you can do like 3 mile jogs in the mornings or evenings to keep your mileage up if you want and make sure to do strides before each interval workout at after each easy/mileage workout.

Oh, boy. Where to start...

Well, I tried doing this exact week. Here are the interval results (goal was to hit 1:20 or below for all of them):

Tuesday 8x400:

1st: 1:30

2nd: 1:20

3rd: 1:20

4th: 1:23

5th: don't remember, something shit slow

Didn't do 6-8. The 1:30 literally felt like what a 1:10 used to. 1:20s felt like a dead ass sprint. So I ditched the 4s hoping for better results in the 8s.

1st: DNF - no motivation

Yeah. Disheartened, I hopped back over the fence and went home, assuring myself it was a fluke.

Thursday:

Goal was 2:50 each for 8s and 3:30 each for 1k.

1st: 3:10

2nd: 3:04

3rd: 2:59

4th: DNF - got 500m in like 1:52 before losing motivation. Did a 300m to round it out, in 1:02, all out. Didn't even bother w/ the Ks.

Weird things was I felt like that was on pace. My watch disagreed. How could I have gone from 5:17 1600, to a 19:45 5k, then back down to an 11:30 3200m, to this?? Based on those times I couldn't have broken 6 on either day... Whereas my goal for 7 months from now is to do 4 1:10s in a row... This now seems nearly impossible...

Note: I did these all alone at a time of day I'm not used to, not in spikes, and I think I hit a growth spurt, I did feel pretty clumsy. Can't think of any other excuses.

Can you get banned for bumping?

1600/800 guy wrote:

Can you get banned for bumping?

If they didn't ban you for such a lame troll they probably won't ban you for bumping.

1600/800 guy wrote:

Can you get banned for bumping?

moran

again

It's a lot harder when you're by yourself. If you have a team mate that can keep up with you and get a workout from it themselves then invite them to run with you. I would also work on mileage during the off season and when the season gets close then start up on speed.

Increase mileage but don't neglect speed work either.

Oh and be vocal with your coach about your ambitions. Don't follow workouts from guys on letsrun, just explain all of this to your coach and see what he/she says. The worst thing you can do is follow half the stuff you hear on lr and half the stuff your coach gives you.

Exactly what this guy says. You could look at training plans given to you such as the one that I sent you, but have your coach look over them too. He may know more about how you run than everyone on this forum. He may even improve his workouts which would probably make it a lot easier for you to do them and get better. Talk things over with him, discuss everything with him. Good luck.

Sorry, totally forgot to check the thread. i'm kinda faced with a dilemma: my coach doesn't exactly encourage open discussion and i feel like i can't really talk to him. if i went up to them and said "i wanna run 4:40-low this spring" he'd tell me to reset my goals and that would be that. it's really kind of a terrible position because the coach doesn't know what he's doing, won't listen to advice from others, but also the thing is everyone else believes in him so i don't have a training partner. generally not a great team environment. another problem: i don't have access to a track unless i GO TO PRACTICE because it gets dark way too early on school days, and my whole team is there when it's light out, so they'd be like "hey, why didn't you just come to practice?" and i don't want to be like "um, i'm a heretic and will be doing my own training." it's way too cold up here in new york for coming after dark and plus my mom wouldn't let me do that.

so i'm considering actually joining the team so i actually have access to the track and ppl to run with (either way i wouldn't be able to race, that's only for our fastest dudes) but either way i still won't be able to get in good training because i can't just not do what the coach says at practice... officially desperate lmao sorry for the long post

should i just hammer out feeble intervals on the weekends? my goal of