Can't get under 7 for the mile

yeah we do do 400 repeats, the rest varies though but typically its like 90s and i can maintain 1:45. im going to try to build my mileage up like you suggest. hoping i can get up to 25 miles a week before track starts again (hoping it actually does)

SarahM wrote:

ok first i only use this site every few months. and i just looked into david, im not as slow as he is at least relative to those of my gender. the female equivalent of him would have trouble breaking 9 mins so dont be rudddde

Please, for the love of god, run a mile trial soon and break 6:50. Please.

Oh, and don't forget to post about it on Letsrun of course, might even be worth starting a thread about. That way there's no chance he'll miss it.

Okay ill try to be helpful here. I myself used to be somewhat of a decent runner in my youth. Here goes............... In addition to your daily runs save one or possibly two days out of the week to work on speed. Maybe one day focus on 50s or 100s and the other day try 8x200m at 40sec per rep. I mean this should be easy stuff.

SarahM wrote:

I've done track for 3 years now, and can't get under 7 minutes for the mile. I'm female with really short legs, however I'm not overweight (5' 4" and 107 lbs). I train really hard, but can't seem to do it. Is it possible that there are some people that are this bad at running? I feel like I must be in the bottom 1% of runners based on natural ability. Ugh. Any suggestions?

I will bite.

focus on speedwork. When I used to train for xc we would do stuff from 100m repeats to 200m repeats. We were able to run within 5 seconds of out mile times any time of the season.

If you want to break 7 do workouts like 8 x 400 @ 6 flat pace(90s) with 2 min rest in between.

or 12 x 100 with continuous 100m jogs in between each one. to not break 7 means you lack speed in my eyes without knowing your workouts

Just ignore the rude comments here. There has been some good advice given already. In general I think increasing your mileage (gradually) to 30-35 mpw will help a lot. Keep easy runs very comfortable pace, and do a long run on the weekend (try to get that to 8-10 miles). More miles and a good weekly long run, all at easy pace, and you'll have the endurance to go well under 7 min. Good luck!

Lmao ok I will

Run more and do xc. You need at least double the mileage you are doing. Add another 20-30 easy miles a week on your own. This can be at home after practice, before school, in the evening, doesn't matter. This should be structured as 4-6 instances a week of you running outside of practice at an easy pace mostly with a little bit at tempo pace every now and then when you feel good, doesn't matter exactly the pace, whatever feels easy, but that you'd eventually get tired if you ran at it all day.

Mile is a distance event - at least when you are starting out. You need a bigger base. You should be running more in the off-season than in season.

It would help to do XC. Of course, that might not be possible now, but start building up your offseason mileage. In particular the last 8-10 weeks before track starts.

Get up to 20 miles a week now (build up over the next month or so). Try to increase it to around 30-35 by next track season. Build slowly. Don't over do it. If you get tired back off. Try to build up to a long run of 45-60 minutes. Do some longer tempos in the offseason - 20-25 minutes at a moderate pace - not racing them, but faster than easy.

Keep doing strides. Keep in touch with your speed.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with low-mileage, high intensity during the season. As long as you've built the base before hand it's probably better.

1. If you can run 7:06, I'm very confident you can trim 6 seconds off.

2. To echo everyone else, you need to run more. Increase your overall mileage. 15 miles per week just isn't enough...a lot of people do that in one weekend long run.

Shoot for 30/week...very possible with 4-5 miles/day on weekdays and 8/10 on weekends. Give yourself a couple weeks to build up to this and a rest day or two in there to avoid injury as you increase mileage.

Taking this thread in good faith, you just need to run more. Focusing on tempos and intervals when you're running 15 miles a week is putting the cart in front of the horse. Run as much as your coach will let you and if your coach won't let you run more, then I'd recommend doubling and sneaking miles in. Work up to 30-35 miles a week and I'd be shocked if you didn't run well under 7

Being short is a huge advantage for a distance runners. Take a look at the kenyan women!

Base mileage is key. It needs to be slow and consistent.

I really think this is all you need.

You got as fast as you can on as little mileage as possible. Now it's time to move up. i give it 6 weeks and you've got this.

