What’d my mile time be at 85-90 mpw?

At 90 mpw 1 hour 52 minutes.

At 85 mpw 1 hour 59 minutes 15 secs.

I don’t see how they are contradictory. I am intending to say that letsrun attributes far more rarity to running sub 11 in the 100 than is reality. I mean Christ, there are highshools with 4+ dudes who all run under 11 in the 100.

Under 11 FAT is a good time, right on par with a 4:20-4:25 mile for a high schooler I would reckon.

Most of letsrun posters are small school D3 runners who had little exposure to sprinters. Inner city high schools may have 8 guys sub 11 in the 100 but the fastest 1600 will be 4:30.

I think instead of increasing weekly mileage somewhat blindly you should aim to improve the quality of your training first. That's a main goal of middle distance training. You can get everything you need to get done in anywhere from 65-75 miles week. So don't just run more, run smarter.

I'm not sure what your 100m speed is truly (not that I don't trust your word, but that I'm skeptical), but we'll assume it'd be good for a 800/1500 guy. So you have to pay equal attention to both ends of the spectrum. Your speed is good so you'd do well with the speed development/maintenance work, drills, and gym work, anything you need to do towards the more "athletic" end of the spectrum. Where the greatest gains are to be made for you seem to be on the aerobic development side. So I'd spend about 6 months training like a longer-distance guy and maybe peaking for a late fall road/XC race or maybe even a December indoor meet to gauge your fitness. During this time you'd still be doing some work to develop and maintain your pure speed rather than just doing strides and stuff. This is the period where your main focus is to boost your VO2 max to the highest level you can for the year.

Then you take the same approach but flip the focus when it comes time to get event-specific in your training. Instead of doing mile and maybe 800 pace stuff for economy, you make it the main focus and use strength work to maintain your VO2 max. I guess you should know most of this stuff but I think it's imperative that you just focus on the quality of training rather than just doing more. Get everything super dialed in, do everything you need to and should be doing, then each year bump up a little as you feel you need to. Do that for a few years without getting injured and that speed will carry you to something special I'm sure.

I'd recommend the bible for guys like us:

https://img.runningwarehouse.com/pdf/middle_distance_guide.pdf

As a freshman in college I ran the following off 55-60 mph a week.

400 - 48 split

800 - 1:51.4

1600 - 4:14 (went out in 59/2:03/3:05/ugly last lap)

I could definitely run the 200 in low 22 but not sure about 100. I think with your speed you could run under 4:20. But I agree with most posters that your potential lies in the 400/800.

Colleges don't run the 1600.

It was a lead-off 4 x 1600 relay at Drake, thanks. I am well aware of the metric mile. That is the problem here, sarcastic remarks.

To be more clear, it was a 4 x mile but I remember my 1600 split.

Just very odd to specify that your 400 was a split but then you list a 1600 which is not an event and you did not say it was a split. Your mile is way out of line with your 400 and 800. Those times would indicate a 4 minute mile.

Okay I read the book. He seems to strongly advocate the opposite of what everyone in this thread has recommended:

-Increase mileage before increasing quality

-The minimum mileage I should be doing is 65, and that would only be if I needed the most minimal recovery week possible because of exhaustion. Probably be doing something more like 80-90 per week then 70 on a down week.

-Seeing as right now my times veer toward 400/800/mile (I'm probably 51/1:59/4:22 or faster off of pure base right now), and my 5k is likely only gonna be 15:40, I am seriously lacking in aerobic development. I should be running ~14:30s to 14:50s, which I probably couldn't do.

-Therefore, to better develop, I should base my easy runs and workout paces off of my current 5k fitness to get that time more inline with my shorter events, as this is the area where I am most lacking. I.e. focus on my weakness (distance) instead of my strength (speed).

-During base, I should be doing, each week, a very easy tempo, a 3k or easy hill workout, and 1 easy, shorter speed workout.

Honestly I don't see anything wrong with those things, but it is quite different than what most in this thread are recommending. To clarify, I really could care less if I could run a fast 400 or 800, unless it means something like qualifying for trials which I seriously doubt is in my ballpark. To me, if I run a 1:54 or 1:52 or 1:49.99 it would be nice, but not something I'm gonna spend time working toward in my late 20's / early 30's. I'd rather chase some mile times, maybe run an 800 or two for fun.

Some questions / things to alter:

-He recommends going pretty damn hard on the easy days. Not sure how I feel about this. For the first time I've been actually going easy on my runs and it's great.

