ADVICE REQUESTED: Please Help a Stagnated Distance Runner in His Last Season

KC Roadrunner wrote:

HSDR,

First off, Where do you live? Maybe there is someone on this board that lives near you that could actually meet you & run with you, because that would be the best way to see where you're going wrong.

2nd... You said there's a 4:29 miler on your team. Have you asked him what his training is like? & have you tried to run with him? If you want to be a "good" runner, then run with the good runners as much as possible. Sure you might get dropped, but you'll slowly close the gap if you keep trying, day in & day out.

I live in southwest Connecticut.

I know what the 4:29 miler's training is like. Today I went running with him.

I do more mileage generally than he does, but now he is doing track workouts and I am not (such as 400s and 800s fast, whereas I have done only strides and threshold sessions).

Today, for instance, we did a longer run. He went 70 min and I went 86 (~ 11 miles).

I certainly try to stay with them. In cross-country I did the workouts

KC Roadrunner wrote:

HSDR,

First off, Where do you live? Maybe there is someone on this board that lives near you that could actually meet you & run with you, because that would be the best way to see where you're going wrong.

2nd... You said there's a 4:29 miler on your team. Have you asked him what his training is like? & have you tried to run with him? If you want to be a "good" runner, then run with the good runners as much as possible. Sure you might get dropped, but you'll slowly close the gap if you keep trying, day in & day out.

I live, unfortunately, in southwest Connecticut. In the winters it is beyond miserable.

I also know what the 4:29 miler does (as well as a lot of other guys who are good; a 54/2:04 runner, a 54/2:09 runner, a 5:05/10:00 (3K) runner, a 61/5:03 runner, a 51/1:58 runner, and a 1:59/4:34 runner). As you can see, I am just about the slowest on the whole confounded team.

Today I ran with the 4:29 guy. He did 70 min and I did 86 (~11 miles) over steep hills and some snow. He is doing track work (fast 400s and 800s) and racing now and I have done only strides, mileage, and threshold sessions.

During cross-country I tried to stay with him and others and was able on some occasions (on one workout of 1200s we did a 1200 fast, 4 x 200 up a steep hill on a trail and 4 x 200 back down relaxed but quick, the another last 1200 fast where he did 4:02 and I did 4:04 on rough grass).

But it is not always possible or advisable. He is at a different fitness level than me.

Today, for instance, he started climbing very fast (by my perspective) up a 4 minute long hill and for me to keep up would have necessitated some bad tying up. I thought it was best to keep it aerobic being that we had 30+ minutes remaining in the run.

High School Distance Runner wrote:

I live, unfortunately, in southwest Connecticut. In the winters it is beyond miserable.

Pardon me while I spit coffee through my nose. Those of us who went to HS in northern New England used to grouse about how unfair it was that Connecticut guys got to run in the New Englands. We had a year where we had to cancel the one meet on the schedule prior to April 15 due to there still being snow on the track.

I still managed to run literally every day for the last 18 months of HS. Of course, it did take some toll on our performances at our little hick school. Our school mile record was only 4:21. Plus we had one winner of the NE XC title.

I always thought of it as "character building."

From what you're telling me, I personally think you should "shadow" these good runners on your team. You have not one, but a whole group of guys to feed off of. As for not being able to keep up with these guys on runs, don't worry about it. What I'd recommend is just to continue to try & keep up as long as possible (on runs such as today) but instead of doing the full 11 miler like he did, cut it short & maybe run 7. I'm not telling you to do this all the time, just occasionally & try to build up from there. A good practice is to, key off the guy (or group of guys) right in front of you... gun them down & then go for the next guy in the food chain & so on.

I also think that at your level, you should keep the mileage down to no more than 50/week until this summer, & substitue some of these workouts with tempo's.

Are you from the Hartford area? I'm sure there's a running club & running stores around there that you can find other people to run with & learn from.

Emmett wrote:

Pardon me while I spit coffee through my nose. Those of us who went to HS in northern New England used to grouse about how unfair it was that Connecticut guys got to run in the New Englands. We had a year where we had to cancel the one meet on the schedule prior to April 15 due to there still being snow on the track.

I still managed to run literally every day for the last 18 months of HS. Of course, it did take some toll on our performances at our little hick school. Our school mile record was only 4:21. Plus we had one winner of the NE XC title.

I always thought of it as "character building."

In the past 2 weeks we have had about 15+ inches of snow. Just about every day of the last 20 has dropped below 0 at some point, and just about every track practice I can remember in the last 3 weeks (and in spots before that as well) has seen wind chills very close to or below 0 degrees.

