So last year during track I finished my season with a mile PR of 5:02. This year during xc I put in a ton of work in the offseason, but guys who I assumed haven’t worked as hard as me who had the same PRs as me and exact same fitness as me during track when I ran the 5:02 had better PRs than me this year in xc.
One who ran a 5:01 in track last year ran a 16:04 while another who’s PR was 5:06 ran a 16:32. Me on the other hand finished the season with a 17:07 for 3 miles.
I was having great workouts an everything was going great until the week after I hit my peak mileage and felt terrible. I was struggling with a hip flexor injury and felt sluggish on all my runs throughout most of the month of August. I found it harder to breathe at my normal easy pace and my legs felt dead on all my runs. I watched those 2 guys who I’ve been beating in workouts all summer gradually start to beat me in workouts. It seems like they got much better in August while I got worse.
Once the season started and we began racing I began to feel better. With lower mileage and more intensity and races I began feeling the runner I always had been once again and had a huge improvement from the beginning of the season to the end (17:54 to 17:07). I also noticed that as the weather got colder I began to run so much faster and was feeling more energized. Now the season is over and we had a post season mile time trial where I ran a 5:08 but I was sick that day and hadn’t recovered from my recent races.
What can I change about my training this winter so I can break 5 minutes in the mile and maybe even break 4:50. Should I go back to the same mileage I did but make much easy runs slower? For reference last year while training for track I peaked at 40 miles but average in between 34-38 miles per week. This year for cross country I peaked at 50 miles but averaged in between 38-48 miles per week.