sub 26 XC 8k

Yea sure I will post my workout tomorrow night, but you will likely already be done with your workout. It will be pretty similar to last week's workout but with a recovery jog instead of stationary recovery. I'm hoping to run the same splits as last week on less effort with the jog. My endurance at the end of the 5x1600 workout was starting to go, but since that was my first interval workout I expect a noticeable difference this week in fitness. And actually I have not really touched any speed what so ever since I haven't done any strides (which I am starting this week) so my speed is not great right now at all.

As far as your training has been going feel free to post about it on here when ever and give us all updates. And it sounds like your training is going well. I may try doing a 6 mile day this week and supplement it by bumping two of my 8 milers up to 9 to maintain the same mileage. 6 miles and under feels very short and easy and it is an active refresher. For me it's difficult to run for much longer than 100 minutes at this point despite whether I run it at 6:40s or 7:30s.

As far as doubles go, I believe that less mileage in singles at a slightly faster pace is better than doing doubles at a slower pace. I just find that there is so much more value to run 8 miles in one run rather than doing something like 5miles am and 5miles pm, but that's just my opinion. I have done a few doubles before and find myself to be fatigued the next day.

reed wrote:

are you for real? you think somebody should jump from 60-70 mpw up to 110? be real man. dunno if you are talking to me or OP but neither of us are ready for consistent 100 mpw.

and those workouts you mentioned are way too hard for a sub-26 8k dude. no way could i do repeat 800s in 2:20. i've only ever run 3 or 4 800s that fast in my life. i don't care how successful you were using that training. if you were only around 26 minutes, then you were doing something seriously wrong.

Not true at all. 25:59 is worth 4:30 according to purdy, and running sub-26 on a cross country course is significantly harder than on a track so it's definitely worth much better than a 4:30. 4x800 at slower than your mile pace with 800 jog shouldn't be a very tough workout, and 2:20s should be manageable for a 26 minute 8k runner unless you're a pure strength runner.

rupp-certified saladbar wrote:

Really good post.

Are you a coach?

Not at all. Just a guy who has been there.

reed wrote:

are you for real? you think somebody should jump from 60-70 mpw up to 110? be real man. dunno if you are talking to me or OP but neither of us are ready for consistent 100 mpw.

and those workouts you mentioned are way too hard for a sub-26 8k dude. no way could i do repeat 800s in 2:20. i've only ever run 3 or 4 800s that fast in my life. i don't care how successful you were using that training. if you were only around 26 minutes, then you were doing something seriously wrong.

Of course he is for real. In fact, I did exactly the type of training he described after having a 26:00 8k PR. The results? I ran 24:40 the next season.

The OP should have slowed down a bit and ran more mileage.

Stop talking about 'being ready for 100mpw'. That's some weak stuff. You either do it or you don't. Train hard and run fast or don't.

actually reed I will be holding off on my hard workout that I planned to do tomorrow because I have some stiffness/tightness and soreness in my upper left calf in a small area towards the outside of my calf. If anyone has an idea what exactly that is let me know and that would be greatly appreciated. It has been bothering me the last couple of days and I decided that it would be better to go easy tomorrow rather than risk it getting tighter by going hard.

First, I was writing to Try Hard Go Far, not you.

Did you even see I put a range of 85-110 not just 110 as you so inaccurately point out. And if you can hardly run 1 800M in 2:20....HTF are you going to run 10 straight 800M's in under 2:35? On hills oc X-C, not on the track?

To answer your question, I ran 24:43 FOR 5M which comes to 24:33 for 8K and 30:45 for 10K in X-C (as my handle suggests). I adjusted the workout(s) to facilitate a 25:50-26:00 for 8K. If you cant go from 65MPW to 85 MPW then you needed to start building up earlier. At 30:45 X-C [4:57.0/Mile)I was doing 4 X 800 in 2:07, 5 X Full Mile in 4:39 and 4 X 400 in :59. If you cant do the 800M repeats in 2:20 then you need to either work on your speed, raise your estimated time or toughen up a bit. You can probably do it if you really ran 15:40+ for 5K. If you paid attention, you would see the rest was 800 jog in between the 800's and 400 jog in between the 400's.

Again, I was not writing to you anyway. Try Hard Go Far said hew had success in the 800 and 1600M and you implied you have not.

The only way you are going to succeed is work hard and smart.

You're tightness is probably just standard tightness for doing some solid training. I find that we all get those hot spots. For each person it's different, and its usually just highlighting some weakness, whether its your calf or something else thats domino effecting your calf.

If it gets in the way take it easy for a couple days. When was the last itme you had a down week or down 5 days?

I like the 5 + 5 doulbes or something similar because they basically become a recovery/down day. The purpose of those isn't to get fitness like say a moderate distance run, but rather to heal up. Sometimes after stressing your body, running more than 40 minutes or so is just going to breakdown your body further, so rather than slog an 8 miler as a recovery day, slog 2 short runs. Same mileage, less wear and tear.

Did you do your second 1600 workout yet? I think your last one wasn't that bad. It may not have felt good, but the paces were okay. Some days your body just doesn't want to run fast and you have to accept that. Backing off was the right call.

Update?