I make no claim to living in the coldest part of New England (Vermont, Maine, or New Hampshire wins that "award") but here it is pretty darn cold. For most of the people I know, the term "miserable" applies.

I have wind burn on my face so bad that people think I went to vacation in Mexico because it looks like I have a severe sun burn.

I also have Reynaud's disease so if ever I wear one pair of gloves when I should be wearing 2, I come in from the run and lie on the ground in agony for 15 minutes as the capillaries in my hands thaw out. It is an experience I do not wish on anyone.

And it is bad enough to interfere SEVERELY with training.

So, character builder or not, I would move to a warmer locale in a heartbeat if it was possible.

stop making excuses, you have an excuse listed to nearly all of your times

I did 11 and he did shorter. Normally I do quite a bit more mileage than any of these guys.

I have trouble keeping up with these guys because they do 5-6 mile runs and I am doing 11-13 trying to stay with them. When the finish, I still have over an hour of running left.

I am as good or better at the longer distances than most of those fast 400 runners. They are just faster sprinters, but I certainly work on it (with regular 150s that I mentioned. My quickest is 21 but I am always trying to get faster with drills, uphill sprints, plyometrics, downhill sprints, and strides).

I am not from Hartford.

yeayysys wrote:

stop making excuses, you have an excuse listed to nearly all of your times

That's because some of my PRs were run in workouts.

I am not making excuses but explanations that I think, as an example, I could run 400m faster in a race than in a solo workout at the end of a long session on a hot day.

It is not an excuse; it is information so people can understand my background to offer advice.

Further, sometimes there are very legitimate reasons why I have not run faster at a certain distance.

In one of my fastest 5,000m races, I had the flu. I have raced with broken bones in my foot and done hard efforts with mononucleosis as well.

Also, I had pretty bad allergies last track season when I did my 800-3,000m PRs.

I forgot to mention something that may be of interest as well.

The 4:29 miler on the team ran 17:50 for X-C last year. I ran 17:47 for X-C.

He went on to run 4:40 for track outdoors last year.

This year he ran 16:29 and 4:29 (first race 4:39).

So my X-C time seems to be one year behind his, but his improvement curve seems to be WAY bigger than mine.

He ran 5:11 sophomore year (I ran 5:15) and he is now at 4:29. I am at (from last season) 5:06.

>I also have Reynaud's disease so if ever I wear one pair of gloves when I should be wearing 2, I come in from the run and lie on the ground in agony for 15 minutes as the capillaries in my hands thaw out. It is an experience I do not wish on anyone.

Have you been tested for hypothyroidism??? Raynaud's is highly correlated with hypothyroidsm.

you have rejected every possible suggestion anyone has given you and it's really getting irritating to read. get a TSH test...

if this comes out negative and "running is your life" and sitting around for a couple months would improve your running - then running really isn't your life cause you WON'T do anything it takes to make it better.

and get some mittens and chemical hand warmers - gloves suck for raynauds.

questioner wrote:

Have you been tested for hypothyroidism??? Raynaud's is highly correlated with hypothyroidsm.

you have rejected every possible suggestion anyone has given you and it's really getting irritating to read. get a TSH test...

if this comes out negative and "running is your life" and sitting around for a couple months would improve your running - then running really isn't your life cause you WON'T do anything it takes to make it better.

and get some mittens and chemical hand warmers - gloves suck for raynauds.

I will try to check out that test.

And I have not rejected every suggestion.

As I mentioned before, I have implemented where possible some of the many suggestions given to me on this thread.

It is difficult inasmuch as some of the advice is mutually exclusive ("Do not race for 6 months" vs. "Train more specifically for the mile" or "Stop running" vs. "Keep training").

As for taking months off from running, I maintain that in NO case will ANY runner improve their times by not running for several months. I fail to see how this is suggested considering my title was "Please help a STAGNATED runner."

ok... this is the last time I'm gonna say something... cause I'm really trying to help you out buddy. Follow this 4:29 miler like stink on shit. If he runs 6 miles, then don't go run 11 miles... run 6 miles & hang on his ass like a leech!!. If he runs an ez 3... you run an ez 3. This is the simplest approach I can come up with for you. live it, learn it, breathe it.

High School Distance Runner wrote:

I did 11 and he did shorter. Normally I do quite a bit more mileage than any of these guys.

I have trouble keeping up with these guys because they do 5-6 mile runs and I am doing 11-13 trying to stay with them. When the finish, I still have over an hour of running left.

My advice would be to do the same 5-6 mile runs as everyone else, and forget the extra mileage. Stay as close as you can, for as long as you can, and congratulate yourself each time you finish even a little bit closer.

