ADVICE REQUESTED: Please Help a Stagnated Distance Runner in His Last Season

kjfsajfd wrote:

Don't worry about your runs being slow -- 8:40 pace isn't THAT bad...

I hope not, but it surely is not the 140 miles per week at 6:00 pace and faster purportedly done my many on this board.

An additional note about the coaching: I think I would be quite a lousy coach, considering my inability to take myself from better than a 51 second improvement in 5 years.

For an experienced runner that would be big, but for a beginner it is paltry.

In all but the regular racing periods I have managed my own training and the above descriptions are what it has obtained for me.

An interesting series of numbers I recall reading were Alan Webb's mile times by season.

If for a moment we suspend the humor inherent in comparing me to Alan Webb, below is the breakdown:

Me:

4th grade: 7:52 (Stopped to tie my shoe. Idiot.)

5th- 6:58

6th- 7:10 (I think I messed around that year, not really taking it seriously)

7th- 5:57

8th- 5:42

9th- 5:40

10th- 5:15

11th- ~5:06 (4:46 1500m equivalent)

12th- 5:23 (miserable indoor race; passed first mile of X-C race on hilly grass in 5:37)

Webb:

4th- 7:03 (me: 7:52, 49 seconds back)

5th- 6:10 (me: 6:58, 48 seconds back)

6th- 5:44 (me: 7:15, 91 seconds back)

7th- 5:20 (me: 5:57, 37 seconds back)

8th- 4:52 (me: 5:42, 50 seconds back)

9th- 4:23 (me: 5:40, 77 seconds back)

10th- 4:06 (me: 5:15, 69 seconds back)

11th- 4:03 (me: 5:06 (equivalent), 63 seconds back)

12th- 3:53 (me: 5:23, 90 seconds back)

So, astonishingly, in the 7th grade I had made up 54 seconds on Alan Webb from a year before and was only 37 seconds back.

Based on signs of early potential, he should of course have been way ahead of me. But from 7th grade to 12th grade his time went from 5:20 to 3:53, a 39% improvement.

I went 5:57 to 5:06, a 16.7% drop. Had I been able to follow his improvement curve, I'd be at 4:17.

Obviously, I'm not quite there (to make a gross understatement).

My question remains why.

I agree with what Usher said back on the first page: you seem to be a victim of your own work ethic. Based on your frequency of injuries and illness, you are not recovering between efforts, despite what you think. Take a step back and analyze your schedule for the past 4 weeks. A coach looking at this would see red flags all over the place.

You have a bad race (it happens), then follow it up with uphill sprinting (bad).

You take a day off due to illness (good), follow it with an 11 mile run in zero degrees w/ wind chill (bad), then bail on a workout due to weather and lingering illness (worse).

If you're feeling sick, keep your runs to 30-40 minutes until you feel better, or just take the time off. If you have a bad race, go for an easy cool down, then take a couple relatively easy days to reload for next time. Quit beating yourself up with rep work every day; you won't lose speed. Try 3-4 weeks where you don't worry about LT, AT, and all the other alphabet soup. Just go for 60-90 minutes, at a comfortable pace, and do strides 2-3 times per week. This is supposed to be fun, not a job...

I don't get it...you are asking for advice, but you defend your training to most who try to give you advice i.e. "I like to do strides everyday to maintain speed." To quote a favorite movie of mine from my high school days, "You're too much brain and not enough cock 'n balls"...Just have fun with it man...My advice would be to just go out, run 40-50 minutes easy, moderate, or, if you're feeling good, give it a good effort (but very seldom). Probably my favorite workout in high school was to do 8 x 400 2 mile pace w/ a 400 jog inbetween each...great confidence booster. I would do 75s with my buddies and then blast the last one in 65 (I wasn't killing it, which you seem to be doing too much though you say you are not). Turns out I ran in the 9:50s at the time. Most days of training should be spent just heading out the door and feeling relaxed for 40-60 minutes.

I defend certain parts of the training because I honestly do not think doing relaxed but fast strides (100-150m at a time) has contributed to my bad performance. I think it has actually helped it to what little degree my performance can be called "good."

Agreed, but like any other runner, it is often hard to skip planned runs. I cannot imagine I am the only run who has gone out when sick, and, being only 17, I do not unfortunately have the option of relocating to a warm place like Arizona or Florida. Therefore, the 0 degree factor is meteorological accident rather than my choice (I hate cold weather, to use John PArker's term, "like a plague of boils").

