2014 sub 26 8k

Damn reed. So what r u gonna do next? And is this thread gonna continue in the spring?

Anyways, about the spot. Can't say much on here. But it sounds like i fell short of reclaiming it. Needed a high 25 to low 26. But Im happy of what I've done especially when I had to miss 2 weeks due to injury. I'll talk to the coach on Monday. There may be a chance which im not gonna say why on here. If no, then his loss and grad school's gain since I have a year left of eligibility after this year.

Solid race! Going to run anymore 8 k's this season?

I have another 8k xc race Saturday. Gonna be a much harder course, time will probably be 27:xx. My only goal is to place well compRed to both the full field and my team. Last year I was probably our 5th best guy, but I got 7th at this race placing 11 or 12th overall. This year I think I could place top 5, or possibly top 3 if I pace myself well on the tough course. The course is crystal springs xc course in the Bay Area.

Race plan will be to run with my teams top pack for as long as we can hold it together. We should win this race rather easily, we are the 3x defending champs.

So goal: top guy on club team, and top 5 overall

After this race we have 3 weeks of no racing. May do a 3200m time trial if my coach allows it, I'd like to take a shot at 9:40. Pr is 10:07ish

my week:

M 8.5 easy

T 9 w/ 20min fartlek pretty easy

W 10.3 easy

Th 8.5 easy w/ strides

F 5 easy w/ strides

Sa 9 w/ 8k XC race

Su 11 easy, feeling sore

total 61, 6:52/mi

Sat race: NIRCA Pacific Regionals. ran 27:20 for 5th place overall, and again the top guy from my club team. race was constant hills, just relentless. all mile splits were fairly even around 5:30. at the first mile i was in the process of moving up to the lead pack, so i was in about 10-12th place in 5:33ish. i knew i should be top ten easily in this race so i wanted to stick to the leaders. moved into the lead pack of 6-8 around 1.3-1.5mi. there were 4 of my teammates up there too. didnt notice that a few UC Davis guys were around too. i sure noticed them later.

in one particular downhill around mile 2, my teammate took the lead. i knew i should be ahead of him so i followed, calling back to my other teammates to follow me. after a couple minutes of pushing my teammate backed off a bit and 2 UC Davis guys went ahead of him. i followed them, now in 3rd. they didnt really pick it up, and because there were still about 6 guys in the lead pack, i decided it needed to be broken up. i took the lead for about a kilometer, with the davis guys right on my heels. a bit before mile 3 they took off as a group of 2. they hit 3mi in 16:25ish, me in 16:32. i never thought i'd be hitting 3 miles this fast on this course. we chatted eariler about breaking 18 for the first 3. anyway, apparently the davis guys meant business and they gapped me, pulling their 3rd guy with them. at mile 4 another uc davis guy caught me. i had no idea they even had a good team! found out later that their top 2 guys were D1 guys that got kicked off the team or left for some other reason. with about 150 to go i floored it trying to regain the 20m i had lost on their 4th guy. unfortunately the race ends with a hill and i couldnt maintain pace at all.

came through the line in 27:20, turned around and saw another of my teammates finish in 27:36. we had the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th guys as well! unfortunately even placing 6 in the top ten wasnt enough for the win. we lost 27-35.

this is the best i've ever run at NIRCA Regionals, and the first time I've ever led an XC race. I maybe should have sat back with 3rd and 4th place instead of following the top 2 guys, but i didn't know how fast they were.

our girls team got 1st place. not bad for having just 5 girls race, and with a few of them totally new to racing.

10/20-10/26

M 8X1K(3:05,3:10,3:10,3:10,3:10,3:11,3:09,3:06) with 2:30 recovery jog, 2 warmup/cooldown 10 total

T 8.15 AM, 3.7 PM

W 14.6-ish, rainy and muddy but mostly on grass

R 6.3 with running club, strides afterward

F 8K race, slow time of 27:25, but the course was very muddy and in horrible condition, finished in 42nd around people with Pr's in the lower 26 range, total mileage for the day was about 10

S 10.25 easy, legs felt much more fresh than they did after my last race

S Rest

63 total

In all this week was great; my workout on Monday was on the same course as my Friday race, but the course was in much better condition on Monday. I predict that the course was around 60 to 75 seconds slower than it has been in previous years based off of finishing times. I know that I am in great shape, won't be racing next week.

