I feel like a lot of college 8ks depend on the course and the race. I did sub par training in the summer (35mpw), bumped up when the season started and came out to a fast race and race 25:3X.
The only workout that predicted a time like that was a 6 mile tempo finishing the last 3 miles in 16:10 (my mileage is up to 60mpw). But really its about finding the race to do it and preparing yourself for it.
I'm shooting for 25:10 for the next meet, and sub 25 for my last race.
my week
M 5 + 7
T 10mi hilly moderate tempo
W 5 + 7
Th 10 easy
F 10 w/ 12x400 in 73.9, 55sec jogs
Sa 6 easy + ultimate frisbee
Su 15 w/ half marathon pacing gig
total 75
easy workouts this week because i wanted to hit 80mi but didnt quite get there. paced a half marathon in 1:30 (6:52/mi) today, ran 1:29:58ish so pretty much nailed it (even splits too). wore a Rex costume, from toy story. there's no good way to describe the costume other than it was very uncomfortable, yet worth all the attention/cheers/photo ops/etc.
racing next saturday, basically my season opener. dunno what the exact goal is but i'm close to PR fitness, 25:48. definitely going for sub 26 at least
Last two weeks
120 miles
Tuesday workout was 6x mile 4:38 average for first 5 finished with a 4:27. Starting to feel stronger.
Friday workout was 4 miles in 19:59 than 3 miles in 14:42
Sunday long run 20 miles at 6:03
This week much of the same
120 miles
Tuesday 25x400 with 25 second rest 67 average. Starting to get some speed in the legs
Friday 10 mile tempo at 5:07 than 4x200 in 28
Sunday 20 mile long run at 6:07
Starting to get tired. Not so much physically but that I just need more sleep at night. Good training and best of luck in the upcoming races!
may i join
what are you training for? cross country?
you look like you'd be running in the 23s for 8k, not 25s
my week
M 9
T 11 w/ 4x2k
W 10
Th 7
F 6
Sa 11 w/ 8k xc race
Su 14
total 69
tues: easy/moderate 4x2k. avg 6:42s or about 5:21/mi
sat: season opener on a flat, fast course. PR. see RR below
sun: long run sucked big time, really tired and legs feeling all kinds of niggles
RR: (TL;DR at bottom) So, things weren't looking good for an 8k PR this year. mileage has been much worse and workouts haven't been as fast as they were last year, due to my injury in june/july. i am rounding into shape however, so i expected to be abe to run just under 26 minutes for this race, which is on a very fast course. i have set my 8k PR here 3 years in a row.
warming up, i felt terrible. had to go to the bathroom 3 times in the morning, but i toed the line prepared to give it an honest effort anyway. my gps watch seemed off, showing 5:19 pace when i felt like i was running faster. missed the mile split according to the course, but my watch beeped 5:19. scared me a bit because it felt like 5:10. i carried on, hoping to start feeling better. hit mile 2 in 10:23, a 5:04 mile? doubt it, so i began ignoring the watch completely. 10:23 is right at 26 flat pace basically, so i figured i was still in a good spot. its worth noting that since the first mile i've been passing people like its going out of style. i'd say about 95% of people go out too fast on this course, so i always expect to pass people the second mile when they back off. i hit mile 3 in 15:34, a 5:11 split. pretty solid for how i was feeling! i was way behind my other teammates though, and was currently our 5th guy. i began passing friends and rivals around mile 3, always surging a bit to keep them from following me. around mile 3 is when i realized that a PR was within reach, and at the same time i realized that some of my teammates were fading ahead of me, so i got focused to try to pass them. mile 4 was 20:43, a new 4mi PR and a few seconds faster than i split last year, if my memory is correct. started really pushing right after the 4mi because i knew i needed a 5:04 mile to PR, and last year i closed in 5:03. luckily a couple people were still around me and also kicked at mile 4, so i didnt have to run alone. an additional big push with about 500m to go landed me 25:39.6, my club's 3rd man, though way behind #1 and #2.
my team did very well, the previous club record of 25:47 was beat by 4 people! a freshman in our club ran 25:02, a sophomore 25:04. last year i was the best xc guy, running just 25:48. team only got 2nd place though, lost to out new rivals from UC Davis despite an avg top 5 of 25:30. no complaints here
TLDR I ran 25:39, a 9-sec PR under my club's old record but my teammate ran 25:02 so I didn't get the CR. not in as good of shape as last year but conditions were better and i ran better.