I don't know the Alan Webb comparison is a good one. Try taking the time difference as a percentage of Webb's total time. I'm too lazy to do the math, but I'm pretty sure you'll find that the smaller gaps are bigger than you think. Once you're running 3:53, one second is a larger percentage of your total time than when you're running 6:30, and therefore more consequential.

My point was that you ran yourself into the ground when you were sick. An 11 mile run when you have the flu is unreasonable, regardless of the weather.

Chill out. You might run faster.

I know that the weather is beyond your control. I do not personally run in 0 degree whether nor do I ever plan to. That does have to count for something in your training effect. First of all, I want to say that I do admire your work ethic. For times despite being not what they want, you do work awfully hard, but I still tend to think that in a way you are doing too much. Let's see your what, 17? You have more than enough years to develop and too mature into whatever type of athlete you want to be. Also, one more thing, don't make comparisions about times that other people had when they were younger. After all is said and done it is really inconsequential. I couldn't break 21:45 for 5KM in cross country my freshmen year. Now I run (not anywhere near as fast as I would like) 15:40. We all have our own ideas of personal glory and fame even when we don't run that fast. And as you know, of course, it happens. Times fluctuate up and down from season to season for numerous and dozens of reasons. I do have faith in you. And I do believe that you can end up running somewhere close to collegiate level track and cross country. I just think you're generally tired. I understand that the workouts aren't anaerobic in anyway. But your singles are rather fluctuating. Let's see, you run, 16 miles one day, than the next 5. That shows in a way, your tired. Either that or you have constantly done too much training. There is such a thing as too much volume and each of our bodies deal with it differently. As far as you are running, I feel that you have done too much and are generally just tired when it comes to race time. I do not think that you have reached your limit nor in anyway do I intend to "hate" on you or your abilities. I am merely trying to help. My advice. Take it easy for a couple of days. As in 20-30 minutes. That's it. Do it for a couple of days (3-5) and than very slowly start building back up to doing something rather more intense. you need to rest and recope for a couple of days. Than very slowly. Start doing a couple of days of slow runs. Than you can get back into more intense type training. For instance, I would suggest the following:

The next 7 days:

Easy 20-30'

Easy 20-30'

Easy 20-30'

Easy 30'

Easy 40'

Easy 45' + strides

20' warm-up + some kind of threshold work (if you feel 100% fully and completly in control and good)

Than the day after that final workout I would say go back to day 5, and than gradually ease bakc into it. If your still on this board by than and take my advice, than I will further update. As I said before, I think you are tired. You are in a way, just need soem recovery. Your times haven't been getting much faster so it is time to adjust your training because as a goal of training (as you know) it is to try and get better day by day until peak period. As to what have you been doing. You are tired. You can fight with me all you want about how good you feel, but your times are not getting much better in just workouts (not as much of an improvement as what would be just traditionally bad). I think you need to rest, than revaluate your training as to why you have been injured and haven't done much of an improvement over all your last years etc. I think you should rest for a week. A week is not alot at all considering the total intensity and length of training in a lifetime. I do not think that it will kill you. That is my two cents.

I didn't mention this in my previous post, but a lot of running is mental. You need to believe in yourself and have confidence that you can break 5:00 in the mile. If you think that 5:00 is unachievable, it will be. A few things you might add to your training. Once the weather gets better and you can get outside on the track, do repeat 400m. You might try running 8 x 400m at your goal pace of 75 secs with equal recovery. You may not be capable of that initially, so maybe you start with 4 x 400 and gradually work up. You have got to get used to running 5:00 pace. You will probably want to do some type of interval workout 2xs per week. Make sure you get a long steady run of 10 miles+ in once per week (I would run steady, not all out, but you need to get out of your comfort zone). The other days are just filler. Easy recovery runs of 4-8 miles, stretching, plyometrics, and maybe a few strides if you feel the need.

As far as your injuries go, how is your running form? Do you run smooth, any biomechanical issues. You might need to visit a podiatrist for an accessment. You may need orthotics.

Also, as I mentioned earlier don't give up-keep chasing your dream! I know it can be frustrating during your senior year, but keep plugging away. If you don't have the success you wish for in highschool, you may develop into a great runner in the future-it may even be after college.

