How long will it take to become mediocre: a training log

Just wanted to congratulate you on your PR in the 3200. Also wanted to say how impressed I am with your humility. You keep working and good things will keep happening. Besides, it’s fun to get outside and use the body God have you to move and run fast. God bless, Romans 15:13.

First of all, thanks for the support!

Next, After (almost) a week off, I am running a road 5k tomorrow.

What time should I go for? The course is flat, but there will be a 17 MPH headwind for the first half of the race before we turn back

Week of 5/6-5/12

Sun-thu: rest

Fri: 2 miles moderate (7:30)+1x400 @ goal 5k pace (86)

Sat: 3 mile warm/cool, 5k race (tempo effort) in 19:33

No running next week, the 5k was so windy that after the first mile (5:30, way too fast) I dropped to a tempo effort.

Week of 5/13-5/19-No running

Now that Next week is the start of my base building phase, it is time for my lengthy self-evaluation and setting of my goals for this upcoming XC season.

Incoming Junior; 16 y.o., 5'8 133lbs.

PR's:

800: 2:18

1600: 5:02

3200: 11:11

3-mile (XC): 18:20

5000 (road): 19:11

5k (XC): 19:19

This XC season we will have one 4k, several 5ks, and one 3-mile race. My goals for the XC season are:

4k: 14:15 (5:44 pace)

5k: 17:40 (at chile pepper festival or state)

3-mile (flat conference meet): 16:59

Now I know this appears to be a MAJOR jump from my 19:19/18:20 from last season, but keep in mind last season I missed out on the final 6 weeks of base training due to an injury and I feel that this had a major impact on my last season. This summer I intend to reach 60 miles in a few weeks, but to average around 50 MPW, maybe a little more depending on how much time I have available to double.

Most of my weeks will look like this:

Sun: Long Run (alternate pace weekly from easy to moderate)

Mon: easy run

Tue: AM aerobic-paced repeats (ex. 7x1 mile, 4x1.5 mile, 10x800), PM: easy run

Wed: AM easy run

Thu: Moderate run/ fartlek

Fri: AM moderate run, PM easy run

Sat: XT, weights and bike usually, may learn how to swim as well

Things will be very hard to balance for me, as we have a team XC "camp" (has to be called that so we can legally train as a team)

as well as a job (I am trying for 40 hours/week so I can buy a car and pay insurance) and a college degree program running Monday through Thursday that will severely impact the number of team practices I can attend. I will try my best to post on Saturdays but I will not promise anything and a majority of my posts may be on Sundays.

This season will hopefully be good from a team standpoint as our top 4 runners are returning, and our only goal is to qualify for state (last year we missed by 21 points due to one of our top 3 runners had a bad reaction to the heat and dehydration, and ran ~1:30 slower than he had ran on the same course earlier in the year.

Week of 5/20-5/26

Sun: 4 miles moderate (7:35)

Mon: rest

Tue: 2.25 miles moderate (7:15)

Wed: Rest

Thu: 1.5 miles easy (8:15)+ .25 mile w/4 hurdles @ goal steeple pace (1:26)

Fri: Rest

Sat: 5 mile 'long run' planned (8:00)

Total: 13

Basically a week of starting to run again with moderate runs to just get me into it. The hurdle run was just to see if I am capable of sustaining a pace while hurdling as my coach refused to teach me how to hurdle for steeplechase. There is only 1 meet in my state this year with steeplechase and It is midsummer so I will probably just do one track tempo a week with a portion of it over hurdles (ex. 5x1200 w/ #'s 3&5 over hurdles). Next week I am just going for 25 miles at mostly an easy pace.

Keep up the work dude, you're gonna kill it next season.

Week of 5/27-6/2

Sun: Rest

Mon: 5 miles easy (7:40)

Tue: Rest

Wed: 5.25 miles moderate (7:20)

Thu: 4 miles easy (8:15)

Fri: 1 mile (200off/200on), lot of biking (dont know exact distance)

Sat: 5 miles moderate (7:25)

Total: 20.25

Good week, still progressing in mileage and doing a lot of biking to supplement the mileage. Friday's mini-workout was just to get a touch on speed and work on form, averaged ~35 seconds for the 200 "on" section.

I need to work on my upper body in races, I watched a video f me racing a 1600 and I just look uncomfortably tight in the upper body. Any advice?

Thanks

I think it can be hard to learn to relax the body while racing. The best advice I can give is to constantly think about relaxing during your runs. All runs. Your easy runs, your intervals, your 200m strides, and your races. If you feel things (any things, arms, hips, fists, neck, etc.) getting tight, just keep cruising and think about relaxing that part of your body while you run. And remember the goal is to run fast, not hard.

Good work getting out there early in the summer. Have fun and keep piling the miles on.

Week of 6/3-6/9

Sun: rest

Mon:rest

Tue: 1.5 mi warm/cool, 1600 w/400m rest+2x800w/2 min rest+2x200 w/30 sec rest (6:23, 3:17, 3:06, 35, 33)

Wed: 5 miles easy (7:45)

Thu: 5 miles moderate (7:28)

Fri: 6 mile progression (7:33, 7:42, 7:30, 7:20, 7:06, 6:58)

Sat: 7 miles easy (7:50)

Total: 27 miles + 70 miles bike

This was my first week incorporating some tempo effort in my training and it went well despite the 95-degree heat I have been training in.

School and work are requiring me to use my bike as means of transportation and I think that this is causing my legs to feel a bit tired as of now, hopefully they begin to adjust before I hit my higher mileage portion of the summer (I am trying to hit 60 miles in at least two weeks of the summer).

