My goal of sub 4:00 1500-I will not stop until I reach my goal.

you guys f***ing suck... seriuosly leave the running alone, take up guitar or something.

How did you run in a college race?

Editor, you have too much time on your hands. There was one topic: the workout. Hence, one paragraph.

This is a message board. Standards differ radically from published work. I have edited multiple books and my own copy rarely is altered at all on matters of grammar, spelling, or usage. Why don't you post an essay of your own and let me take a shot at your writing?

eddylee, that's an excellent time and I expect that if you race the distance again, you'll go under 27.

there's going to be a time when you can go out in 5:05 and maintain and this race is just a first step in that. for now, negative splits are probably a good idea, as you know, because you don't go lactic early and you have plenty of time to drop time. but for the 5k, maybe go out in 5:10, still fast, and see if you can pick it up a bit for the sub-16.

someone tell me what w/u means!!??

w/u=warm-up. c/d=cooldown. someone tell me what "up and down" means in a workout context (for workouts with a slower and a faster alternating segment?).

many college xc race directors (for open races) allow unattached runners, particularly collegians. (his school doesn't have a xc team). that's how he was in a college xc race. this happens in track as well.

a 27 8k guy is quite good for college. the fact is that people on this site have a radically unrealistic picture of running performance relative to the general population of runners. Even on the Division One level, you get many people running 28 and 29 for 8k. Most div 3 runners are between 27 and 29. Div 3 team leaders will often break 27 and sometimes 26. 25 is broken only by a few div 3 runners every year, most of them at nationals. When I ran div 3 new englands as a frosh in 1987 (a bunch of guys were sick or injured, so they let me go) on a very muddy, snowy course, I was a terrible 29:46 (didn't run in spikes, a big mistake, but I sucked anyway), yet I still beat 25 or more guys. (156 out of 181 or something like that). That was a meet where each team was limited to 7 guys. And then you take a 6 minute pace guy and put him into a big road race and he'll be in the top 2%. a 27 minute 8k runner is far from the best, maybe 5 minutes, but there are not very many runners at all below 27, a few thousand a year in the U.S. at most, I would bet. It is idiotic for a runner of all people to denigrate the very hard-won accomplishments of other runners. We all know how hard this sport is.

(topic sentence>) editor, it's funny but your 'correction' of my post doesn't even properly divide it into topically-unified paragraphs. (evidence in support of topic sentence>) Note the description of the run in the second paragraph after the remark about the next shot at a pr. This works only as one paragraph or as several paragraphs with a) the description of the run, b) a justification of my decision to go faster than tempo, and c) anticipation of future times based on this workout. (Conclusion>) Save your low level editing skills for the illiterates who need them.

Thank you for the encouraging words, Jonesy.

Last week:

Monday: 9miles…middle 5 @633pace

Tuesday: 6.25miles

3x1mile+5minrest(jog400+ and then relax)

511,506,457

Wednesday: 9miles…8@633,1mile c/d

Thursday: 6.5

Friday: 8miles….8k race in 27:05

Saturday: 10miles 9miles&646pace, 1mile c/d

Sunday: 11.25miles at 655pace…

Hey Jonesy & Eddylee - You guys are doing awesome! Jonesy - awesome PR on the 5M in that you busted into the 26's. Especially during a tempo. It's whole new world and I'm looking forward to when I'll drop in that region too! I hope you have a great race this coming weekend. Looks like you're going to have awesome weather.

Eddy - You're doing great. The mile repeats indicate you're 5K times are going to drop even further. Looking forward to the progress reports.

I've incorporated some hill workouts lately. In the past two weeks I've done two so far... You're right Jonesy... you get faster as you repeat. I know it's going to help. My quads have been really sore lately. Haven't experienced this from the tempos or intervals on the track. Must be a good thing.

Take care!

Quick check-in for me before I collapse.

A week and a half of some decent and not so decent running.

sun: 8.5 mi / 60 min

mon: 7.5 mi / 52 min

tues: 50 warmup & cooldown

8 x 600m uphill, push the pace coming back down

weds: 5 mi / 35 min

thursday thru monday: catch my annual fall illness and spend the majority of my day sleeping.

tues: 5 mi / 35 min

weds: 30 warmup & cooldown

2 mi tempo - 12:00

3 minutes rest

10 x 30 second uphill, jog down rest

2 mi tempo back - 12:00.

I don't think I lost a lot of fitness - and I've gotten pneumonia before trying to run through illness, so I think I made the right choice. Plus two down weeks can't hurt - my shins were starting to complain a little.

Looks like everyone else is doing well. Congrats on the 8k pr, jonesy. You're getting a little too close to mine for comfort!

I did hill repeat/intervals this past Mon. Worked real hard. The next day I was a little sore and went to do an easy run at 8min pace. I was about 2 miles into the run and my right calf suddenly 'knotted' up. I could barely walk home it hurt so bad. I've had this happen before. I don't think I was drinking enough water. It's been two days now and it's still knotted up in one particular spot. I can press on a certain trigger point and there's pain. It's not as bad as it was. I've been massaging the muscle and apply pressure to the trigger point. I know it's not tear or major problem. It's just a painful cramp/knot. Anybody have any thoughts on how I can get this thing straightened out so I can race my 8k Sun without too many problems?

