How long will it take to become mediocre: a training log

winnr1 wrote:

Shoot forgot to mention:

The 7x1k had 2 minute rest, and the 12x400 had 1 minute rest

As others have said, you’re very weak aerobically. This far out from your goal race, you shouldn’t be beating a dead horse/fading so bad in a workout like this.... you should be finishing feeling like you could comfortably do one more rep and being relaxed/controlled/good form during all reps. Seems like you’re digging too deep and going anaerobic... which counteracts/competes with aerobic development on an enzymatic level. Plus, you don’t seem to have very good awareness of pace or effort level ( based on some of your tempo workouts etc). I’d recommend doing a few moderate workouts with the goal of hitting some conservative splits/rep times

Do you have a coach?

As a reference point, after a little over a year of running, I broke 5 for 1600 when I could barely break 60 for 400... this was done off largely base/aerobic work (with some speed dev like short hill sprints and sprint-float-sprints @~400m effort). From there, After ~6 weeks of VO2 max/race specific work I was down to 4:48

My base at the time: easy days where based on time ~45min (starting around 9min/mi and naturally speeding up to ~8 as I warmed up). Long day was ~80-90min and would occasionally do a fartlek style workout during it (e.g 20minutes of 1min @5k effort, 4min steady). I did a progression run most weeks (e.g 3-4 miles with the first 1/4 of the run at moderate while still warming up, the middle 1/2 would be around tempo pace, and the last 1/4 I’d gradually crank it down through 10k-5k & kick it in the last 200m... so the last mile time would end up being close to my date pace for 5k). The tempo portion, given that my 5k pace was ~5:50/mi, would be 6:20ish. I also did a workout called Aussie quarters every 7-10 days. You do 4800m of 400m near 5k pace with a quick 200m recovery. If you wanted to do some Aussies, I’d recommend shooting for 90s/50s for the first time based on your 5k. I generally try to finish the 4800 in the same amount of time as I could race a 5k. E.g if I could run 18:40, I’d try to complete the 4800 in 18:40 while modulating the pace.

I also did strides on most easy days and a few during cool downs and warm ups. I mostly followed a workout day-easy day pattern. Once I got used to hill sprints I’d often do easy day-sprint day-workout day.

As others have said, I think the main thing wrong with your training are your effort levels. Your easy days need to slow down, get your tempos at a steady tempo pace, and keep your faster workouts aerobic instead of blowing up.

How do you feel I should be running my tempo workouts? (by example of pace, HR, etc.) Our coach tends to have us do reps. of a set distance that we negative split and base speed off of heart rate.

Yes.

I will certainly do this next week!

This tends to be how our coach structures our "tempo" runs.

I like that workout idea a lot actually. Would you recommend negative splitting the last 3-4 or just keeping consistent with pace?

Thanks for the helpful response!

Week of 2/4-2/10

This week was intentionally low mileage, and the mileage will be up around 40 next week (knock on wood) barring reaggravating my knee.

Sun: Rest

Mon: .5 mile warm/cool, 4x100m strides & 4 miles easy (7:50)

Tue: 1 mile warm, 4x1k (4:04, 3:47, 3:40, 3:50), 6x400 (83, 74, 80, 80, 79, 78) 2 min rest between k's, 1 min rest between 400's, and 5 mins between both.

Wed: Rest/yoga

Thu: Pre-race 3 miles easy (8:00), 4x150m

Fri: Race day, 4 miles warm/cool (total), 10x100m strides, 800m relay split 2:21, 1600m in 5:16.

Sat: 8 mile long run (7:45)

Total: 26.25

Highly disappointing week. My race sucked and I let my relay team down. If I had run my time trial split from last week we would've medaled. My mile was trash because I got thrown into the first heat filled with sub-5 guys and was left in the dust from the start.

Honestly, I am worried about this season. My workouts have all been subpar and I race like an elderly woman. Maybe upping my mileage will help later on in the season when it matters, and my next race is March 3rd. Is sub-5 even possible by then for me?

