Suspicious of club running teammate progress

I don't even know if this person actually exists, much less their prospective progress. And I literally wrote in a post that if he continues to lop huge amounts of time off his race times, I'll re-evaluate.

Based on his 4:45 mile PR, he should easily be able to run a half marathon at under 6:00 pace if his talent at the mile extends to longer distances and he does the appropriate training to be able to race the entire distance, assuming he's still near 4:45 shape.

His 1:32 PR was probably a first attempt where he ran poorly. He didn't know how to run 13 miles competitively. Now he can smoke that in a training run.

In the summer between high school and college when I was preparing for XC (I was a low 4:20 guy), I created a hilly 11 mile loop from my house and ran it a couple times a week. The first time I ran it at 7:20 pace and was kind of tired and sore, I didn't intentionally blast it but when I was done I felt like it has a hard run. I know I was capable of much more because my 10k PR was in the low 34s at the time but I still didn't feel good at 7:20 pace. Within six weeks I was doing the loop at 6:05 pace and was under 5:50 by the end of the first year of college. Much of that was just learning how to run 11 miles in a non race situation at a strong hard pace. Ultimately that was stupid, counterproductive training but that was college running in the early 90s, every day a sub 6:00 tempo run.

You are on the right track with that logic. This is someone who is running 70mpw, likely ran a "so so" half-marathon at 1:32, and now is running solid long runs. Nothing suspicious other than OP is likely getting dropped each long run now and doesn't like it.

I've run 1:24 on maybe 35 mpw at peak but I had a decent (not great) background for it. I would imagine if I had the time and my body could handle it, I'd be under 1:20 on 70 mpw. This quick developer is now seemingly doing proper training and their body is responding accordingly.

There is also the theory of "racing yourself into shape" which may apply here. The quick developer is getting in better shape faster potentially due to racing.

It might be rare-ish, but there are probably 300-400 kids every year who either can do or do do this.

In any case, nobody is immune from the stress of sudden buildup.

How can you down-vote the Lombardi clip? It's three seconds long. It's a joke. Have a laugh.

New thread title: JEALOUS of Club Running teammate progress

All joking aside, I have met many a people with similar stories as your teammate. I don't think its too uncommon at all. Some people do more than 30 mpw and blossom. Sounds like this person had a pretty limited running experience prior and is now getting their stuff together. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

there is absolutely ZERO suspicion here. mileage is key for distance running. mileage can be the difference between struggling to run a 5k at 8 minutes per mile to moderately running a 10k at 6 minutes per mile. this runner was previously denied of good performance due to bad training.

Not that suspicious to me. He's 21. Never really trained seriously. 70 MPW is a fair amount, but if you are mechanically sound and don't overdo the effort, then it's not unheard of to avoid injury and burnout. It should not take years to get up to that mileage as a 21 year old. Most could do it in 5-6 months. 5 weeks is impressive, but, again, if most of the runs are at an easy effort, then it's possible if he is otherwise fit - (i.e does not need lose weight, has decent form, some athletic ability).

I ran a 1:36 25k at age 16 (a long time ago) after around 6 months of semi-serious training, and never having run more than around 12 miles. My mileage was 40-50 a week. Of course, I'd run a 16:13 3-mile XC, and would run a 4:29 mile in another 3 months. My point is, any one with a bit of talent can improve dramatically with a little training. He might have talent for longer distances.

Why did your post get any down votes at all? Some people around here have absolutely no sense of humor. They really are humorless b@stards. Any joke at all detracts from the deadly serious business of posting on jogging. Gimme a break.

So people on this thread know many runners who can do 15-18 mile runs 20 sec/mile faster than their HM PB pace?

If this person can run 15-18 miles at 6:40 pace, what do you think his current HM time would be? How much faster is that than 1:32?

You can almost expect that for someone actually getting training decent miles for the first time being the type to respond to mileage. In one summer and 63mpw, I went from being a ~6:02 PE mile/54:xx (~8:50 pace) fun-run 10K cyclist/non-runner to being able to do sub-60 10-milers in training.

One kid joined our training group as a 23 year old no previous training and could run a 17:30 5k of a month of training probably no more than 20-30 miles. By the end of the year he had run 15:30 in a solo run. The dude proceeded to get injured the next couple of years and couldn’t handle basic load 50 miles ish, some people are talented in one aspect not another. This guy is being pretty insecure, it would be equivalent of me making jokes about him being on epo because he was Ethiopian instead of just accepting he was talented.

he is still slow AF so why go to care?

You know nothing about training. You are a one trick poney. Everything is doping to you.

OP, I coached a 38 year old who had a similar evolution, which I observed in person 5 days a week. The only difference was that he didn't go from 0 to 70 miles a week but 20 to 60. And 4 months after a 1:34 half marathon he ran 1:27

This is just one example.

I also had a 19 year old who went from zero training to 1:56 for the 800 and 34:10 for 10k in 6 months.

Of course Armstronglivs has never coached anyone, so he doesn't know what can be achieved by talented, dedicated athletes without doping.

I know a guy, a little awkward but really nice, who ran 13:44 in the 5k, a pretty decent PR. He was a 4th year in college.

A year later, ear the end of his 5th year, he ran 27:27 in the 10k- 13:43 pace!!! He ran the same pace as a pretty impressive 5k PR one year later in double the distance! Pretty rad, apparently he ran 150-160 miles a week though ;)

Pretty impressive what an increase in mileage can do to some folks. Btw- now he’s run 2:05 in the marathon.

He’s a pretty cool guy, goes by the name Cam.

This is very ordinary running, you need to stop being a whiny baby, and raise your bar.

No idea. Hey, did you see the Vince Lombardi video? Pretty funny!

He could just started doing tons of double thresh days that get you fit hella quit. Also double days as well

A 1:32 half is pretty much mediocre especially as a 21 year old man running 30 miles. An 18 mile long run at 6:40 simply means he was racing his long run as hard as possible. I ran an 80 minute half and my long runs were 8:20 pace...