My brother-in-law was around a 12:00 highschool 2 miler years ago (he didn't train much and wasn't very serious). He ran a little on his own in college. After college, he became serious, and started posting some respectable times (low 15:00 5K, 2:35 marathon, etc.). He is now a very good Master's runner. So keep at it.

Keep us posted as your season progresses, we'd (or at least I'd) like to follow your progress.

Regards,

Chris

High School Distance Runner wrote:

I am not talented as you may think of it, but there are people worse off than me in many senses (not just running).

I never said I didn’t think you could get better. Nor am I just hating on you or your times. Nor did I say that you are one of the worst I have ever seen. I gave a dispassionate - and painful to say - point of view that you have the worst results I’ve ever seen for the work that you do. I also believe that you should consider quitting after your senior season because I do not believe that you will be able to get to the point where you can run D-1. To offer you false hope would be a disservice.

I do, however, believe that you can improve. I think anyone can improve.

And since you didn’t go away, and seem to not want to quit, let’s get on with it. I guess I didn’t expect anything else. Not out of someone with your work ethic.

I’ve seen lots of people run as slow or slower, even as seniors. Thing is, they showed up out of shape on the first day of the season, sleazed through practices, and just ran races to finish. Your work-to-results ratio is somewhere at the end of the bell curve. This is just an observation based on being an athlete, teammate, fan, and coach for 40 years.

The most encouraging performance is definitely the XC result from last fall. It’s also helpful to see the winning time and your placing, since it gives a perspective as to the general quality of runners in your area, conditions they apparently train in, and possibly the difficulty of the course. The hope is that your track times can catch up.

First, ignore the recent 5:2x from indoor and figure it’s an aberration. Figure your next race will compare more favorably to the XC time.

Recognize that whatever you’re doing is not working for you. The need for radical change is obvious. Too bad you didn’t pursue that change earlier, in that you’re really late in the process. But work with what you’ve got.

As others say, more rest. I also question the value of all the strides, sprints, and hill sprints for you, even though I’m a proponent of these. However, some people just respond differently to different kinds of training, and it would seem you don’t need further proof that something in your program isn’t working. If this speed stuff isn’t improving your overall speed, try a different approach. How is your turnover? I suspect it’s slow, but that’s a guess. You may even have a decent cadence at 150 or 400 which slows down considerably as you move up in distance. That would explain why you put in big miles, yet run 2:21/4:45/5:23 off of 60 speed. (sorry - didn’t memorize the exact numbers, so bear with me). True or no? Developing comfort with higher cadences at all distances can be improved through quick foot work on stairs. Don’t slam - run light, and focus on turning ‘em over. Brief session 2 or 3 times per week, not a workout, just a neuromuscular exercise, and quit when you can’t maintain maximum rhythm.

Many have said too much interval work for this season. I agree.

Where is your coach in all this? Doesn’t he/she structure your workouts? Have you talked alternative with him? Message board types can give you attitudinal advice, but it seems like your coach ought to be the key guy for the workout end.

If you can pick your races, race 400/600/800 indoors. Change it up. Longer races can wait for spring.

I never put much stock in what people ran as youth runners, or off of no training, or as freshmen. What your parents could do and how you did in other sports are just as meaningless. The most important form of talent is the ability to train and have the training effect take hold. If you can keep improving, it makes no difference where you start. One concern for you is that you have almost nowhere to go training wise for college, since you’re generally at the upper end of what people do. Most of the slower HS guys who get better in college are diamonds in the rough who are undertrained, from small schools, or people who recently came from other sports.

And if you can run 60, you can run under 60. By the time you hit college, that’s fast enough for the distances you get. Don’t forget, you get a 10K come college time.

And the desire and ability to work hard are the most important talents of all. And they carry over well to the rest of life.

For all intents and purposes I have been doing what you and seemingly everyone has said and doing easy runs this week.

The coach of the indoor track team has let me train through most of the winter but this weekend's meet counts on the record and it is a championship so I have to run the 3200m (21.3 laps; it's always fun to come around after about 6 laps and still see 15 to go).

Anyway, I will come back after that. Thanks for the program.

I am now unsure as to what to do about the mileage (whether to raise it or not; it is difficult to do anything until the snow melts. Today it was 1 below 0 with the absurd wind chill).

I do have orthotics, having seen my share of podiatrists with all the stress fractures and foot tendonitis cases.