Sub 5 is out there for you. Maybe on March 3rd, but I'd guess probably not. Is that an outdoor meet?

Anyways, I'm assuming you will have a standard outdoor schedule with races through the end of April, and maybe into May. With that in mind, I'd try to scale way back on the intensity in the next three weeks. Up the easy running and overall mileage, but try not to go nuts in workouts. Another poster said something similar above. Leave some effort on the table. Especially if you still have to run the workouts. I know with a coach/team everyone often does the same thing. But don't get caught up in trying to run with the front runners. Run within yourself. Run fast, but run easy. Don't run hard (read Wejo's Why I sucked in college article if you haven't already).

Now, look at your workout from this week. Your splits are all over the place. You have a 24 second spread in the 1Ks and a 9 second spread in the 400s. While you are scaling back on the intensity, try to make those splits as even as possible. Feel the paces. Find out what is comfortably fast but not killer. Finish the workouts feeling like you could have done more. This is also probably why your knee continues to bother you and has been a problem for weeks. Straining to run too fast too often is really hard on the body.

I also recommend continuing to slow down a bit on your easy and long days. Approaching mid 7's is fast with all this intensity. Start your runs with a shuffle, ease into things, and push out the miles rather than the pace. Again, finish all these runs like you could do more.

Also, think long term as well as within the season. Track will be over in a flash. Summer mileage can be built. And amazing cross season is right around the corner. Yes, race hard in your spring meets, but always be thinking about the kind of running that is building you up for the future.

You remind me of myself in high school. This was in the 90s and all we did were killer fast track workouts. I wish I knew that I could run them in a controlled manner and not kill myself. Every season I was fried by the end, and my race times diminished as the distances went up. If I could do it all over again I'd run more easy miles, run controlled in almost all my workouts, and just not even worry about the splits. Constant focus on the numbers can be a killer.

keepgoing wrote:

Sub 5 is out there for you. Maybe on March 3rd, but I'd guess probably not. Is that an outdoor meet?

Yes, and it is typically a stacked race (for our state)

keepgoing wrote:

Up the easy running and overall mileage, but try not to go nuts in workouts. Another poster said something similar above. Leave some effort on the table. Especially if you still have to run the workouts. I know with a coach/team everyone often does the same thing. But don't get caught up in trying to run with the front runners. Run within yourself. Run fast, but run easy. Don't run hard (read Wejo's Why I sucked in college article if you haven't already).

How fast would you recommend I run the 400's/K's? Typically 80-78 feels comfortable, but we negative split workouts. Maybe for a 12x400 (85,84,83,82,81,80,79,78,77,76,75,74)? or would a slower pace be better?

Thank you very much for the response!

That negative split 400 plan is nice on paper, but very hard to nail down. The closest you came in this thread was in December, and it looks like you had another pretty good 400 workout in late January. And I say pretty good in terms of staying closer to the same pace and easing that pace down towards the end. Maybe it was just last week's workout that made things look all over the place.

Out of curiosity, why do you guys negative split workouts like that? For me that would be something to do a couple weeks out from a goal race, maybe. Unless the target times for that are for a guy who is much faster than you, so the mid to low 80s in the 400s are super easy for him, and then he is easing into some more challenging but doable paces in the 400.

Looking at your race times, I think you would be better off hitting even splits. If 78-80 feels comfortable, I would see what happens when I do a whole workout of 81-2s. Just get in a groove and tick them off lap after lap. My guess would be it is not as comfortable as you think.

But remember, I'm just some guy on the internet who sees a slice of your training. I don't even see you run. But from the way you talk about your weeks, it sounds like you are run down and overall pushing a little too hard. When I see people doing that, I like to see what happens if they spend some time training at 90% effort. Don't go to the well. Maybe this isn't the case for you. But next time you have a workout, look closely at yourself and your teammates as the reps progress. How hard are you breathing? What is your form like? Any pained expression on your faces? Then go watch some videos on youtube or flotrack of the pros running some interval workouts. See how they look at the end. For the most part, it doesn't look like they are trying nearly as hard as you probably are.