Reed, nice PR ! Interesting 1st mile split. If you don't mind me asking, what was the rest between Tues. 4x2k workout?
3min. again, it wasnt difficult. we ran 6:45-6:50 for the first 3 then closed in 6:28ish, still not even very fast, somethign like 5:11/mi
You were right. Ran a 24:4X last weekend. I felt like I left at least 15 secs out on the course somewhere, though.
It was a very crowded race. I got pushed off the course into tall grass a few times. I literally threatened one guy's life if he shoved me again. It's a bit of a blur, but I think I told him that, 'if you touch me again I will end you' :)
But, this time I started and finished well. My last 2K and my first 2K were my fastest. Lost ground in the middle 4K. Passed a few guys in the last 2K.
Running mid-80s mpw with two very high quality workouts and a long run with a tempo or progression thrown in for good measure. Phasing out some of the junk miles and doubles. Feeling confident but perpetually tired.
New goals are sub 24:30 at conference and sub 31 at regionals.
PS. Nice PR Reed!
D1, my guess is you left the 15 secs somewhere in your workouts. Feeling "perpettually" tired should be a big clue. One quality workout and then some shorter goal pace like 3 x 1000 @ 4:50 ish w/90sec. rest . Cut down volume of mileage. You may still have the strength for solid 8 k but will have a harder time with 10 k . However I would be happy if you prove me wrong. Good luck!
Here is a detailed log on how I jumped from a 27:12 8k to 24:42 in one year. To run sub 25, I feel like you need to be in 14:45-14:50 5k shape and be able to run 4-6 mile tempos in the 5:20 range. 1ks at sub 3 with short rest are very important too, I was running 8x1k at the pace when I neared my PR. The log has data since the beginning of January so the previous track season is included. I've never run over 80 miles in one week.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14vCyanVbV42H2rdY3hnedwPW06x63fXA0ndmBJGeSlY/edit#gid=7
Run a 25 minute 8K?
Given a lick of talent on a reasonable course, it's do-able for a good college XC runner.
I went to UMass in the 70s. Coach Ken O'Brien had piles of kids running under 25:00 for 5 miles in Franklin Park, led by Mike Quinn running well under 23:00. I think it was about 22:47. The only kid beating Quinn in New England was John Treacy at Providence.
OB was, and is, a wily coach with a great bag of tricks.
Here's the program back in the day at it's heart: Overall distance, 70 - 80 mpw. Core hard workout: 4 mile warmup, 5 @ 1 mile faster than race pace, 4 mile warm down.
The best runners were doing the repeats between 4:30 and 4:40. Sometimes dipping under 4:30. There was much more of course, but you get the idea. Work, and more work. Even easy days were 8 - 11 miles at a talking pace.
I hope OB doesn't mind being mentioned here, I was more a middle distance guy, and loved working with him.