Bump

Bump

thanks for bumping

in response to the comment about 800 repeats in 2:20, maybe i was wrong. with 800 recoveries it'd be doable, just a lot faster than any 800 repeats i've done. i said that i'd only ever done a few 800s faster than 2:20, which is true, but leaves out that i've never raced an 800 and have only raced a few 1500/1600s since high school.

it's been about 3-4 weeks since i've updated, so here's how my training's been going:

(approx) 65,65,65,70,70,65,75,70,77 and this week will be ~85

i've moved into my new apartment with 2 roommates who are also doing 80 mpw, so it's much easier now.

i haven't done a workout recently, not in last 3-4 weeks.

i'll do something like 1600s or 2000s this friday, hopefully 8k pace.

by the way, i'll add that the course on which i plan to attempt sub 26 is flat. basically like a dirt track. so to compare to a track, there isn't much difference.

plan for next few weeks: 80-90 mpw

Mon 8/6 double

Tue 12 with workout

Wed 8/6 double

Thu 10

Fri workout, totaling 10-12 for day

Sat 6/6 double

Sun 15-18 hilly LR

focus is obviously mileage over quality. strides might be added as well

So...at this point one of two things has happened.

1. The whole plan blew up on him as I and others predicted and he isn't posting out of shame.

2. He's the number 1 guy on his team cranking out 8K times in the 24 minute range and doesn't even have time to gloat.

Any updates?

Nope neither actually. I ended up running into a very knowledgeable high school coach and trained with him for the last 4 weeks. Training went reasonably well and I have been running 55-60mpw with an emphasis on cruise intervals, hill repeats and tempos. Unfortunately there is only one local 8k at my college which is next month. I also talked with my college coach and 26 minutes on an 8k course won't be fast enough to make the team at this point and time. I am still training hard but am thinking of this training as more of a base for track. I will probably run the 8k though later next month to see where I am at.

can you post those weeks?

update for me: i hit 90.3 last week.

so far this week i'm on track for 85-90 again.

workouts: last friday i did 12x400 in 79 with 200s in 55-60. very controlled, very easy. just gotta get used to the track again

this tuesday i did 4x2k on the roads, 7:02, 7:02, 6:54, 6:54. so basically it was a broken up tempo run. 2 minutes jogging for recovery. not too tough of a workout but probably not sustainable for a tempo run yet. (~5:35/mi)

tomorrow is the same 12x400 again, hopefully 78s this time or just less effort.

Try hard go far: keep updating

Ah that's a bummer. Well my advice is to stay focused. I found out similar news my freshman year and more or less stopped running. That was a really weak and bad choice on my part.

I'm hoping to break 26 in the last week of october.

I just ran a 10k recently in 33:10, but that's down from 34:30 from 6 weeks earlier.

My fastest work on the track thus far has been 16x400 in about 77-80 and then 5xmile @ 5:30. Other than that I've just been doing regular distance runs, long runs, and some impromptu naturally occuring tempos.

My mileage has been:

48

52

54

58

55

63

I've really struggled to get into the 60s without feeling dead in the legs. I've slowed down the pace a bit this week and am floating comfortably in the 60's (7 day rolling average).

Try Hard Go Far wrote:

Nope neither actually. I ended up running into a very knowledgeable high school coach and trained with him for the last 4 weeks. Training went reasonably well and I have been running 55-60mpw with an emphasis on cruise intervals, hill repeats and tempos. Unfortunately there is only one local 8k at my college which is next month. I also talked with my college coach and 26 minutes on an 8k course won't be fast enough to make the team at this point and time. I am still training hard but am thinking of this training as more of a base for track. I will probably run the 8k though later next month to see where I am at.

"I also talked with my college coach and 26 minutes on an 8k course won't be fast enough to make the team at this point and time."

OK, what school is this? Won't even take you as a walk on? Is it Stanford or Oregon or something? Regardless, the coach sounds unreceptive to the idea as a whole. I would encourage you to consider transferring or resigning yourself to not running for that school. Unless he gave you a realistic time that would get you on the team (and no, sub-24:00 is not realistic), it might be time to move on.

Yea, I would also like to know what school this is.

26 minute 8k means you either go to a really, really elite running school (and then you should run for the club team there which will be competitive) or the coach is insane/stupid.

I see absolutely no reason why the coach cannot at least let you train with the team.

another update from me

had a great workout today

so the last ~3 weeks i've been running a lot, about 12-13 per day or 85-90 mpw. been feeling good despite this increase from 70.

today's workout (all with other people, but leading pack so taking the wind all the time)

2mi WU, 1600m in 5:10 (78, 80, 77, 75)(to simulate opening hard in a xc race). 3 minute jogging, then a 4 mile tempo run (net no elevation change but a hilly route) in 22:30 (5:37ish). then 5 minutes jogging, then 5x200m hard in 32, 31, 31, 32, 29. (31.45 avg) with 200m jogging recovery in around 60 seconds.

Analysis: I think this workout says a lot for me. It means I can still hit tempo pace after a hard mile, and that I can still close hard for those 200s. I didn't expect to crack 30 on the last one, but i hit 29.6. this was my first really fast stuff since track season.

thoughts? i will continue doing this type of workout but i will shorten the recoveries and hopefully do the tempo or first mile faster. mcmillan says that tempo pace for a 25:50 8k is 5:21-5:32/mi (probably for 20 minute tempos)