I honestly have no idea why our coach has us negative splitting workouts such as this one. I know the last time we did a 12x400 workout he used it as a sort of time trial to decide who would go to a meet so that may have been a factor, but otherwise I have no clue.

Will do, Thanks again.

Here's the plain and honest truth, bro:

We don't know what paces are good for you in specific workouts. What we do know is that the most effective early and off season workouts are controlled and either even or slightly negative split. C O N T R O L L E D. Comfortably hard.

I am a sophomore in high school just like yourself. I know what it feels like to have a disappointing season/year despite working your a$$ off all year. I'm just going to be honest here, you may have already cooked yourself for this indoor season (by that I mean peaked from all the quality work). This is not necessarily a bad thing. This means that you have 6-7 months to get in quality work for XC. As another person posted, I see a big cross country season for you this year.

For what it's worth, if you get in some good training around now and stop racing your workouts (you are, even if it doesn't quite feel like it from your efforts. Your race results indicate this) I see you at right around 5-flat this outdoor season, plus or MINUS a few seconds. Stop racing your workouts and I guarantee you'll pop off something you'll be happy with.

Whether people on here are willing to admit it or not, your times are good for a sophomore (I would know as I am one as well) and indicate you will have success in the future. Say you run anywhere between 5:05-4:55 in outdoor (which I think you will). It is not unreasonable to get down to 4:30 come senior year. Larger improvements have happened.

Best of luck and keep up the grind. You will thank yourself when you come across the line and drop some good times

Hey, buddy

I'm a 32 year old ex-cyclist (cat 2, sprint/crit/circuit racer, last race was 2009), and I am one year into running, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

I used to train super hard. Do workouts of 10x 2 mile climbs, ride 300+ miles per week, and just bury myself on solo 80-100 mile rides every weekend, because I'm a short asthmatic with very little athletic talent. None of that worked though. I got my cycling upgrades and started racing better when I got a coach, periodized my training and started finishing my training sessions with a bit left in the tank. The difference was: easy training was truly easy. 6 hours at 160 watts. The hard training was really hard, but not so hard that you wasted your race legs.

I'm saying this because I ran 18'55 for 5k on the road last year with two more around 19'05-19'15, so we are actually pretty comparable. You are running your workouts way harder than I could ever imagine, but I guess part of that is because I could probably never come close to running a 2'18 for 800m. I was doing my 7x 800s in just 2'50 to 3'00 and my fastest interval for a 6x 1000 workout was 3'40 but some bad ones might be 3'55 in the middle with about 2-3 minutes recovery. If I feel like crap, I just take more time to recover, because quality is more important than just building fatigue. If i still did poorly, i would pack it in and go home. I work upwards of 80 hours per week so if I run 3 times in a week it's a minor miracle.

Obviously, you have to talk to your coach, but I wonder if doing your longer runs slower 8+/mile and just doing your intervals a tiny bit slower and not burying yourself might work. Counter intuitive to work less to race faster, but it took me almost 20 years to get here.

Good luck. I'm recovering from a bad flu, so I'm way behind you this season!

Running a 5x800 workout today, what should my splits be?

I was thinking of going at (2:45, 2:40, 2:40, 2:35, 2:30) but I want to know what you guys think of that

Wow. That would be fast. That's like a 17'30 kind of work out. If I were you, I'd be doing 2'50, 2'50, 2'48, 2'48, 2'45. With 2 minutes jog/walk recovery. You don't need to feel like you are dead and getting scraped off the track to get a training benefit.

The last two at 2'35 and 2'30 are only about 15 or so seconds off your race pace for 800, no? This is what I was talking about leaving your race legs at practice.

Let us know how the work out goes.

I have a long day at work, but I'm going to try to do 5 x 1000 tonight at 4, 4, 3'55, 3'55, 3'50 with about 2.5-3 minutes recovery. Feel like I'm at 19'30-19'40 fitness.

Couch to 5ker wrote:

Let us know how the work out goes.