Hey Ron,

If you cross your legs and put the back of your calf up against your other knee, you can usually press hard enough to get a little better response than just using your hands. I also have put a softball under my calf for this - the massage dude I saw told me not to roll it, but just put my weight on it for about 20 seconds (you should feel the knot un-knot a little bit, and then you want to let up).

That said I'm not sure if it'll come around quickly enough to make racing a great idea. When my calf did this, it took maybe 2 weeks to sort it out.

Hope it gets better quickly.

i might chime in,

this week so far:

mo: 5 miles with 3 x times pick ups

tue: 6 miles with 12 times 200 metres pick ups in between

wed am: 6 miles recovery run

thurs: off

i was a 8:36 steepler in college, all american, and feel very bad about what i am doing right now. just training aside. very much below what i had done years before in college.

i smoked a cigarettete today. again.

tds

Thanks Boingo for the advice. I've been applying pressure to the trigger point regularly. It's still all knotted up and hurts. This flat sucks. I've tried running up and down the street a bit and it's tight. Would you suggest suspending running altogether until the knot goes away? My fear is any attempt at running will only prolong the process? Did you experience a significant loss of fitness for being down for 2 weeks?

Thanks for chiming in... it seems this thread is welcome to all those who want to better themselves and run faster than they ever have regardless of age! How long has it been since you've ran in college? 8:36 in the steeple is very impressive. It would indicate to me that you're very talented and have the "stuff." I wouldn't beat yourself up too much about your current level of fitness or your habits. Since you merited All-American status indicates to me that you know what it takes to excel at more than just running. Getting serious about running again has the effect of diminishing the nasty habits we seem to develop over the years. The human lung has amazing abilities to restore/repair itself. I think the bigger problem is the mind.

If this is you getting back into it, my advice is to scrap the intervals/reps and simply run mileage. Get the heart/lungs/legs in good order for minimum 3-4 month before specializing. Build the base first then specialize. Best Regards.

I dispute that there are "not very many runners at all below 27, a few thousand a year in the U.S. at most, I would bet." I don't support making fun of anyone, and I know you were just trying to prevent that, but this is false.

If by "a few thousand a year in the U.S." you mean 3000, you are way off. There are a FEW THOUSAND high school males that could run sub-27 in XC each year. I can't prove it but, use your head! I would say that if you can do 16:00-16:20 on grass you can break 27:00 for XC. Just peruse your State's XC Championship results and see how many can run sub-16:00.

Here is the tail end of ALL THE FINISHERS at the Big 10 CC Meet. 81 guys in the Big 10 can break it in ONE DAY. Think of all the guys they left home from each team that can do it? Conservatively it would be about 150 runners in the BIG 10 alone. Add all the other conferences in and all non-college athletes and all high schoolers and you have a lot more than 3000.

81 68 169 Steve Swank Purdue JR 26:58.1

82 69 162 Dominic DeSantis Purdue FR 27:14.3

83 70 8 Mike Murray Illinois SO 27:15.0

84 166 Stephen O'Donnell Purdue FR 27:15.1

85 1 Nathan Bohne Illinois FR 27:18.8

86 128 Skyler Schmitt Ohio State SO 28:23.0

87 122 Taylor Candella Ohio State JR 29:32.6

Hey Ron,

I did end up not doing any running at all until the knot left me entirely - it was so tight that actually just standing up straight stretched it painfully. If yours is less severe, then it may not take as long and you might be able to get away with running on it. I've heard that basically you want to run on it just up until it starts hurting - so blood gets to the area but not so much that you hurt it more. I ran on the track until I felt confident that I could do out-and-back courses and not be stranded five miles from my car.

In the short term, I wasn't as sharp as I would have liked after those 2 weeks off - I also took 3 weeks or so to get my mileage back up to where it had been. I also got sick maybe 2 weeks after I had started up, though - so it's hard to say how deleterious the effects of that time off were. I doubt very much.

Thanks Boingo. I ran 3.3 on both Fri and Sun. I decided to go ahead and race the 8K road run this morning. I did okay. The course was actually 5.05 miles from several guys who GPSd the race. My splits were 5:41, 5:36, 5:50, 5:56, 6:29 giving me a 29:32. My times at the mile points were: 5:41, 11:18, 17:08, 23:04, and 29:32. I started slowing down during the third mile and missed my goal of 16:57. The fifth mile was wrong and where they added 0.08 to the course. I think I ran the equivalent 29:04 for and actual 8K. My calf was tight, but as I began to race it didn't really bother me much. I popped a couple of ibuprofen when I got home and it stopped hurting. I think I'll be okay, but I'm going to take it easy to make sure. Best Regards!

nice race, ron. if that's like the calf injury I had, you just ice, take some time off and then walk a couple miles, jog extremely slowly for a few yards, walk a bunch more, jog a bit more, etc., building up over several days. the problem went away completely for me after it made me stop a race in 2007.

I ran 2:40 at New York. 60:24/61:37/38 and change. pretty disappointing as I thought I was fit to run 2:35-6. The last week taper was probably too extreme.

on the 27 minute standard, that was just a guess and probably within an order of magnitude of accurate (i.e. not 30,000 but more than 3,000 can do 27 5M, and high schoolers don't run 5M so I don't count them, but even if you do, it's still within the order of mag). The big 10's not the best example as it's high div 1 and there are plenty of low div 1 programs.