HWBTWTDWH Training Log

So you did 8 runs this week, and only one of them looks to me like it was designed to make you a faster runner. I think you really need to question why you are lacing up and getting out the door each day.

Ask yourself: "What are my running goals for the next 4-6 weeks?" "What are my running goals for the next 5-10 days?" "Is what I am doing today setting me up to reach those goals?"

When I look at your training, I don't know what the goal is? Maybe you are trying to get to a point where you can run 50 miles a week at 9:00/mile pace?

Building an aerobic base. I'm not sure if I'm doing this right, any ideas?

Sorry to keep answering your questions with questions, but what does "building an aerobic base" mean to you?

When I am training, and I am focusing on my base, I usually consider it "built" when I can run around 90 minutes at a time and maintain a pretty relaxed heart rate (under 150bpm for me). I don't measure my heartrate, but I have also been running long enough to be able to judge my effort pretty closely.

So when I'm base building, one of my aerobic goals is getting to that fitness. I design my runs to get to that point.

I'm working on increasing my mileage and thereby trying to increase my aerobic capacity. Over the next 2-3 months, I would like to build up to 60, with at least a 10-12 miler. This should be about 90 minutes or longer.

hi md. you seem to have the issue I have! Freshie year I was dropping 25+ 5K times my first few races but had very low mileage. Finished my season around the 21 minute mark, huge improvement from upping the mileage. Sophomore year I started doing tempos and BOY did that make a difference, went from 21:30 shape to 19:08 at my last race. Pretty good right? No, I was not satisfied. Track season rolls along, I get my mile below 6 with heavy training, almost 30 mpw (or at least i thought that was heavy at the time) Lots of tempos and speedwork. I up it even more before the fall XC szn of my Junior year, and my PR dropped below 19, and 18, and before I knew it, my new 5K pr was 17:24. Never thought I would break 20 my freshman year, much less get down to 17:30. Was I done? Nope. Track season rolls around again, with 50 mpw over the winter now. 4:55 mile down! Finally broke five. Last meet edged down to 4:43. And now I'm here, working my mile time bit by bit. Hoping to be sub 4:30 by the end of the season, and sub 16:00 5k by XC season. Moral of the story is, I didn't have natural talent, and I didn't improve quick. But I worked and worked and worked even when I didnt want to. Keep upping your MPW, do HARDER tempos, do HARDER intervals. You WILL get there. Consistency is key. My end goal of running is to break 4 in the mile. Can I do it? Everybody I know says no, but I will up my mileage and go harder until it happens.

Thanks for taking the time to write a detailed response. Appreciate the kind words and motivation. Good luck with your goals and keep me updated.

When you say "HARDER tempos... HARDER intervals," what do you mean by that (apart from obviously running at a harder effort)? I want to make sure that I don't get injured and don't burn out. Right now, I'm trying to base my training off Summer of Malmo, which recommends easy and more relaxed workouts to avoid burning out. Should I be running these harder? Also, I'm just curious: what kind of mileage are you doing or plan to be doing to break 16 in the 5K?

Another thing that's kind of funny, I was recently thinking about my lifetime running goals. I thought about a sub 4 mile and a sub 14 5K. Those seem completely out of reach and impossible right now, but who knows? Maybe, just maybe, it might happen (that's a big might). I know hard work and consistency will pay off in the end, but I'm not sure if I'll be that fast :)

At some point you have to do intervals at what one would consider a fast pace.

There is also no need for you to rest 4 weeks. Keep running but instead take a rest day whenever you feel like it.

There are way too many people here who don't realize that 9:00 mile pace means different things to different people. I was a freshman running > 20 minutes per 5k and had similar goals to you, just a little bit more running background at the time. I consistently trained until I was sub 5 and sub 17 and the team captain. The truth is I'm not very talented either. I have had 8 teammates so far train with me everyday for a few seasons, and they are all faster than me now, but I couldn't be happier. I give them the gift of DIII running options, we are all great friends, and we won an xc state championship together. My advice is not to overthink things. I always run best when I only think about running when I am working on running. Do workouts hard, recovery runs long and easy, listen to your body not your watch, and you will be fine.

It is good not to run workouts too hard, but you might want to get closer to your limits. At some point, in order to run 6:00 pace for a 5k, you have to run 6:00 pace. Right now, you aren't getting close to that.

