sub 8.30 - 3.000m (indoor) training

Interesting topic, I'm also aiming for 8:30 not necessarily indoors.

I think that if you don't have at least the ability to run 4:03 or so for the 1500m (so a 4:20 mile pretty much) you're likely hopeless to hold 4:15 twice in a row.

As for the workouts it's what you'd expect from a 4 flat 1500m runner on the endurance side:

8 x 400m in 64'' with 1min

10 x 500m in 1'24'' with 1min

12 x 300m in 46''50 with 1 min

5 x 1000m in 2'55'' with 2 min

A good predictor is:

5 x 800m in 2'16'' with 1'30'' rest

Also I imagine if you can run 3 x 1500m in 4:20/22 with 2 min rest you're golden (never tried it myself).

High mileage and touching 2:40-3:00km pace with short rests in track workouts is the way to go in my opinion.

Source: a 8:56 guy who is also trying to run 8:30.

I ran 8.22 indoors off my winter work for 1500m (ran 3.44 that year). My mileage was less than you are doing and I rarely ran over an hour. However, it looks like my sessions were much more intense. That winter I did lots of long(ish) reps on the road, typically 4x4(2) or 6x3(90'). When I went on the track, recoveries were short. I was doing 10x400 in 63/4 with 45' rest or 8x500 in 80 with 100 walk (used to find this tough). Last session before the race was 10x300 in 45 (60'). Ran a heat in 8.30 on Saturday and then 8.22 on Sunday.

I'm happy that approach worked for you. It's also likely that a 8:10 would have been on the cards when you ran that 3:44 1500m. You probably could also run a 800m in the 1:50/52 range.

Some guys just need to dish out heavy mileage and hope their wheels don't fall off that 68 lap pace somewhere after the first half. Not everything is bad because it opens the door for fast 5/10/halfs in the process.

Regardless of the type of runner, anyone wanting to run a good 3000m race can't run away from 400m and 800m repeats. Those are the most brutal workouts for middle distance but it pays off. Tempos and long runs alone just won't cut it for a 8:30 race. (non elites)

By 4x4 and 3x3 do you mean kilometers?

some workouts i did last year, before running 8'33":

500 in 1.25 (2min jog)

1k in 2.55 (2min30 jog)

2k in 5.53 (3min jog)

500 in 1.20

6x1k with 3' jog (rest) in 3.10, 3.08, 3.02, 2.58, 2.54, 2.47

10x200 with 40" jog + 10x200 with 35" jog + 5x200 with 30" jog . the 200s were ran in 32-33

now it.s pretty early to hit those times, my last race was a half marathon ( 4-5 weeks ago)..

now i.m trying to gradually get my speed back

maybe we keep in touch and i will try some of your workouts later on! :)

Tiggern wrote:

By 4x4 and 3x3 do you mean kilometers?

No minutes (sorry that wasn't clear).

As another poster implied, I was coming at the 3k very much from the shorter end of the spectrum (1.51 800m that summer), so this sort of work might not be very good for a more endurance based runner. I was never able to put together long reps on the track, and did try quite prolonged periods of higher mileage / longer runs, but this simply made me more tired. Personally my acid test of readiness for the 1500/3k was how well I could run 10x400 off 45'