Horst G. , can you recall rests between repeat workouts? Did rest between mile repeats become progressively shorter as season went on? Can you recall how you tapered or not for championship races. Thanks for sharing.
my week
M 5 + 7 double
T 10 w/ fartlek
W 5 + 5 double
Th 7 easy
F 6.5 w/ strides
Sa 8k race, details below
Su 14 hilly long run
total 70 mi
tuesday: 7x 3min hard, 2min easy. went pretty easy for this, 5:47 avg
sat race: NIRCA pacific regional champs. 8th place, 27:03
race: this is a semi-important race for my club team. it's not really the goal race, but we want to do as well as possible as a team. it's always on a tough course, and this year was the same as last year, Crystal Springs XC Course in the bay area. it's a tough course, all packed dirt, dedicated xc course. probably about 90 seconds slower than a flat course IMHO.
last year i placed 5th after a slight fade in 27:20, and was the top guy in my club. our team lost by 7 pts to UC Davis' club team.
this year our team is much better, but so is Davis' team. they beat us last weekend at the flat course, but we were hoping that their runners would be tired after 4 weekends in a row of racing.
the race: my goal was mainly to beat as many davis runners as possible, most notably the guy that i couldnt catch last year. i had beat him last weekend by 5-10 seconds over 8k on a fast course. i ran 25:39, he ran 25:48. this race was tactical for 3mi then it broke apart. first 3 miles were not too tough, felt like a fast tempo. we ran even 5:30 pace, but the constant hills make that seem really uneven. last year i was also 16:30 at 3mi, same as this year, although i felt much more tired after 3mi last year, and the leaders had already gone ahead by that point. this year i was just hanging out in the back of the pack of 10 guys, all from my school or uc davis. i knew that around 3 miles the race would break open, and i knew that i needed to stick with the 4th davis guy, because i was probably the 4th or 5th best guy on my team this year. their #1 guy would surely win easily, as he has run 24:21 and our best guy is 25:02.
in mile 4 i got away from davis' #5 (the guy who beat me last year) but not by much. i was running with another teammate, trading leads to try to drop the davis guy. right about 4 miles in i began to pull ahead of my teammate, but suddenly i heard the footsteps of my davis rival. he was doing a huge surge, just like this point in the race last year. i knew his plan so i stuck behind him for about 30 seconds, then just after mile 4 i went around him and pressed hard for a minute. i gapped him by about 15m and tried my hardest to stay ahead. i began to catch the davis #4 man and well as my teams #3 man. i tried to forget about my rival and just catch the guys ahead of me (who were about 20m ahead with 800 to go). with 400 to go it was clear i wouldnt catch anybody, but i still wasnt far ahead of my rival. i heard him sprinting behind me in the last 100 but i had a lot extra to hold him off to take 8th place in 27:03, with about 10:33 for the last 2mi.
the score was 23-32, we lost by 9 pts. it was basically a dual meet, despite the presence of 9 full teams. the top 11 runners were all from 2 schools.
so this year i ran 27:03 which wouldve been enough for 2nd last year! but oh well. the only thing i couldve done differently was take the lead sometime before mile 3 and hope that i broke the davis guys, but its entirely possible that i wouldve just made it worse for my team, as i definitely wasnt going to place better than 4th in this race. i placed 8th with 27:03, and 5th was 26:56, 6th 26:57, 7th 27:58. close race!
next race is either a 3200m or 5000m time trial in a couple weeks, or a 10k xc race in 4 weeks. for the time trial, i will either race the 3200 and try to run 9:30s, or try to run 9:50 and then continue for another 4.5 laps to break 15:28.
i ran 75mi this week on singles, which was dumb. doubles next week, maybe 80mi.
13 on monday
quazi-tempo/hilly run on wednesday
fartlek friday, still tired from wed. but ran fast
14mi sunday
this week:
75 miles again
with
4x2k progressing, 6:42,6:32,6:26,6:07 with 3min rec
12x400 at 73s, easy, 60sec rec
backed off on the weekend cuz i was feeling a little niggle on fridays 400s. just ran 5 on saturday, so i had been on track for 80 miles until then
next race: 3200m TT on tuesday. goal is just to race well, maybe 9:30s, maybe faster if it goes well
Hi all,
I haven't posted in a while because I have been building back up from a pretty serious Achilles injury during the summer. I started with 10 minutes a day back in August, by mid september I was up to about 30 miles a week and am now at 47-49 these past 3 weeks with a 10 mile long run (funny to think that last year at this point a 10 mile run would have been a medium-long run). I've been really serious about lower body lifting since I started back up again, I lift about 2X a week and do a short bodyweight routine daily.
