sub 26 XC 8k

I am an incoming college freshman as well looking to also run sub 26. Bump

Thanks for the link. These exercises look helpful and I will definitely incorporate them into my lifting.

training is going great for me too, got a ten mile time trial on Monday...first day back with the team...shooting for sub 57. you guys think that would equate to sub 26?

I would say it depends. I think low 56 would indicate the ability to go 26:00flat right away. I think it depends whether you have better endurance or speed. You seem like you are on the right track with that sub 27 time trial. Based on everything you have said it sounds like sub 26 by the end of the season is a strong possibility.

You are most welcome. Actually, I'm glad I could help. I'm just a high school kid, but I'd like to follow your training as I have similar goals in mind when I get in college.

college runner wrote:

training is going great for me too, got a ten mile time trial on Monday...first day back with the team...shooting for sub 57. you guys think that would equate to sub 26?

Probably a tad slow. I'm more of strength person, but I'd guess I'd run 10mile time trials in 54 when I'm in 26 shape.

I'll try that same 5x1600 workout and let you know how it goes. I don't like 2 minutes standing rest though, so I'll just jog 400. Will take about 2:30 but with less drop in HR do it should be the same.

If I ran 5:19 avg, I'd say that I was in 16:05/26:30 shape

NESCACalum wrote:

If you've done 1:55 and sub 4:20 but you haven't broken 16:00 or 26:00 yet, all you should worry about for the summer is miles. Lots of them. 60 should be a short week. You should be averaging closer to 70 and maybe approach 80. It sounds like a lot, but given 10 weeks to work with, how hard would this be?

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You need to get your long run in the neighborhood of 15 miles.

You need to start running doubles 1-3 times per week.

You also need to stay away from the track or almost anything with the word "repeat" in it.

Really good post.

Are you a coach?

been there, screwed it up wrote:

If you're serious, you should search for 'summer of malmo' and read what malmo has to say carefully; skip all the posts in which others reinterpret it.

YES.

NESCACalum and some of the other people have it right. You're training is a wee bit too fast, but more importantly it sounds as though its too hard. You manage to miraculously run all of your training runs at 6:50 pace somehow, whether its a long run, easy or regular, which screams to me that you are forcing the pace and not fully relaxed.

I imagine the first couple weeks running with the team are going to be tough. I advise you to rein it in a bit now so you aren't already banged up when the fall starts.

It sounds as though you are worried about not being fit enough when you arrive so you are pushing everything too hard now: tempos at 5:30 pace, forcing 5:20 pace mile repeats, running all your runs at the same 6:50 pace. You need to let go of those worries and fears and just trust the miles and the process.

Going forward:

1. Up your mileage for these last couple weeks, a tad, say by 5 miles. Like the others said, you'll drop your mileage when the season starts, and will feel FRESHER and BETTER because of it.

2. Stop doing tempo runs how you're doing them. Instead, do a nice easy warm up that rolls right into the tempo. Instead of straining to start, do a cut down tempo: something like 6:00, 5:50, 5:40, 5:30, 5:20 with an optional 5:20 6th mile, if you feel good. And by good I mean you are dang close to being able to hold a conversation.

3. Don't ever do your mile repeats like that again. I believe you said you could maybe do 1 or 2 more. That's way too hard. The effort in your workouts (especially this early), should be at the point where you could do the ENTIRE workout again.

I personally advocate doing the mile repeats in a progression as well. Do something like 5:30 5:25: 5:20, 5:15 and then probably 5:15 again for the last one. Don't do a standing recovery, instead do a 1 lap jog in no more than 2:00 minutes. The active recoveries are as important for building endurance as the repeats themselves.

As others have alluded to get under 26 for the 8k, you don't need to be faster, you just need to be STRONGER. That is why people are advocating more mileage. Keep this in mind for everything you do.

I trained like you did for years and never was able to race well. Then I slowed everything down, focused on doing good workouts, and racing well. Suddenly, all of my times got better. I was PRed in the mile while training for the 10k. I basically ran right around 26 flat for 8k and mid 32s for the 10k. All my training consisted of was lots of 7:30-7:00 miles. Lots of doubles. Lots of good workouts with 5 miles to 6 miles of total repeats around 5:30 to 5:10 pace. And weekly long runs that were typically at easy run pace and a few and solid paces.

Does this training apply for anyone? The whole high mileage summer with lots of progression in runs that is.

Trackjacket wrote:

Does this training apply for anyone? The whole high mileage summer with lots of progression in runs that is.

Absolutely it does. The mistakes being made by the OP are incredibly common and my advice applies to anyone.

Thank you for you're very thoughtful and well written post. First off well it may seem like ALL of my runs are at 6:50 pace this is not the case. In many cases I don't post some of the paces and these are typically the slower easy runs. I'm not denying that a running more by feel would be beneficial but I'm not going out and forcing 6:50 pace exactly over and over. Also I don't have a GPS watch right now and I don't know how far I run each day so those paces are mainly just guesses by feel.

Second, I have been slowly upping my mileage and will hit 65ish this week. Others that were posting on here wanted me to up my mileage to 80-90miles plus per week which it foolish at this particular time.

I will try doing my tempos as a progression as this was something I meant to do at least occasionally but just haven't done yet.