High school guy here.

5’4 107 seems a little skinny honestly. Do you get injured often? Putting on like 5 pounds of muscle might help.

When i was like 5’6 115 i performed MUCH better than when I was 5’5 95 a few months earlier that year (8th grade).

How do you train? What does a normal week look like?

I can't believe there are still people out there that believe in low mileage/high intensity for their distance runners. It works for such a small percentage of runners that you'd just have to have your head in the sand to implement that for your whole team.

If I were you, I would run cross country to stay in shape, have teammates to push you, and improve during the off-season. Regardless of that, I would run base mileage as following:

Sunday- 2 miles

Monday- 3 miles

Tuesday- 2 1/2 mile tempo run, 1 mile cool down

Wednesday- 4 miles

Thursday- 3 miles

Friday- 6 miles

Saturday- 2 miles

Total: 23 1/2 miles

This is, of course, once you are in shape, and I would increase mileage every week. Keep your easy runs easy, make sure to fuel right, etc. Once you are done with your base mileage phase, I would run each week something like this.

Sunday- 2 miles with striders

Monday- 10 x 400 @ 1600 m pace (1:45) or 4 mile tempo run

Tuesday- 4 miles

Wednesday- 4 mile run, pick up last mile

Thursday- 3 miles (pre meet day) with striders

Friday- Race day, 1 mile warm up, 1 mile cool down

Saturday- 7 mile long run

Total: 28 - 29 1/2 miles

Hope this helps, keep us updated!

The basic principle that applies here is, "Endurance comes before speed."

What that means is, first you have to build up your endurance. Then you can use that strong base of endurance to work on your speed.

But endurance comes first. So you have to run more miles to build that endurance base. As everyone else here is also saying. I just thought I'd explain the principle behind that.

You can run a lot of miles on your own. At any speed. Slow is fine. 10:00 mile pace is fine for base-building miles if you are a girl.

Then just show up for the regular track workouts with the other girls, and as time passes, you will find yourself getting faster. Not because of the track workouts, but because of your extra mileage that you are running on your own.

Just don't increase your mileage too fast, to avoid injury. I am sure you have heard not to increase mileage by more than 10% per week. Your cardiovascular system and muscles will be telling you, "I can run more!" But your joints and connective tissue need more time to adjust to increased mileage. So build your mileage slowly, keep a log, and as time passes you will get stronger and faster. There is no magic or secret sauce. It takes time and sustained intelligent effort.

No! Not this! SarahM said she does only 15 miles per week of running. Forget about speed work. The interval and tempo days with the team will be plenty of speed. She needs to build a base. No competitive runner can expect to run anywhere near their best without getting to at least 30 miles per week. And by their senior year most will be >50 miles per week.

Don't do any speed work except for your sessions with your coach. On every other day go for easy runs. Probably 10 min/mile pace or slower for you right now. You should have one per week of at least 40 minutes, and the rest can all be 30 minutes. By the end of the year you want to be up to 1 hour for the long run and the rest at 45 min. Next year you should build up to 1:30 long runs and 1 hr easy runs. If you get there without getting injured, I guarantee you, you will not only break 7, you will probably break 6:30 and be one of the faster girls on the team.

Danny Kenny Gebby wrote:

Just ignore the rude comments here.

No. Don’t ignore the rude comments here. It’s literally what Letsrun is best known for.

perhaps it's time for you to get a new coach. your coach says he believes in low mileage/high intensity but 20 miles per week is way too low; even for his ideology. the fastest milers in the world run about 70-100 miles per week, but the point of diminishing returns is at about 50 miles per week, so you should aim for 50 miles per week and this would still be considered low mileage. as for the mile, you should aim for a race pace workout of 6x400m with equal recovery or 16x200m with equal recovery. for speed workouts, you should do hill sprints that last about 30-60 seconds with 3-4 minute rest so that you can do the next rep at maximum effort

Out of curiosity in running your 7:06 PR is your limit in your legs in not being able to turn over and/or achieve bigger strides? I remember I had kids like that at my high school, they had great cardio but they just couldn't stride like me and I could always beat them at shorter distances.