I'll start back up with workouts probably this week so I'll keep the mileage constant while I get used to them. 4 weeks ago I ran 16:45 easily in a 5k fun run on half paths and half trails and two Fridays ago I ran a 3:26 1200 meter leg on a DMR with my club, so things are looking good in terms of speed and endurance considering I really haven't done any workouts since starting back up again.
The 25 minute 8k dream didn't happen this year for me but things are looking good for the future.
Reed: Good job at your regional meet and during the season in general. Good luck in your TT.
reed, congratulations on your pr and clear improvement. I don't know how you do it but maybe I'm missing the value of hills or not overtraining. Sub 25 might be in your future. Congrats to others as well for the sub 25(sub 24 for the guy doing 10M tempo at 5:07--that should mean a solid margin Olympic Trials qualifier in the half if that's legit).
jjjjjj wrote:
reed, congratulations on your pr and clear improvement. I don't know how you do it but maybe I'm missing the value of hills or not overtraining. Sub 25 might be in your future.
thanks! i think the basis of my methodology is avoiding overtraining and being as consistent as possible. through time you learn your body and can make changes, such as in tapering or when to do hard workouts.
I ran 9:33.9 in my time trial today, but more importantly, I won the race. we have two 25:0x guys, but one didn't show up and the other probably had an off day. he was leading the race (4:45 first 1600 to my 4:48) but i caught him with about 700m to go.
my splits: 70,73,73,72,72,73,72,67. 4:48.4 at 1600m, closed in a mile PR technically (4:45.5). i didn't lead too much, sat in 3rd until 1700m, moved into 2nd about 15m back of leader, then passed him with 700m to go. next guy back ran 9:42.5 so I built a solid lead in the last two laps
I probably could run 9:27ish in a perfect scenario (better competition, better pacing). weather was perfect, chilly with no wind. however, the school's marching band walked onto the track around 1000m into my race and we had to yell a lot and run into lane 4-5.
one more thing, I ran 75 miles last week and 13 miles just on sunday, with 11 miles in doubles on monday. tapers are overrated! i'll stick with 70-75 mpw this week because I'm feeling great and tapering usually just messes with me
Awesome reed! Congratulations for such a good performance.
Are you taking any rest day? When you have a double day, are you doing both at easy pace like the easy days?
I am training 6 days a week, doing between 50-55 miles and trying to increase to 60 miles. Maybe I should include a double day on Wednesdays.
For example last week I did:
M: 8K + 8x1' fast and recovering 1 minute
T: 8K + (3'+5'+7'+5'+3' recovering 1'30'', 2'30'', 3'30'', 2'30'', 1'30'')
W: 65' + 5x100m
TH: 20' + 3x2000m + 2x1000m
F: REST
S: 25' + 4x100m + 4x400m + 10'
Su: 90'
browser wrote:
Awesome reed! Congratulations for such a good performance.
Are you taking any rest day? When you have a double day, are you doing both at easy pace like the easy days?
I do not take scheduled rest days. Haven't for years and I don;t regret that decision. I do take days off, but they are always unplanned.
When I double, my morning run is usually about 7:30 pace, which for me is recovery pace, and my afternoon run will be about 7:10 pace on most days. But both are just easy efforts and I don't care how fast they are.
As for your training, I don;t double unless I'm running about 65 mpw or more, or basically 9-10 miles per day. I think it's more beneficial to do one 10 miles run than to double 5+5 or 4+6. However, for recovery days, doubling is better in my opinion, as you are basically just doing two shake-out runs.
My experiences may not be applicable to you because it seems you train very differently than I do. I only run hard on workout days, where you seem to do intervals every day or most days. So gather your own conclusions.