Would be surprised if you don't break 9:30 on a track.

Nice job! Seems like you could've dropped 15 - 30 secs with better pacing on a tough course.

I like to see guys be aggressive even if they falter later. It shows heart. Now you have to back up your mindset with some more training so you can keep the lead.

Reed, do you know anything about the UCDavis meet on 11/8? Is it a good course? My son is going to run at it. Will be first race he's run this XC season. Nice run in your race, maybe you weren't real happy with time but you were in the mix and racing, good stuff.

i've never run an xc race in sacramento or davis.

its the doc adams meet? id recommend cheking results from provious years and comparing the times to other times the same athletes ran that season.

theres no info i can see on the ucd website.

and to whoever thinks i can run sub 9:30, that'd be awesome but i highly doubt it. nto without more experience runnign 1500/3ks. my plan will probably be to run 72s all the way

for what it's worth wrote:

Reed, do you know anything about the UCDavis meet on 11/8? Is it a good course? My son is going to run at it. Will be first race he's run this XC season. Nice run in your race, maybe you weren't real happy with time but you were in the mix and racing, good stuff.

I was able to find a course map (http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/ucda/sports/c-xc/auto_pdf/2014-15/misc_non_event/14-XC-Doc-Adams.pdf), and gave a quick mapping job of the loop (with start and finish. It's basically this run four times with small variations):

. It looks very flat (no topographical lines within the course) so it should be a fast course.

And reed, for what it's worth, I think based on your current fitness and fitness trajectory you should be able to go sub 9:30 for 2 miles without too much trouble. I think your fitness now is similar to mine when I ran an 8:57 3k and I don't think that was at my limit for numerous reasons.

5x1600 today, 3min rec. 5:03 avg

5:10-5:08-5:07-5:03-4:48

Killin it right now. They all felt great, never really got tired until 5th one , which really didn't hurt that bad.

I led the first one on my own, then my coach had me start 5 seconds behind the other guys running 5:10ish. Still finished first every time but I got to chase them which helped. Last one was all alone from the gun, hit 72-72-74-70. Not all out, easily could've closed in 66ish and ran 4:44ish

The question is, can I hold this fitness for 3 more weeks. Might do a 3200m time trial next Saturday and I was previously gonna shoot for 9:40 but I may even be able to run 9:30

I am maybe a little bit more speed oriented but when I ran the equivalent of 9:25 3200m I could not run sub 26 on a 8k (road). Probably 26:20-26:30 on road.

You can run sub 9:30 I believe. But it doesn't really matter how fast you run this race. After this race you know what you are capable of and then try to beat that time next time.

10/20-10/26

M 16X500 with 1:15 jogging rest ~ 1:33 average, felt great ~ 9.5

T 8.15 AM, 3.5 PM

W 15.63, felt great and ran at a surprisingly fast pace

R 9 with running club, they wanted to do a fartlek so I did it with them, went a little too hard for a recovery day

F 9 mile tempo at 5:50 pace, a bit sore from yesterday, but the effort was also considerably easier than past tempo runs, 12 total

S 10.8 easy

S rest

total 68.5, solid week of training!

goals:

sub-26 8k (done, 25:48)

top man in my club at NIRCA regionals (done)

3200m time trial in 9:30s (TBD, this friday))

top man in my club at PAUSATF XC champs (TBD, nov 16th)

road 5k, goal is sub-15:40 (TBD, thanksgiving)

my week:

M 9 easy

T 10 easy

W 13 w/ 5x1600m (3min rec)