Thanks for the advice, I might try speeding up some workouts.

Thanks for your input. I agree that I might need to start running faster for workouts, but since technically I have three months until summer practices start, I might still keep them closer to tempo speed (which is gradually speeding up). I don't want to burn out because that would really suck.

What I mean is that the only way I improved was doing my tempos way harder than I thought was possible. I'm coaching a friend who is a 7:30 miler (ran a 10:30 2 months ago) and he is improving just off of faster tempos and track intervals. You aren't going to get injured off of 2-3 hard workouts per week.

And for that sub 16 5k, I'll be pushing my mileage from 35-45 to 55-65 and eventually hit that good 65-70 consistently. Hard tempos will help me, going to do twice a week for xc and only one speed session (as it's not as important for 5k) mile repeats will be good for me too and will try to replace a tempo with those every once in a while

plenty do it in highschool, most of those guys up the mileage or else move down to the 800 full time in college. Donavan braizer for one runs right around 30mpw, probably a tad more these days but I don't think anyone would be surprised if he ran like 3:40 in the 1500 tomorrow. It'd actually be a good bit slower than expectations.

I'll level with you, you're probably not breaking 19 next season. But if you're ever going to, youre not gonna do it running 9:00 pace on your easy runs and 8:00 for 1/2 mile tempo repeats. I'll let you in on a little secret: mileage doesn't actually matter. Its just a tool for measuring the time your heart (and cardiovascular system at large) spends under stress, and not a very good one at that. thats not to say mileage doesn't matter, but I'll put it to you like this. For me if I'm running 6 miles, I'll finish that in 40-45 minutes for a base run. You'd do the same run in about an hour, meaning you spend almost 15 minutes longer under stress to run the same distance. Its just punishing yourself at that point. Why should a weaker, less trained athlete have to do harder work? So in my opinion, throw mileage out the window until you can run consistently under 8:30 pace for your easy days. Just go out and do 20-30 minutes everyday and try and get a bit further every time. Some days you will, some days you won't, but over the course of weeks and months eventually you'll be running at a decent clip for all you're runs and with that will come fitness. This shouldn't be you racing but its ok if this doesn't fall inside of your "easy pace" range. If you want to do workouts, don't do tempos. Those are important but not important to you right now, I think you'd be better served running shorter repeats at a much faster clip... think 6-10x200 in 45-50 with about 90 seconds standing rest starting at 6. There's a ton of ways to progressively overload after that, do 300s and then 400s or do an active recovery instead of standing but be patient with this sort of thing. Throw in some strides and boom, you've got a fine training program for yourself up until summer practices start. If by that point youre running 4 miles in that half hour, then you can start thinking about mileage. Just trust me on this one, It'll do you some good not to overthink this.

Week 3: 3/7/22 - 3/13/22

Mon, 3/7: 5.01 mi, 9:14 pace, 46:17.7 (easy)

Tues, 3/8: Rest (DNR)

Wed, 3/9: 6.02 mi, 9:42 pace, 58:23.8 (easy)

Thurs, 3/10: 4.00 mi, 8:24 pace, 33:37.4 (tempo)

Fri, 3/11: AM: 2.05 mi, 8:33 pace, 17:30.9 (recovery)

PM: 5.12 mi, 9:34 pace, 49:00.8 (easy)

Sat, 3/12: Rest (DNR)

Sun, 3/13: 2 x 0.50 mi at 7:30 pace/0.50 mi at 10:00 pace + 2 x 0.25 mi at 7:30 pace/0.25 mi at 10:00 pace (intervals, treadmill) + 1.01 mi cd on stationary bike

(3.05 mi, 8:34 pace, 26:07.8)

Total: 25.25 mi

Sorry for taking so long to post. I had a concert on Tuesday, so I didn't have any time to run at all. This was the last week of the quarter, so I had a ton of exams, quizzes, tests, homework, etc. I couldn't run on Saturday because we were busy most of the day getting ready for our vacation, plus we had to get to Church. On Sunday, I ran at the hotel's fitness center, and I felt pretty terrible. This was after about seven hours of driving (sitting in the car for me), and my stomach did not appreciate the KFC 1.5 hours before the run. Overall, the week didn't go super well. I wanted to hit 30 miles, but I'm glad that I was at least close. Next week, I'm aiming for 35-40 miles, though this might be less because I'll be on vacation for most of the week.