Be honest. Do I have any chance of breaking 5 for the 1600 in a year's time?

Sub5Hopeful wrote:

Hello all. I've bit of a long story to share with you.

I first started running in the fall of 2016. It was my sophmore year of high school, and I needed a P. E. credit desperately. So, I joined the cross country team.

Actually, calling it a team is a bit of a stretch. I go to an inner-city school where long distance running is simply not appreciated. The coach was ecstatic when I expressed my interest. At the time, one freshman boy and one senior girl comprised the entire team. The coach, though a nice man, knew very little about running. That season, our mileage probably peaked at around 15 miles per week. I consistently ran 24 minutes for 5km, regardless of the course that season. At our final meet I achieved a personal best at the time of 23:08.

I grew to enjoy running, but I had no intention of running track in the spring. The girl I ran cross country with was adamant that I join the team, however. (The freshman had joined the wrestling team.) I timidly asked the coach if I could do long jump, but he took one look at me (5' 8" and 120 pounds at the time) and said that I would be running with distance. By "running with distance" he meant being the only male distance runner. So I ran. Three events every meet: 800m, 1600m, and 3200m. Due to the sprint-focused nature of our track program, I was only ever running 5-10 miles per week.

Here are my PRs for that season:

800 2:54

1600 6:10

3200 14:17

I know. I was very slow.

I ran cross country again in the fall. This time, we (It was still just me and the one other guy. The girl had graduated.) had a new coach, but he was just as clueless as the last one. he only signed us up for four meets. At our final meet I ran 21:43.

I decided to do track again, and I was determined to improve. A lot. I bumped my mileage up to 20-25 miles per week during the winter. I'm still running about that now. This season we now have a total of four male distance runners. None of us are very good, though.

I started out the season with these times:

800 2:38

1600 5:55

3200 12:46

In my most recent meet I ran:

800 2:30

1600 5:28

3200 12:18 (This would be faster, but every meet I have to run the 4x800, 1600, 800, and 3200 in that order.)

So, my question for you all is: can I break 5 minutes for the 1600 my senior year? I am willing to bring up mileage a lot this summer and train hard in both my off seasons.

dhdhdbsvs wrote:

Sub5Hopeful wrote:

Hello all. I've bit of a long story to share with you.

I first started running in the fall of 2016. It was my sophmore year of high school, and I needed a P. E. credit desperately. So, I joined the cross country team.

Actually, calling it a team is a bit of a stretch. I go to an inner-city school where long distance running is simply not appreciated. The coach was ecstatic when I expressed my interest. At the time, one freshman boy and one senior girl comprised the entire team. The coach, though a nice man, knew very little about running. That season, our mileage probably peaked at around 15 miles per week. I consistently ran 24 minutes for 5km, regardless of the course that season. At our final meet I achieved a personal best at the time of 23:08.

I grew to enjoy running, but I had no intention of running track in the spring. The girl I ran cross country with was adamant that I join the team, however. (The freshman had joined the wrestling team.) I timidly asked the coach if I could do long jump, but he took one look at me (5' 8" and 120 pounds at the time) and said that I would be running with distance. By "running with distance" he meant being the only male distance runner. So I ran. Three events every meet: 800m, 1600m, and 3200m. Due to the sprint-focused nature of our track program, I was only ever running 5-10 miles per week.

Here are my PRs for that season:

800 2:54

1600 6:10

3200 14:17

I know. I was very slow.

I ran cross country again in the fall. This time, we (It was still just me and the one other guy. The girl had graduated.) had a new coach, but he was just as clueless as the last one. he only signed us up for four meets. At our final meet I ran 21:43.

I decided to do track again, and I was determined to improve. A lot. I bumped my mileage up to 20-25 miles per week during the winter. I'm still running about that now. This season we now have a total of four male distance runners. None of us are very good, though.

I started out the season with these times:

800 2:38

1600 5:55

3200 12:46

In my most recent meet I ran:

800 2:30

1600 5:28

3200 12:18 (This would be faster, but every meet I have to run the 4x800, 1600, 800, and 3200 in that order.)

So, my question for you all is: can I break 5 minutes for the 1600 my senior year? I am willing to bring up mileage a lot this summer and train hard in both my off seasons.

Sub 5 is probably a bit unlikely, but you can try. Look up summer of malmo and do that over the summer. You lack the speed and endurance for sub 5, so you need to increase your mileage and you might want to throw in a “workout” of 10 hill sprints (80-100m) at max effort with full rest in between in order to realize maximize your speed each rep. My team did that for the first time this season and my first 800m of the season matched my PR.

Good luck