sub 4:10 runners (or close) what did your workout plan look like?

I went sub 4:10 in high school. Did around 35-45 miles per week in season. ~50 per week in the winter. Track workouts 3x a week in season.

Examples I remember

8x400 60 rest @ 61/2

5x300 2:00 rest @ 41

4-8-12-12-8-4 @ idk

5x800 1:30 rest @ 2:16

3 mile tempo @ 16:30

8x400 10% hill @don't die at the end

Winter was lots of base mileage, and my coach always had us do a nice progression. December was hill sprints, strides, and marathon paced runs which he called sub threshold. Long run every other weekend.

After that we’d keep the marathon paced runs and add in 200-300m Hills, like 5 to start then working up to 9-10. Strides continued. We’d try to do some sort of short alactic sprint once every two weeks at least. Long run most weekend at this point. We usually worked out in Tuesday and Friday and ran long on Sunday.

The next phase was late January/ early February. 20 Min Tempo runs or cruise intervals, and the hills would become 150s or 200s on the track of field if it was clear (Ohio winter). Typical was starting with like 6-8x200 and building up to 16 in sets of 4. We’d also start some indoor meets at this time. I recall every now and again instead of doing the 12-16 200s at like current mile pace, we’d sometimes do 6-8x150 at what would be like goal 800 pace ora around there with good jogging rest. This was for 800-3200 groups, all the same. Sometimes we’d replace a Tempo or sub threshold run with intervals, like 12x400, 6x800, 4x1000 at around 5k pace, or ladders, 2,4,6,8,6,4,2. Never more than 2 main workouts in a week.

Once we got to outdoors, intervals were common in March, along with race specific work for your event. A typical week was maybe:

M: 6 Miles + 8x100 strides (800 pace)

T: 6-8x800 at I pace

W: easy run + strides

T: medium run + 4-5 short hill sprints

F: Reps like 200s,300s,400s. Race specific work

S: long run or rest

S: Rest

Then racing started in late March early April.

We did a few dual meets on Tuesdays. Usually I’d run the 4x8,400,800,4x4 for a fast workout. I’d run maybe like 90% on these, as instructed.

Then the next day I’d come back with Tempo reps like 6x1000 or 4x1600 at threshold. Then two easy days before a big invite on Saturday. Continue with long runs every other weekend, or just rest if feeling bad.

As we got near the end, it was race specific work and tempo type work, as our coach said we needed to “top off the gas tank” heading into the post season. Then it turned into one workout a week and a big race. We’d usualy finish a lot of workouts with a fast rep, especially early on before the racing began. Our coach didn’t believe in dedicating a whole day to sprint work, so we just added it on after something else in small doses.

I went 4:09, low 150s and sub 9 that year.

The only different guys would have been the pure 800/400 guys who didn’t really ever do more than like 800s for strength and did way more 150s,200s, and that hard anaerobic stuff, and of course more sprint work.

Looking back, it was a basic Daniels plan with a longer build up with the marathon paced stuff in the winter. I remember the pace charts and stuff but didn’t realize it at the time.