Th 6 way too fast

F 7 easy

Sa 4 hungover, slow

Su 15 hilly trails, slow

total 63.6, 7:15/mi

wed: 5x1600m on the track. goal for this workout was to start at 5:0x and work down from there, but i was clearly the fastest guy on the day so i had to do a lot of the work. started with 5:10.0 leading all 4 laps, teammates did 5:15. coach had me start the 2nd,3rd,4th reps about 5sec behind my teammates to make it easier on me. 2-4 were 5:08, 5:07, 5:03 feeling really smooth and easy. teammates did 5:12/5:10/5:06 so i was finishing pretty close to them, even had to swing wide a bunch of times. for the 5th i decided to run it with them to avoid having to pass people, and to get splits from my coach. goal was low 4:50s depending on the effort. split 72,72,74,70 for 4:48.3 another teammate hung on to run 4:52ish. felt very smooth for this.

this workout leaves me feeling like i could run my 3200m time trial in 9:30-9:35, so i will shoot for 71.x per lap. hopefully i can get some people to pace me as i doubt any of my teammates will be shooting for 9:30. we'll see, those guys have more track speed than i do. i'm pretty sure they'll just sit behind me and let me lead.

Workout today was 2mi tempo, 8x400, 1mi. Third time we've done it.

First time: 11:21, 77s, 5:03.

Second time: 10:30, 78s, 4:49

Today: 10:19, 77s, 4:50

Shoe came untied in the last mile which cost me a bit, plus we had to squeeze through a gate due to the time change. Probably worth 4:47ish

Reed, I'm trying to understand this workout? Looks like a two mile and one mile time trial with slowish quarters. If two mile portion is at tempo pace, it would suggest a very fast 8 k fitness, like your current race fitness. Can you explain what the workout is designed to accomplish? How do you determine tempo pace? Can you give rest time between efforts. I really don't understand the pace of the 400's why are they run @ 5:o8 mi. pace. Thanks

Reed, I'm trying to understand this workout? Looks like a two mile and one mile time trial with slowish quarters. If two mile portion is at tempo pace, it would suggest a very fast 8 k fitness, like your current race fitness. Can you explain what the workout is designed to accomplish? How do you determine tempo pace? Can you give rest time between efforts. I really don't understand the pace of the 400's why are they run @ 5:o8 mi. pace. Thanks

DaCloner wrote:

Any word on what the Michigan State course looks like for NIRCA nationals?

It's super fast. That course is famous around here for being possibly the fastest course in the state.

the 2 miles was originally at tempo pace (11:21 early season). the second time we did it, the coach told us to shoot for a little faster, like 10:40. we hit 10:30 because it got a little competitive. this last time he gave us no specific time to shoot for, but told us to do it fast, hence the 10:19. thats my 8k pace basically so not ridiculously fast but not easy.

then we do about 3min jogging from where we finish the 2 mile loop to a grass field where we do the 400s.

the 400s are slow because it's on thick grass. it's also just ~400m, could be long or short. within a couple seconds probably based on GPS. the effort isn't hard at all, feels like running 73-74s on the track with 60sec jogging rest. also, most of the team do the 400s together or within a couple seconds, so you have guys running 25-28 minutes all doing the same 400s together. i could run way faster for the 400s, but then the last mile wouldn't be as fun.

then we jog over to a dirt/road loop where we start the hard mile, and are instructed to do it pretty hard but not all out. because we don't want to start running under 4;40 for the last mile, we do the 2 mile tempo faster at the beginning.

in this way, the workout gets harder each time as we get fitter. it's designed like an 8k XC race. go out pretty hard for 2 miles, settle a little bit in the middle (note that the 400s are the same pace roughly as the 2mi tempo) then we close hard.

this is the first year we've done this workout. it's basically replaced our tempo runs. last XC season we did 1mi hard (5:10ish) then 60sec rest, then a 4-5mi tempo, then 5x200m.

i personally prefer doing tempos because it's easy to gauge fitness off of a 4-7mi tempo run.

i've only done one tempo run for XC season, which was 5.8mi at 5;35/mi back in september. i imagine i could do 5:30 pace for tempos right now, maybe 5:20-25 for a 4mi tempo.