Basic Training Plan and Weekly Mileage Progression

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You're a sophomore, you don't need to build up a whole lot till next summer for your junior year times to show. Plus it's time for track season, you might as well maintain and sharpen up for the races. Cap it at 45.

For long runs, don't bother with mileage, go for 80 minutes. At your fitness level, that should be somewhere around the 11 mile range. As your fitness improves, hitting 11-11.5 consistently and feeling good will be a good sign. In some later weeks (10-12), you could even hit 12 as part of a steady effort long run. If you choose to do this in a week, then only do 1 workout, and make it something that is not a tempo or progressive run.

Take 1 day off a week, focus on recovering. Workouts can stay roughly the same with your progressive / steady runs. Throw some fartleks in there to mix it up and get some feel for faster work. Try hill repeats, hill sprints, and strides as well. Hill repeats or sprints after tempos, strides on days before workout days. Not before long runs unless it's a steady / progressive long run.

Sample weeks:

- off, 5, 20' tempo (6), 4/4, 5 x 60s on 60s off (6), 4, 11 - 40mi total

- off, 4/4, 25' tempo (7), 4/4, 6, 4, 12 - 45mi total

So why should I keep mileage roughly the same? Through most of the stuff I have read through, people say they improved due to increased mileage. Also thanks for responding, I'm still trying to figure out what to do this winter

Mostly thinking long-term. You've run solid times from the mileage you're currently on, but before pursuing an increase in aerobic base, consistency and improvement in supplemental factors is what makes the biggest push.

For example, I ran 45 miles per week the entirety of my junior and senior year, but improved from a 10:13 3200m to a 9:31 3200m & a 17:49 5K to a 16:43 5K purely by keeping up the same mileage but adjusting intensity. Of course, I was a more developed runner at this point.

On the other hand, track training typically doesn't require as much mileage, as the general intensity of running increases in comparison to cross country, especially at the high school level. So simply going to 45 miles per week is plenty, there's no need to go to 60 this early. Furthermore, I think you could improve enough by keeping consistent and working on doing the little things right this track season, and then take the leap to 60 next summer and see your junior times flourish.

Another reasoning behind this is once I got to college, I saw great benefits jumping from 45 to 60 miles a week. But knowing how I did my sophomore and junior year, I maintained that 60 miles a week through to the collegiate indoor and outdoor track seasons, and continued to see improvement.

In my opinion, doing 12 weeks of consistent 45 miles per week and then maintaining 40-45 through your track season before tapering is going to be better for you right now, and in the long term, than spending the 12 weeks building up to 60 and trying to keep that up during what is inevitably a tougher training period (and sometimes longer).

So I am mainly going to focus on the 3200, and this was just the plan I thought of to get to my peak mileage. The total time I have off until track truly starts is about 22 weeks. Would this change any of the advice you have given? My plan was to get to a peak mileage and just stay at that for a solid 10 weeks before the season starts.

Well, who knows? Some people respond more to mileage and tempo runs, other respond to interval workouts. Maybe you're more of a mileage kind of guy. Only one way to find out, and now is the right time. So try it and see how it goes. Back off the mileage if you feel like you're on the edge, but you might as well try increasing mileage when there's still time for it to do you some good.

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