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

coleiolio wrote:

oh and btw, i ran a 4:52 this weekend, my last race is friday. did my last effective peaking workout and now tapering as much as possible. 5:05->4:52 so far from fresh to soph year. hoping for a 4:4X this last race

Congrats man! Thats a great progression and i bet you will hit sub 4:50 and maybe even surprise yourself with the result. Good luck and keep me updated!

will do, does the d3 you are going to let anyone walk on or are there some standards set in place? just curious --- not sure how i want to target d3 but NYU and a few others are some i am interested in. i have two more years so maybe i'm getting ahead of myself

coleiolio wrote:

will do, does the d3 you are going to let anyone walk on or are there some standards set in place? just curious --- not sure how i want to target d3 but NYU and a few others are some i am interested in. i have two more years so maybe i'm getting ahead of myself

School I am looking at has "standards" that are easy to hit (11:00,5:00).

You should start reaching out to coaches giving your age, grade, PR's, notable achievements academically and athletically etc. But have fun with it! Try and visit some schools that may be out of your league just to see them. Who knows? Maybe you get insanely better after this year- it does happen, after all.

Very true thanks, should I start after my Junior season?

I started at the beginning of my junior XC season. You can never start too early, but you can for sure start too late.

Last race today at regionals,

Split 1:10,1:13,1:13,1:11

4:47.41, felt awesome.

Crazy too think my freshman year I put no base in, this year I did and went from a 5:05.98 to this.

Congrats man! new you had that in you.

Week of 5/12-5/18

Off week, just a lot of football/basketball with my XC teammates.

Next week probably just 20-25 easy miles with some strides and weight lifting.

Week of 5/19-5/25

Sun: rest

Mon: 4 miles easy (8:00) + 4x100m strides

Tue: rest

Wed: 4 miles moderate (7:15)

Thu: 3 miles slow (8:10)

Fri: 4 miles easy (7:50) + 250-200-150-100 w/ walkback rest

Sat: rest

Total: 15.5 miles

Easy week. Just some light running on a hilly trail with some strides and a mild speed workout just for the heck of it. More miles next week with only 1 rest day.

Week of 5/26-6/1

Sun: rest

Mon: 4 miles easy

Tue: rest

Wed: 3 miles warm/cool + 3x1k at 3:33 w/ 3:30 rest + 200m TT in trainers in (28.5)

Thu: 6 miles easy (7:30)

Fri: 4.5 miles easy + 8x100m strides

Sat: 7 miles long (8:50)

Total: 27 miles

Good week with the slow process of mileage buildup continuing. The long run today was great and on a very hilly trail nearby and was pretty fun. I have a newfound respect for trail runners because that run was pretty difficult.

I'm signed up for a track meet in a few weeks where I will compete in the 400 and the 1500.

I'm going for 57-mid and 4:30, but i'm not really expecting much due to this just being the start of XC base phase.

Week of 6/2-6/8

Sun: rest

Mon: 5 miles (8:00)

Tue: 7 miles moderate (7:05)

Wed-Fri: rest

Sat: 3 mile warm/cool + 8x100m strides, 400m (60) and 1500 (4:54) which is ~5:13 pace

Total: 16.5

Low week because of a hip issue after thursday's run. I have had Iliac Crest Apophysis before and don't want to suffer through that again so I took a few days off and felt fine after the meet on saturday. Kinda disappointed with the results, but also not surprised.

We'll see how this week goes regarding my hip.

The most important workouts are the ones you decide NOT to do in order to stay healthy.

So congratulations on being tough and NOT running to stay healthy. It does take mental toughness to rest at the right times. Keep it up!

Week of 6/9-6/15

Sun: 3.5 miles warm/cool + 5 mile tempo (6:30)

Mon: 5.75 miles easy (7:50)+4x100m strides

Tue: 7.25 miles easy (7:45) + 4x100m strides

Wed: 4 miles easy (8:10)

Thu-Sat: rest

Total: 26 miles

What should've been my first solid mileage week was interrupted by a wisdom teeth removal which I did not know would impact my training for a few weeks, which is quite frustrating but at least it came now rather than later on in the season when the mileage really matters.

