Training for a 9:30 3200

Listen to your coach. You shouldn't even be soliciting other workouts. You will probably not hit 9:30 based on the information provided. 9:50 would be a lofty goal.

Thanks for the input. But not really what I’m looking for. My schools small my coach is good but not for the distance department. He was a sprinter/800m runner. I’ve asked for workouts before and I get a lot of 200 and 400 repeat like workouts as well as lifting with little to no mileage. I’d like to know what you would think I would have to do to even have a shot of obtaining this goal.

Run every morning during xc while your coach controls the workouts and easy days, try and make every week at least 60 mpw, and drop down to 30 - 40 for districts and state. These morning runs should be EASY and make you want to run faster, but dont.

Once XC is over, take 1 week off of structured running (run when you feel like it, but dont time it or anything) and then start back up. This is now your base phase for track

Run this schedule until you have team practice in feb/march:

Mon - 60 min easy

Tues - 90 min easy

Wed - 60 min easy

Thurs - 105 min easy

Fri - 45 min easy

Sat - 120 min easy

Sun - 60 min easy

Do this for AT LEAST 3 weeks. This will get you in shape without the risk of injury. Do 4 strides Mon/Wed/Fri at goal 3200 pace (9:30) for 200m (35 sec) with 3 min rest.

Phase 2 of base phase:

Same as above, with tweaks

Mon - 8x30 sec - 2 min fartlek @ goal 2 mi pace w/ 15 min warm up and cool down and rest until you feel like youre running easy (probably 3 min rest of jogging)

Tues - 90 min easy

Wed - 2 mi Tempo/Time Trial w/ 15 min warm up and cool down (basically go hard, but make sure you could go 10 - 20 sec per mi faster if you had to)

Thurs - 105 min easy

Fri - 45 min EASY w/ 4x100 all out, (4 min rests) afterwards

Sat - 5k tempo/ time trial w/ 15 up and down

Sun - 120 min easy

If you EVER feel beat up, skip the workout and just run the same schedule as weeks 1-3. Strides on Tues like the first 3 weeks.

You can start doubling after the first two weeks of the easy stuff, but dont wait much longer than when you start the hard stuff.

Once the season starts, go 5 mi every morning and listen to your coach, but the workouts don’t matter because you just need anaerobic training at this point and you cant go wrong with this as long as youre “dead” by the end.

If you’d like to email me for more details or any questions, post your email

Not OP, but could I get your email to ask you a few questions?

This is amazing! Thank you so so so much this is awesome!

Runner 2.0 wrote:

Thanks for the input. But not really what I’m looking for. My schools small my coach is good but not for the distance department. He was a sprinter/800m runner. I’ve asked for workouts before and I get a lot of 200 and 400 repeat like workouts as well as lifting with little to no mileage. I’d like to know what you would think I would have to do to even have a shot of obtaining this goal.

well thats pretty much all i did and ended up 9:18 3200. we would do 400's with long rest 1 day and sometimes hill repeats, and rarely 800 repeats. other days we would just go on unsupervised runs at whatever pace we felt like for about 30-60 minutes. no long runs either.

If there are anymore details to the training specific times I should be hitting this cross season or next track season where I should be when I should be or anything else you’d like to input I’d love to hear it! You can email me here csmtty3@gmail.com

Just emailed you

Hayduke wrote:

Runner 2.0 wrote:

Thanks for the input. But not really what I’m looking for. My schools small my coach is good but not for the distance department. He was a sprinter/800m runner. I’ve asked for workouts before and I get a lot of 200 and 400 repeat like workouts as well as lifting with little to no mileage. I’d like to know what you would think I would have to do to even have a shot of obtaining this goal.

well thats pretty much all i did and ended up 9:18 3200. we would do 400's with long rest 1 day and sometimes hill repeats, and rarely 800 repeats. other days we would just go on unsupervised runs at whatever pace we felt like for about 30-60 minutes. no long runs either.

You would’ve gone sub 9 at least with smart training