However, you are missing the fact that I am trying to make my schools d1 team and so I am peaking for the time period between September 30th-October 20th ish. This is a few weeks earlier than for most.

I had also thought about doing jogging recoveries and doing a cut down with the repeats. I typically do cut them down like in the manner you suggested. I will start doing that again and won't run them faster this upcoming week.

I am very aware that I need to get stronger not faster to achieve this goal and my workouts this year have been more so geared to strength than ever before (I'm a mid-d guy). My strength is already better than it was this spring and last xc season.

Thanks once again for your response. Does my goal of running sub 26 seem realistic?

I'm guessing I'm in 15:55, 26:40-26:50 shape. I probably have better speed than you but worse endurance.

Try Hard Go Far wrote:

I'm guessing I'm in 15:55, 26:40-26:50 shape. I probably have better speed than you but worse endurance.

Yes that's definitely the case. I think I'm pretty balanced in terms of speed and endurance. Your 800 and mile times are far better than mine. I've only run 4:25 and never run under 2:00 in the 800.

I think its great that you aren't really timing your runs. I personally rarely run with a watch and when I do its a GPS watch which I use to slow myself down.

It sounds like you're actually on the right track and have made some good and reasonable adjustments to your training. Breaking 26 seems like a very attainable goal.

Also I do realize you are trying to peak in October. My training philosophy maybe be oversimplified and under "periodized" but I personally think running good XC 8Ks and 10Ks only requires a solid base and a lot of strength workouts. Therefore there's no need to run hard and fast repeats near Daniel's I pace but rather lots of "cruise" intervals around 8k to 10k pace. Assuming you are in 26:40 shape, 5:20 miles should be fine, but 8k and 10k paced repeats should feel super easy, until the last couple and then your legs should feel fatigued but you'll never be real winded. Does that make sense? With that in mind, you're probably not quite in 15:55/26:40 shape, but probably close. I once ran 15:59 in early october and the came back and ran real close to 26 flat 2 months later (with an mild injury in the middle of that). So you can definitely hit sub 26 in late october, if you keep things on track.

Anyway, keep doing what you;re doing. I suggest you keep things scaled down until like 3-4 weeks before your the goal race. In those 3-4 weeks before, feel free to start opening it up during workouts. 4 weeks before do something like a real hard 10 miler, possibly even on the track. 2 weeks before doing something like a 5k race, but pace it horribly on purpose. Go out hard and just try to hold on for as long as possible. 1 week before or in the week leading up, do something like 2x1 mile in 4:40-4:50 but with full recovery (say 10 minutes). Then the on that day of the your time trial or walk-on race, go out and crush it.

Thanks so much for your follow-up post. Both of your post have been very helpful and many of the posts on this thread show that letsrun can be very helpful when everyone's knowledge is pooled together.

Just wanted to post a quick update of my training.

Thursday: 8 miles 7:10-7:20ish

Friday: 8 miles 7:10-7:20ish

Saturday: 4 mile tempo 22:45. I wasn't feeling very good on Saturday so I backed off my tempo. I did a progression and originally planned to do a 5 mile progression but backed off after I didn't feel too great. 5:54, 5:45, 5:38, 5:28. I am not quite sure what I didn't feel well.

Sunday: 14+ miles 6:50ish pace. I felt pretty solid for the day after my tempo (maybe because I backed off) but I ended up running for 1:38:30 at what I would guess to be 6:50 pace.

Today is my off day before I go back and do some 1600 repeats again tomorrow. I will make the recovery a one lap jog and do a little bit of a cutdown on the repeats. Lately I have been getting pretty solid mileage in with 125miles over the last two weeks (that includes a day off that I took last week).

hey dude can you email me or post here quickly how your workout goes? i'm doing intervals of some kind at 6pm tomorrow (26 hrs from now) and i might copy what you do for comparison/motivation.

by the way i think you'll definitely be ready for sub 26. however, i don't think you're going too hard right now. 5:19s for 5x1600 isn't that hard, honestly. especially for a mid-d guy like yourself. and besides, 26:30s is just an estimate of your current fitness. who knows how accurate that guess is.

and if anyone was paying attention to my posts from ths thread, i've also been slowly building in mileage. very slowly. i've run about 65 mpw for the last 6 weeks, and it's been easy and all singles, usually with a day or two of just 6 miles in each week. not nearly as much quality as OP, but a little more mileage and better long runs. base work basically, hardly ever faster than 7:20/mi.

You should have run 85-110MPW over the summer. If not, you will not be able to use your base to its maximum potential. The 85-100MPW should continue until at least 10-1, maybe 9-25. I would suggest hard progression runs with closing miles (last 1.5 to 2.0 miles)at under your 8K race pace. Repeat 800M's will help. 4 800's well under 2:20 with 800M joj. When you do 400's I would do 6 at low 60's with 400 jog. It worked for me. I was unfortunate enough to have Russ Rodgers as my College Coach (D1 NCAA) only for my senior year though. He told me to run 50MPW over the summer (my senior year) and I ended up more than 30 seconds slower then I was my Junior year when he was not there. Finally, in NCAA Finals X-C I got back to a level which was 11 seconds slower than my Jr year but it took till November 20th to "recover" from the 50MPW Rodgers told me to run that summer.

Do the 100MPW distance and do it before the real racing season starts. You can thank me in Novenber.