Week of 6/16-6/22

Sun- Wed: rest (wisdom teeth, not allowed phys. activity until thu)

Thu: 3 mile warm/cool + 2 miles fartlek.

Fri: 4 miles easy (7:55)

Sat: 4 miles easy ( 8:00)

Total: 13 miles

Just getting back in to the wswing of things lol. Ran a 2k TT today on a hilly XC course in 7:19, I am happy with it and honestly had quite a bit left at the end. I think I could have gone around 7:05 if I had just run better.

Good results,never give up and hard work

Week of 6/23-6/29

Sun: rest

Mon: 5.5 mile warm/cool + 2k TT in 7:19

Tue: 1 mile warm/cool + 8x800 w/2 min rest on XC course (avg 3:00)

Wed: 6.5 miles easy (8:30)

Thu: 6.5 miles easy (7:45)

Fri: 3.5 miles warm/cool + 2 miles tempo (12:19)

Sat: 3.25 miles moderate (7:10)

Total: 33.5 miles

Good week all in all, the workouts were really easy and I felt super comfortable all week.

This week I am training on my own due to a state rule restricting team practices over this week. I have a 5k on the 4th and I will be going for sub-18. Don't know if it will be possible due to the low amoun t of miles i have been doing recently, but it will be a good fitness check.

I've been following your training and enjoying the logs - keep up the good work!

The one piece of advice I'd offer is to take a long term focus of building volume at lower intensities. It seems like you are racing or time trialing every single week, even during your base phase during the summer! In addition, your weekly volume does not seem to be progressing over time very much. I'd expect by now you'd be totaling over 50 mpw regularly.

I starting running my junior year of high school and went from running 4:45 to 4:13 in the mile over a 2-year timespan, just increasing my mileage from 30 mpw to 60 mpw.

I found that directly after the summer base phase, where the focus was on easy runs and threshold runs, I would run decently well. Once I started doing faster stuff on the track, I'd improve slightly and then run worse than I did at the beginning of the season.

Now that I'm older and can look back at my training, I see that all the fast track intervals really did nothing for me after about 6 weeks. So as I'm training now, I only use this type of training in the 6 weeks leading up my goal races and focus on increasing mileage over time.

It's been fun seeing your progression and I hope the best for your training. I'm currently working towards qualifying for the 2024 trials and will continue following you.

+1 Wes C. Plus one, indeed.

Week of 6/31-7/6

Sun: rest

Mon: 6.5 miles easy (8:10)

Tue: 5 miles moderate (7:15) + 4x100m hill strides

Wed: 3 miles pre-race + 4x150m strides

Thu: 1 mile warm/cool + 8x100m strides, 5k race in 18:30. PM 3 miles easy (7:50)

Fri: 6 miles heat acclimation run (7:50)

Sat: 10 miles long run (7:52)

Total: 40.5

Overall i'm happy with this week. after a bunch of random setbacks I have finally hit a 40 mile week and i'll keep progressing from this week forwards.

4th of July 5k was in a local race with a few hills but is typically a faster race. I feel I ran a good race starting off far from the pack after mile run and just picking my way up to 4th at the finish.

On another note, I bought a forerunner 35 this week, which i must say is quite the step up from the forerunner 15 I was using lol.

Wes C.- I'm goping to post on this thread later today in response i just have some errands to run so don't think I forgot about your post lol.

Wes C.- Sorry for the late post but here is a reply to your post.

1. I agree with the higher volume-lower intensity base phase idea. The only times i will be time trialling/racing this summer have mostly passed (we have another team 2k TT later on as well as an 8k TT but these aren't until august I believe.

2. My mileage is not very high. I am building pretty slowly so as not to be injured during this season, but I haven't gotten my mileage to a point I am happy with yet. This track season I never topped 50, and really just stayed around 40-45 even though I wanted to average in the 50's. This will change during the upcoming XC season.

I am still in high school so I don't have much say in my training but I will keep my efforts controlled until later in the season (even the 2k TT felt hard but not as hard as I could go, which can probably be seen with it being my 5k pace from a few days ago.)

Lastly, best of luck in your journey top the 2024 trials! Your high school progression is absurd and I hope you get the OT standard (here's also to hoping it doesn't change until then). What have you run/what is your current training like? I'm pretty interested to see what you've been doing.

Thanks