So it turned out to be 14x400 in (100, 96, 93, 89, 86, 81, 80, 78, 78, 76, 74, 73, 73, 69)

Couch to 5ker wrote:I have a long day at work, but I'm going to try to do 5 x 1000 tonight at 4, 4, 3'55, 3'55, 3'50 with about 2.5-3 minutes recovery. Feel like I'm at 19'30-19'40 fitness.

Good luck witrh that!

Week of 2/11-2/17

Sun: Rest

Mon: 6.5 miles easy (7:50)

Tue: AM Weights

PM: 1.5 mile warm/cool, 10x100m strides, 14x400 (100, 96, 93, 89, 86, 81, 80, 78, 78, 76, 74, 73, 73, 69) w/ 1 min rest

Wed: Rest/yoga

Thu: AM: Weights

PM: 2.125 mile warm/cool, 3x1k (3:23, 3:38, 3:54) w/ 4 min rest (on hilly section of xc course, in 20+ MPH winds)

Fri: 4 mile (easy, moderate, tempo, tempo) In (7:54, 7:17, 6:57, 6:19)

Sat: 9 mile long but super slow (8:00), 6 mile bike, weights, 2.5 mile cool (equals ~13.5 running miles)

Total: 33.625

Intense week, had a great workout on Tuesday only to absolutely implode on Thursday, though being fair nobody hit their times in those conditions.

The run on Friday I have no idea what the point was but it felt smooth and relaxed throughout (I had taken an ice bath on Thursday night so that may be why I felt refreshed).

I am keeping the long run super slow today so as not to aggravate my knee.

Coach informed me that I will now be focusing on the 1600/3200 side of things which will be interesting and cause me to re-evaluate my goals for the season.

As re-evaluated my goals are as follows:

800(maybe in B team relay or something)-2:15

1600-4:50

3200:10:40

The main thing here is the fatigue of doing the 3200/1600 double in some meets.

I did it once last year and that thing sucked (of course, I was training for the 800/1600 at the time, so lower miles than what I will be doing this season)

Next meet is in two weeks, I want to run 5:10/10:59 which is hopefully possible

40 miles next week as I will begin doubling again, easing back into higher mileage (for me anyway)

Week of 2/18-2/24

So this week would have been high mileage, but we had storms all week and I was unable to run on a few days that I had intended to run (I am not looking to catch a cold for the sake of an easy run)

Sun: rest

Mon: AM: 5 miles easy (7:53)

PM: 4 miles moderate (7:30)

Tue: AM: Weights, rest (storms)

Wed: Rest + yoga

Thu: AM: Weights

PM: 1.25 mile warm, 25-minute fartlek (~3.75 miles)

Fri: 1 mile warm/cool, 4.25 miles moderate (7:20)

Sat: Once the rain lets up I will do a 13.1-mile long run (7:45-7:50)

Total: 32.6 miles

Annoying amount of storms this week. Hopefully, this storm system moves out by next Saturday.

I will be going for sub-11 next week, and if I run on our B team 4x800 I want to hit 2:16.

You’re doing too many workouts. 14x400 is too much, even if some of them are not fast. You should be doing easy, tempo, and very low volume sprint work at this point in the season. Maybe halfway through March you can hit the track more.

When I broke 5, I was around 2:17 for 800 and 11:05 for 3200. It was indoors, and Outdoors I improved by only 5 seconds. I feel that I could have done better if I’d built a better base indoors and run 5:05 ish, and come outdoors I could have been able to do the workouts harder because I had a better endurance base. This year, I still haven’t done more than 8x200 for speed.

Literally everybody wrote:

You’re doing too many workouts.

Okay, I have no idea what to do about this

Should I approach my coach and voice my concerns? My 'peak' race is only eight weeks away, after all.

For now, all I am focusing on is squeezing in extra mileage when I can, and my coach doesn't want me running Sundays or Wednesdays so that limits me a lot.

Any ideas?