That sounds like a good point in terms of specific outdoor preparation.

I will keep people posted. Thank you for your help.

During cross-country season I asked two of my teammates to do several strides with me over a fixed distance. We tried to do about mile pace, but the distance was short enough (about 70m) where we basically finished in the same time.

One guy was the #1 X-C guy and also a 56 400/2:03 800/4:41 1600 runner. The other was a 54 400/2:04 800 runner.

They took 19 longer strides and I took 21 strides in the same distance repeated several times. That was just 70m. I can imagine it was similarly multiplied over long distances.

So I think my turnover is good. In the past when doing barefoot strides I do a cadence drill to determine stride rate and length.

Recently, for instance, I did 100m in 16.23 seconds taking 72 strides.

That is 1.39m per stride (not very long; to give an idea, Mo Greene takes 45 strides in 100m, 2.2m per stride).

The stride rate is 266 strides per minute.

This was not an all-out sprint (in spikes, in a race, I might be able to do 13-point for 100).

So the stride rate in fact seems good. It is the length of my stride that is somewhat poor, at least doing strides and on regular easy runs (I look sometimes at other people's strides whivh are longer compared to mine).

I tried today the session you suggested of stairs and found I can find a good rhythm.

With the hill sprints I actually improved a lot.

I mentioned that, when possible (track not covered in snow), my staple speed maintenance in the off-season is 2-3 sets of 5-6 x 150m.

I do the last 2 as fast as possible. Before the winter of 2004 (last year) I did the last in 23-point.

After using every week for about 8 weeks 3 sets of 6 x 60m sprint up a steep hill once a week, I did the last 2 the first week of spring track in 22-point.

After track I began again and did 21-point.

I have been stuck for a long, long time at 21-point.

My fastest is 21.11. It is apparent that this really is one of my limiting factors. I run more miles than anyone on my team, but every weekend I see a bunch of guys on my team do the 300m (we have a 150m track, so it is a convenient 2 laps) and the times for almost everyone are 39-42 seconds.

With a 21 best for 150m, even done by myself in racing flats, it would be tough for me to do something 39-42 for 300m (right now, not possible).

This despite extensive, extensive work on my basic speed, at least as much as possible while still training like a distance runner. So perhaps the stairs will help. If I can get the 150 down even to 20-point soon, every other pace will feel easier and I think I can run faster.

I am trying to get stronger also with all that threshold work, but as that has apparently backfired, I am working now on recovering as everyone suggested.

As for my coach, we have a very large indoor track team and it is not possible to speak with him for more than several minutes per day (also at the risk of being impaled by a pole vault pole as someone vaults or being bashed in the side of the head by a shot, because he is always standing precariously near to the field event people).

Therefore, it has fallen on me to manage the details of my training (as it always has every winter and every summer since I have been running, which I do not mind).

However, this winter it has become more starkly apparent to me that, knowledge of fancy training terminology notwithstanding, I really do not what I am doing and have done a poor job at improving (really, no job at all).

I have spoken with a number of coaches via e-mail as well, but as you observed, without specific day to day programs and even observation, it is difficult.

Sorry, I messed up the quote on that last post.

It should read:

During cross-country season I asked two of my teammates to do several strides with me over a fixed distance. We tried to do about mile pace, but the distance was short enough (about 70m) where we basically finished in the same time.

One guy was the #1 X-C guy and also a 56 400/2:03 800/4:41 1600 runner. The other was a 54 400/2:04 800 runner.

They took 19 longer strides and I took 21 strides in the same distance repeated several times. That was just 70m. I can imagine it was similarly multiplied over long distances.

So I think my turnover is good. In the past when doing barefoot strides I do a cadence drill to determine stride rate and length.

Recently, for instance, I did 100m in 16.23 seconds taking 72 strides.

That is 1.39m per stride (not very long; to give an idea, Mo Greene takes 45 strides in 100m, 2.2m per stride).

The stride rate is 266 strides per minute.

This was not an all-out sprint (in spikes, in a race, I might be able to do 13-point for 100).

So the stride rate in fact seems good. It is the length of my stride that is somewhat poor, at least doing strides and on regular easy runs (I look sometimes at other people's strides whivh are longer compared to mine).

I tried today the session you suggested of stairs and found I can find a good rhythm.

With the hill sprints I actually improved a lot.