Week of 6/10-6/16

Sun: 4 miles recovery (8:15)

Mon: Rest

Tue: AM: 7 miles moderate (7:22)

PM: 4.5 miles moderate (7:30)

Wed: 4.5 miles easy (7:45)

Thu: Rest

Fri: 2.2 miles warm/cool, 2x .6 miles on hilly course @ 5k effort w/ .6 mile rest at paces of (6:03, 5:52)

Sat: 6 miles moderate (7:20)

Total: 30 miles

Decent week, actually. I am still working on getting acclimated to the heat, but other than that I feel strong so far. I probably will dial back the number of moderate efforts in order to avoid burnout as well as start limiting my rest days to once a week beginning next week. Team XC practices begin next week

I have some advice. If you want to beat the heat and avoid summer burnout, do your runs in the morning. I usually get up between 4:30 and 6:00 A.M. I drink coffee, eat breakfast, and am out the door for my run by 7:30. At that time of day, it's usually 20 or more degrees cooler than in the afternoon. I like following this thread because our PRs (and goals) are similar.

Sub5Hopeful wrote:

I have some advice. If you want to beat the heat and avoid summer burnout, do your runs in the morning. I usually get up between 4:30 and 6:00 A.M. I drink coffee, eat breakfast, and am out the door for my run by 7:30. At that time of day, it's usually 20 or more degrees cooler than in the afternoon. I like following this thread because our PRs (and goals) are similar.

First of all, it's nice to have another person following this thread and good luck with your personal goals!

Secondly, I am training in the heat in order to acclimate myself to the heat for XC season, as our practices are mostly in the afternoon, which will be an annoyance come August. The 'burnout' I was referencing was not due to heat, but more due to overtraining at a moderate pace which I believe contributed to my getting injured last season.

Thank you for your input, and good luck with your senior season!

It still might be beneficial to do something like. 20 minute shakeout run in the mornings when it’s cool.

Even just two extra miles every morning adds 14 miles a week to your total

Sorry, I wasn't very clear. I meant that training in the heat could contribute to burnout in the sense that you are working a lot harder during workouts because your body has to expend extra energy cooling you off. This could, I believe, leave you unneccesarily tired and perhaps even overtrained. I understand your wish to acclimate to the heat, however. My coach had a similar philosophy last year, but I believe that all the heat training we did harmed me rather than helped me in the long run.

Week of 6/17-6/23

Sun: Rest

Mon: Rest

Tue: 7 miles easy (7:45)

Wed: 1 mile warm/cool, 6x1k at an aerobic effort w/ 2 min rest (4:10, 3:59, 3:48, 3:40, 3:50, 3:46)

Thu: 4 miles moderate progression (avg 7:27)

Fri: 2 miles warm/cool, 4x200 w/200m recovery (33, 34, 32, 33)

Sat: 7 miles continuous w/ 5 miles at 8:00 pace, last 2 miles in 7:25, 6:48.

Total: 25.7 miles.

Low mileage week with the beginning of XC camp for my team. The 6x1k workout was a decent workout and I could have run the last two reps faster, but one of the runners in my group was struggling and I stayed behind in order to keep someone pushing him.

This year looks promising for us as our top 4 runners are returning and we have a transfer who could've potentially cracked our top 3 last season. Top 7 XC 5k PR's (rounded times to protect identities) are:

16:20 sr

16:40 sr

17:30 so

17:35 so (transfer, cant confirm time but have found a similar result)

18:45 jr

19:19 jr (woo)

19:25 fr (incoming freshman, unconfirmed if actual PR)

SO, clearly we are weak on the back end of the team but I believe most of us have some major room for improvement and we could potentially do well at state this season.

Next week will have my first 'real' long run, as well as somewhat higher mileage than I have been doing.

why are you only running 20-30 mpw

stop wrote:

why are you only running 20-30 mpw

slow buildup, biking 70+ MPW, etc.

These are just excuses, 'real' mileage will come eventually

Week of 6/24-6/30

Sun: rest

Mon: 4 miles moderate (7:21)

Tue: 6 miles easy (7:45)

Wed: 5.6 miles warm/cool, 1.25 mile TT on XC course @5k effort in (7:29).

Thu: 8x1k moderate w/60 sec rest (5:10-4:19)+ 6x100m sprints

Fri: 3.4 mile warm/cool + 4x200m w/ 200m jog rest. (32, 33, 33, 32)

Sat: 9 mile long run (7:38)

Total: 35.25

This week was pretty good with my first long run effort and a bit less biking than average (~50 miles this week).

I am trying this season to develop my top end speed and I found an idea which I will be implementing with the 4x200 w/decent rest. These 200's are fast but relaxed, and hopefully will get faster as the summer drags on. I have been considering doing 3x400 w/5 minute jog rest later on in the season to develop a more "extended" kick but figured I would run the idea by yall first. I am running our city's firecracker 5k this July 4th and hopefully I beat my time from last year when I was injured (19:11).

Side note, I HATE these dang flying ants down here and they take forever to get out of my hair (Trying to get an Engels-style Mullett this fall).

Week of 7/1-7/7

Sun: rest

Mon: .5 mile warm, 5 miles moderate (7:30)

Tue: rest

Wed: Race Day 1 mile warm/cool, 5k race in (18:55)

PM: 3 miles recovery (8:20)

Thu: 5 miles easy (7:45), 6x100m sprints

Fri: 4 miles moderate (7:20)

Sat: 8 miles moderate (7:35)

PM: 4 miles slow (8:15)

Total: 34 miles

Not a whole lotta action this week with exception of the race.

Coach had us run a low mileage week in preparation for a higher mileage week next week. I will probably begin taking only one rest day per week as of now. Maybe I will hit my goal of a 50 mile week near the end of this month.

The race was pretty fun and mostly a focus on form. It was fairly hilly but other than that conditions were perfect and I am overall extremely pleased with my new road PR (albeit still very sore).