You have this uncanny blend of self-awareness and lack of self-awareness that screams troll.
I'm not trolling. I can kind of see why you think I am, but I'm not. Is there any way I can prove this to you without giving away too much personal information?
That's the fun part about letsrun... You can never prove you're not a troll without doxxing yourself.
1. Yeah, I'm starting to doubt myself and if I'll ever be able to run fast. I'm going to need to reevaluate why I'm doing this and look over my training again.
2. Can you explain why I should do this? I don't think I can so easily "just trust you on this one" because this is the complete opposite of everything I've been told all along.
I'm not the original reply, but I agree with him most out of anyone. The thing that really matters is time at a given effort, so I think the idea of mileage is one adapted for those with a base level of fitness.
In regard to the tempos, the line between tempo and regular running is somewhat blurred at that speed.
yeah this guy gets what I was trying to say. he explained the tempo part perfectly. the main point is that your heart and lungs don't know how many miles you ran, just how long that they were under stress. mileage is just a tool for measuring that stress across athletes somewhat regularly. In your particular case throwing more and more mileage at yourself isn't going to do as much good as you think it will, instead do the speed work that I suggested, don't run as far 20-30 minutes is plenty, run as many days a week as you can and run faster than easy pace more often. Once you can run around 7:50-8:10 for a base run and have it be truly easy pace, then you'll be in a position to start paying attention to mileage. And in all honesty, you've got months until summer practices start, months more till the XC season begins, and then another 2 or so months of season time to refine and get better. Just do the basics really really well, and really really consistently till your coach takes over your training and you'll be all the better for it. Try not and stress yourself out.
A typical "low mileage" program might say to run 4-5 miles a day, operating on the assumption that they will be done in 40ish mins. As such, it might be prudent to try for something like that amount of time instead.
In regard to the tempos, the line between tempo and regular running is somewhat blurred at that speed. For example, your recent tempo was at 8:24, and your two mile recovery shakeout the next day was at 8:33. That's a hint that the base level of fitness to actually run a true tempo isn't there, so trying for a tempo won't be super beneficial. I'm in agreement with the FutureOldHead that running significantly faster, shorter reps will help a lot. This isn't to say that your tempos are really bad, you'll still get some benefit, just not as much as you may think.
I think you have some cool goals, and I'll be following to see how you get on!
Thank you, I appreciate the advice! I'm planning on doing two workouts per week, so apart from the faster, shorter intervals, what should my other workout be?
Another faster workout either on the track or as a fartlek or else no workout at all. If you run your base runs at a quicker pace than one focused workout a week would be plenty.
What I mean is that the only way I improved was doing my tempos way harder than I thought was possible. I'm coaching a friend who is a 7:30 miler (ran a 10:30 2 months ago) and he is improving just off of faster tempos and track intervals. You aren't going to get injured off of 2-3 hard workouts per week.
Alright, thanks for the info. Should I keep the distance 3-5 miles or decrease this to run faster tempos? Also, what kind of track workouts should I be doing? Shorter or longer intervals?
Sorry to keep adding on but different thoughts keep coming to me. "faster" tempos don't really exist unless you've already made a gain in fitness. whats referred to as a "tempo" is usually lactate threshold, the pace at which your body is able to fully process lactate acid as it is created from exerting yourself. This improves your V02 max and a few other things but basically what I'm trying to say is that if you increase that pace you're no longer training that stimulus, youre training something else. I still don't think you should really utilize tempos at the moment, and definitely not as a continuous run.
Sun: about 4.5 miles easy (about 9:30 minute pace)
My watch is having problems right now, so this is all I remember. Wednesday through Friday I had to deal with a personal family issue so I was not able to run. Saturday I could've run but decided to relax and hang out with friends. Overall was a pretty crappy week.
Mon - about 6 miles easy (about 10:13 minute pace)
Tues - 1 mile wu (about 10:00), 2 mile tempo (8:09 pace, negative split), 1 mile cd (about 9:50)
Wed - about 6 miles easy (about 9:30 pace)
Thurs - 1.5 mile wu (about 9:45 pace), 8x200 w/ 200m jog (all under 45 seconds, anywhere from 41-44 seconds), 1.5 mile cd (about 9:45 pace)
Fri - about 3 miles easy (about 9:00 pace)
Sat - AM - about 2 miles easy (about 9:00 pace)
PM - about 5 miles easy (about 9:15 pace)
Sun - 9 miles long run at 9:08 pace (last mile was in 8:09)
Total: about 40 miles
Watch is working again, but I don't have it with me right now, so these are pretty much all the runs I remember. The mileage might be about 40.5 or so, but it's pretty much the same anyway. Proud of the 9 miler Sunday, that's my longest so far.