I mentioned that, when possible (track not covered in snow), my staple speed maintenance in the off-season is 2-3 sets of 5-6 x 150m.

I do the last 2 as fast as possible. Before the winter of 2004 (last year) I did the last in 23-point.

After using every week for about 8 weeks 3 sets of 6 x 60m sprint up a steep hill once a week, I did the last 2 the first week of spring track in 22-point.

After track I began again and did 21-point.

I have been stuck for a long, long time at 21-point.

My fastest is 21.11. It is apparent that this really is one of my limiting factors. I run more miles than anyone on my team, but every weekend I see a bunch of guys on my team do the 300m (we have a 150m track, so it is a convenient 2 laps) and the times for almost everyone are 39-42 seconds.

With a 21 best for 150m, even done by myself in racing flats, it would be tough for me to do something 39-42 for 300m (right now, not possible).

This despite extensive, extensive work on my basic speed, at least as much as possible while still training like a distance runner. So perhaps the stairs will help. If I can get the 150 down even to 20-point soon, every other pace will feel easier and I think I can run faster.

I am trying to get stronger also with all that threshold work, but as that has apparently backfired, I am working now on recovering as everyone suggested.

As for my coach, we have a very large indoor track team and it is not possible to speak with him for more than several minutes per day (also at the risk of being impaled by a pole vault pole as someone vaults or being bashed in the side of the head by a shot, because he is always standing precariously near to the field event people).

Therefore, it has fallen on me to manage the details of my training (as it always has every winter and every summer since I have been running, which I do not mind).

However, this winter it has become more starkly apparent to me that, knowledge of fancy training terminology notwithstanding, I really do not what I am doing and have done a poor job at improving (really, no job at all).

I have spoken with a number of coaches via e-mail as well, but as you observed, without specific day to day programs and even observation, it is difficult.

Okay, your stress fractures seem to indicate 1 of 3 possible problems:

1) You are running your distance runs too hard

2) You are doing too much quality work, and your body isn't able to recover from it

3) You have some sort of biomechanical problem (ex - There was a guy on my team in HS with 1 leg longer than the other. He kept getting stress fractures in the same leg, and took doctors a long time to figure it out).

My money is on #2 for you. Hard runs can be considered to be long runs, intervals, tempos, fartleks, hill repeats, and so forth. After doing efforts such as this, the idea to allow your body to recover, or else you won't be getting the benefits from the workout. For example, on some days you are doing some type of hard effort and then going out the next day and running 9-12 miles. Sorry man, but at your level that isn't the best idea. Your body is not recovering from the previous day's effort, and you are simply digging yourself into a deeper hole.

Your efforts from the day before are leaving your body dealing with glycogen depletion and damaged muscle cells. This means you need to go slow and shorter the next day to allow for recovery. As you become a better and stronger runner, you can begin to extend your mileage and up the pace a bit (it will become more appropriate for your level).

You probably would want to drop off on the # of hard days on your schedule as well. Maybe 3 a week, with 1 of them being a long run. The other 2 can be any mixture of hills, tempos, fartleks, intervals, whatever. Your hard days can be whatever you want as long as you are letting your body recover afterwards (though, tempo-type efforts of 20-30 minutes might be your best bet, as they can really lead to a lot of improvement in "underachieving" runners). On your easy days, just relax. Do not go hard at all, no easy fartleks, hill sprints, nothing. I don't care how easy you THINK it is, you need to let your body recover. A few strides and doing drills afterwards is fine, just don't run the strides all out, and you only need to do them 2-4 days a week.

One of the toughest things to learn as a runner who lacks talent is that training harder or longer does not necessarily equal training better. Trust me, it took a long time for me to figure this out. You need to train smarter, not harder. This is one of the toughest lessons to learn in running, and many do not ever learn it.

That is the problem. I cannot run too much because I am not good enough to handle it, but if I do not run more, I will never get better and so be able to handle it.

You may not be good enough to handle it yet, but that does not mean you never will be. The key is progression and patience, not forcing things to happen. Right now you are training at a level that is too high for you. Scale it back some. You will allow your body to recover from workouts, allowing you to build up to another level. Once you start seeing improvement at that level, you can increase your mileage some more. You can't do at all at once, and to think that you HAVE to do this amount of mileage right now just to be at the level you are is ridiculous. You are forcing yourself to do more than your body can handle, and that is probably the reason you are stuck at the level you are.

Listen to Andre.