ex-xc chick wrote:
Explaining it made a lot more sense. I still disagree with you, but I can understand where you're coming from.
To me I could totally understand someone being a talented (define that however you want) runner and still have no idea of training concepts. When I ran in high school I kept no log, had no idea of what mileage I ran, and really couldn't tell you what my average splits were in a 400 workout. Five years ago I was running ok times coming out of high school (low 19's for a 5k), but I didn't know how I got there. Through college I learned to keep detailed records and now could easily tell you what workouts are effective for me in what stages of training.
You're other point I believe was that even if she makes it she will not be ready to make the improvement expected by the team. The reason I would tend to disagree with this is that she already has a history of high mileage which I believe is much harder to develop than speed. That 5:46 pace that she needs isn't a stellar track time by any means, but if you are looking at trying to peak in March or April for some road races then it is a little different. I would say that most teams would love to have a female who could hold a 5:46 for 5k (just under 18min), and I think that desperate for help could hit that by the end of the season.
I would like to say that I wrote all of that poorly and probably came on too strong as a result of not being able to type fast enough to write it well. It was hard to understand my point in a way that email and the written word on a forum often are.
RE your first para.:
I do agree with you. I have seen this same thing with several runners I guess. Mostly females but many HS males, especially ones who are very talented and reach the higher levels of HS distance with relative ease (sub-2:00/sub-4:30/sub-10:00). It is specifically because it happened so naturally for them that they don't need to know the HOW/WHY. They inherently possess the ability to repeat this result. I guess that is why I felt that she ought to KNOW the path already? If you have a mature female runner who knows they can run ~5:30-5:40 level in the 1600, they either can achieve this fairly easily and it doesn't take any magic training plans (The TALENTED) or they have done it already in HS or college (remember we are talking about a 23 year old who has identified herself as having run D2) and it took a certain amount of work (The TRAINER).
I guess I have/had that POV because she said she ran in college and only stopped bc her team folded, AND that she was running 50-60 a week and HAD BEEN up to 70. You just don't see too many American 20-somethings (male or fem) that say they are running that much and haven't had some success or experience at this level already. Do colleges take 6:00 milers? It is a serious question? I assume they don't, but I don't know it all.
I also am biased by the fact that I had the opposite of your experience (more or less). Started at age 11 in the thick of the Running Boom. Had a middle-school running club and lots of books and magazines to learn from. In those days I could go to a 10k at age 12 and run 38:XX and still get FOURTH in 13-and-under AG!! You had a BURNING DESIRE to get better and succeed or you quit, it just wasn't fun to be mediocre. Born out of this was the learning about training and benchmarks and the record-keeping. We didn't have a coach per-se in middle school but we did have a leader who explained things to us, and the Jim Fixx logs encouraged us to write these things down.
So, more than anyone wanted to know I guess ...
RE your second para.:
I didn't mean that she WON'T improve enough for the club, just that if it took this level of work in January to reach the minimum 8:40-level ... where does she go from here? She has worked as hard as she can for this and towards this for months now (she said she was training 50-60 for months). And if it works she will still be at the minimum level they accept? It seems like that would be depressing to me, to have every girl there better than you? Maybe they are all near the same level but I can't see that. So, sure you run your 8:39 2400m (5:46 per 1600m) and you "make it" .. it seems like it might be an uphill battle for her for the rest of the year. I wasn't saying that she can't make enough improvement to be good enough for them (I would imagine that "just" running sub-19:00 would be very useful for most teams - but this one seems elitist). I think she can get better and can be plenty good enough for a team, but I don't think that if she is doing these kind of intervals and doubles EVERY day that she is going to improve as much as you are saying, but maybe she WILL? That would "just" be going 6 laps at 5:46-pace and extending it to double that - 12.5 laps at 5:46-pace (18:01 - 5k)- like I said I did that in high school and I was extremely well-trained even before the first half-distance race. But you said March or April road races, March is only 6 weeks away? She may be able to make that kind of improvement over six months, but not six weeks.
To put it succinctly: It seems like the 8:40 cutoff would make this a team full of 16:30-17:30 5k females and much faster males. If our heroine can make it she may find herself busting-ass to just make it to 18:30-19:00 level at first and not find this very satisfying. Since she is clearly a committed trainer, I was just suggesting that she CONSIDER the possibility that she may not make it and should spend a year (or 3 months or 6 months??) training consistently for the next try-out window. At that point the 8:40-6-lapper could be attempted CONFIDENTLY and she would likely crash right through that level.