Thanks

You should really start reading books on running. If you can't get the book just read the Good Threads, Training Info, Injury Info, Nutrition Info, Other Stuff threads. There is a lot of great information out there. Many of the best coaches have tons of free information on the web also. The best way to get the most out of your effort is to train correctly. Anything that is not correct is about 50/50 on helping you improve. Chances are if you do not train correctly you will never reach your potential.

Outside of doing a lot of work your workouts do very little to help you improve. I hope I am wrong but I don't think outdoor will show much improvement either. I'm not saying this to be mean I actually wish you the best because you seem to want to be good. Hopefully you don't get frustrated. Read up on training and in the summer either train on your own or get some buddies to train with you. Build a base. Build a base. Build a base. Without a good base there is very little room for improvement.

Best of luck to you.

2/25-3/3

Sun: 1 mile warm/cool, 4x200 (just to break in spikes) (34, 33, 33, 32)

Mon: 1.5 mile warm/cool, 4x100m strides, 8x200(37-35)+ 6x400 (75-73)+1x800 (2:51)

200's w/ 1 min rest, 400's w/ 2 min rest

Tue: AM weights

PM 4 miles easy (8:00)

Wed: rest

Thu: 2 mile warm/cool 4x1 mile aerobic pace w/ 1 min rest (hr ~160 bpm) (6:45, 6:15, 6:15, 6:15)

Fri: 2.125 miles easy (8:00) + 4x150m progressions

Sat: 7 mile warm/cool (total throughout day)

3200 in 11:36

1600 in 5:24

Total: 29.25

I'm a disappointment to myself and everyone around me

winnr1 wrote:

2/25-3/3

Sun: 1 mile warm/cool, 4x200 (just to break in spikes) (34, 33, 33, 32)

Mon: 1.5 mile warm/cool, 4x100m strides, 8x200(37-35)+ 6x400 (75-73)+1x800 (2:51)

200's w/ 1 min rest, 400's w/ 2 min rest

Tue: AM weights

PM 4 miles easy (8:00)

Wed: rest

Thu: 2 mile warm/cool 4x1 mile aerobic pace w/ 1 min rest (hr ~160 bpm) (6:45, 6:15, 6:15, 6:15)

Fri: 2.125 miles easy (8:00) + 4x150m progressions

Sat: 7 mile warm/cool (total throughout day)

3200 in 11:36

1600 in 5:24

Total: 29.25

I'm a disappointment to myself and everyone around me

For one, running is fundamentally meaningless: bunch of guys or girls running in circles. How a couple bad races could make you a disappointment to everyone around you is unclear to me. You can be disappointed. Sure.

It still really sounds like you're over doing it in your work outs. I think everyone has said it a few times throughout this thread. Only thing I can recommend is taking a week off. Coming back and doing everything slower. It may be a couple months before you start recovering.

Heart rate is BS for shorter efforts. On the bike, after I got a power meter, I completely stopped using heart rate, because there was quite a lag. You can totally bury yourself in the first 40 seconds and then just carry the heart rate as your pace falls off dramatically in the rest of the workout. This was made all the more dramatic by analyzing my power files.

Heart rate is good for longer steady state stuff. Tempo runs and long runs.

This approach doesnt apply well to running since there are no power meters. How I do intervals is I set a goal pace. Figure out what an even pace is. If the interval happens to feel good, I just finish it up on time. I don't run any faster.

I currently run 3 days a week.

Tuesday night: 5 x 1k at about 3'40 with 200m slow jog recovery.

Saturday: 8 miles on the road with 4 miles 7'50-8'20 followed by 4 miles at 6'40ish (2 long stop lights make this a somewhat broken up 4 miles)

Sunday: 4-5 miles at 8ish/mile +/- striders x 5. If I have time, I will do light weights (5lbs: curls, shoulder presses, delts), body weight exercises (squats, back extensions, V sits), and plyometrics (box jumps, side to side hops, broad jumps)

Remember. Our 5k PRs are pretty similar. You: 19'11". Me: 18'55".

The main difference is that I'm 32, get multiple days of "rest" (not sure being on my feet all day at work from 6a to 8p is considered real rest), and don't have the energy of an 18 year old to just go out there and bury it everyday.