Yeah,

I would have to agree with the last two posters. If you want to run 4:29 (or in your case sub 5:00), you have to emulate a 4:29 guy. Within reason, I would do the same workouts he is doing. If you can only run 3-5 miles with him before you get dropped, then so be it. Time is of the essence, and it is time to make drastic changes in your training. Obviously, you are not getting the results you want out of your training schedule, so do what the 4:29 guy does-cut out all the extra stuff you have been doing-strides, hill repeats, long slow runs, etc. It might be still be necessary for you to take one complete rest day a week, so you don't get injured, or sick. I would also do what someone else mentioned, and that is cut your mileage down to 50 miles per week max. Think quality rather than quantity. And, don't get too bummed out about the 11:15 deuce that you ran indoors. I'll go out on a limb, and say if you make major changes in your training regime, you should run sub 10:30, and sub 5:00 outdoors!

Good Luck,

Chris

questioner wrote:

Have you been tested for hypothyroidism??? Raynaud's is highly correlated with hypothyroidsm.

A further few questions about this correlation.

First, does this involve only SEVERE cases of Raynaud's?

I have heard about people who have a severe enough case that they must wear gloves when opening supermarket freezers because slight changes in temperature can set off an attack.

My case is not nearly as severe. My hands get extremely cold easily in the winter and my joints (hands and feet) turn purple. Beyond this, there is no other apparent symptom.

Also, about hypothyroidism; are there any other symptoms that you can give examples of? I have had to bug my mom for quite a few tests in the past few months, so I do not want to have money be spent if it is unlikely I have this.

If I knew of some other symptoms that seemed familiar, it would give me added incentive to get tested.

Thanks for the help.

you got a big pussy.... grow some balls, sack up and run

lactic threshold of 20:33?

hard 2 milers of 13:19?

seriosuly... wtf...

what are your recovery days at? 9:00 pace

You know what your problem is? You think you know everything about running. You don't, at all. You clearly think you do, because obviously your "training" is far superior to that of everyone else in your state, yet somehow you get progressively worse? If you're going to ask for advice, don't respond to the advice as to why that wouldn't work for you, because you really don't know. You're full of shit and you don't want to admit it. "It's hard running with the people who are so much faster than me because i run almost twice as much as them!" wtf. does that make sense at all? can't you see you're doing something wrong? accept it and make some changes, don't keep making excuses. it's pathetic.

help? wrote:

You know what your problem is? You think you know everything about running. You don't, at all. You clearly think you do, because obviously your "training" is far superior to that of everyone else in your state, yet somehow you get progressively worse? If you're going to ask for advice, don't respond to the advice as to why that wouldn't work for you, because you really don't know. You're full of shit and you don't want to admit it. "It's hard running with the people who are so much faster than me because i run almost twice as much as them!" wtf. does that make sense at all? can't you see you're doing something wrong? accept it and make some changes, don't keep making excuses. it's pathetic.

I appreciate your candor, which, though misguided, clearly has been delivered with sincerity.

For your information, I tried doing the same training the others on my team are now doing.

I have done very little training in the past.

I have done a lot of hard, anaerobic track workouts.

I have done higher mileage and threshold workouts with strides.

So I have tried it the other ways as well, and for enough time to see the resultant race times.

Do not tell me I "do not know." I have tried much of it, and about a good deal of it, I DO know.

So, in fact, I do not want to admit I am full of "(choice expletive, oft overused by those with small vocabularies)" not because I am afraid to admit it but because I do not think anything of the kind.

It is funny that, by looking at a short running history you feel qualified to make character assessments (and, more specifically, character assassinations) of someone.

You asked me if I can see I am doing something wrong. The answer, if you have read even 1-2 of my posts on this thread, is quite obviously yes.

And you might also have missed my recounting that I have IMPLEMENTED (read this sentence 4-5 times until it permeates the barrier that is preventing you from reading comprehension) SOME OF THE ADVICE GIVEN TO ME.

I never said I know everything about running either.

In short, you make false claims about me and you make too much of them. If you have advice, by all means, I am listening. I have already done what some people have suggested.

But this nonsense about presuming to know what you do not know is absurd and I suggest you stop it before you potray yourself as no more than caustic and ignorant.

hmm, obviously you know what "works best for you". thats why you've improved so dramatically over the years you've been training yourself. right. well even though i do think you do think you know everything about running i'll give you some advice. how is your form? have you ever tried to improve it? do you try to stay relaxed and in control during your workouts? have you tried to emulate the 4:29 miler's form? that might help. oh yeah, and stop making excuses and acting like you've tried everything.