-He talks about recovery like it does absolutely nothing for you but get toxins out of your legs and helps you recover. This sounds weird. I haven't read any science that suggests this is the only purpose of recovery—it is still aerobic development to get in recovery miles from what I know.

-I think I'd like to do the Ingebrigtsen double workout days instead of the ones that he recommends, but I like his very long warmup ideas. I assume that would be fine.

I also wonder if many of my longer distance issues are more related to weight than they are to anything else. I eat too much food and while I am muscular, I am less lean than 19 out of 20 distance runners.

-Yes, increase mileage first. But you don't need a ton, and the number is not a focus. Just train and the number ends up where it ends up. There's a range you should aim to hit but generally it works itself out. Recovery weeks you want to do what you can to ensure that you feel good so you're likely to run under 65 some weeks, but again it's not the main goal to be forcing a weekly mileage number.

-Yeah, ideally you'd take your most recent 5K or 10K, maybe even run a TT, and base your workout times off that.

-Look through what he suggests for base training. It's periodized, but generally speaking: one tempo, one fartlek/interval session, and some stuff at speed, either flat or hill sprints.

And good questions, based on what I understand (which I believe to be true to Rubio and other coaches) here are some answers:

1. Faster daily runs come as a result of the work you do in the fall and is a natural progression. This is never forced. Think about how dog-tired you are on a weekly basis in XC and how you are slogging through easy runs. This is fine. Compare to maybe Spring when you've already put in the big aerobic work and have adjusted to the mileage and you feel better starting to rip towards the end of runs. This is also fine. See, you start your easy day at a crawl and see where it goes, or cap the effort depending on the day. I know Rubio is paying attention to telling you how ripping towards the end helps you, but if you dig a little deeper you'll find that this is more what he means. Just run, if you feel good, go, if you don't, don't force it; if it's a planned recovery day, just refrain from running too hard.

2. Recovery miles. Yeah, honestly at a certain level all they're doing is helping you recover, you're not gaining a ton of aerobic fitness from them. You still are, but it's more of a routine thing than it is necessary. Some do better on 6 days of running than 7 by this logic. And it's also a mindset too. If you go into a recovery run with the goal to recover, you'll be more likely to take it super easy than if you go into it with the goal to develop fitness. You might be like "I feel good on this" (which is the point) and start to creep past "normal" pace when it should be at a jog.

3. Double days -- Meh, do what you will. More than one way to skin a cat.

4. Don't worry about your weight. Train hard and it works itself out.

Also, the reason this guide is mentioned so often is that it basically boils down what we know works about middle distance training from different coaches and philosophies and shows you what's worked out of all of those philosophies. Sure he has his "things" but generally the guide is a representation of a mix of approaches that don't fail.

Zante wrote:

-Yes, increase mileage first. But you don't need a ton, and the number is not a focus. Just train and the number ends up where it ends up. There's a range you should aim to hit but generally it works itself out. Recovery weeks you want to do what you can to ensure that you feel good so you're likely to run under 65 some weeks, but again it's not the main goal to be forcing a weekly mileage number.

-Yeah, ideally you'd take your most recent 5K or 10K, maybe even run a TT, and base your workout times off that.

1. Faster daily runs come as a result of the work you do in the fall and is a natural progression. This is never forced.

Yeah, I really don't get how people struggle with the idea of running decent mileage for a week.

All you have to do is train consistently for six hours per week. Let the training week define the mileage.

If you were an elite doing six hours of training averaging 6min/mile easy running that's 60mpw. An elite who does 8hrs will be up to 80mpw. And 8 hours isn't that difficult to achieve - if you train 7 days and throw in a long run.

Bam ^^ OP - This is all you need to know about increasing your aerobic engine and ultimately, your strength to click off 61s for 3 laps or and then rip the last 300 (or 409 depending on the distance). Gradual and modest increases in daily pace are what it's all about. You should have very few, if any, easy days and a lot of medium days that end at medium/fast.

That’s very impressive. Are you looking to go pro? If you don’t mind send me your training log on what you did in the past 3 months and I can coach you if need a coach. It’s kinda hard to say what mile run to be predicted. But one test can prove how fast your projected mile time can be...

Make sure to hydrate because this workout will burn you like a race....

Do you usual warm up routine

Run 8x400m with 1’ rest

Convert your splits into seconds

Add all your splits together

Divide that number by 8. And that’s your projected mile time. It’s a fun workout but don’t go nuts on the first four reps.

Send me an email if you more precise guidance

@

coach.chasewiedel@gmail.com

. You have a lot of talent and you can go pro if you want. If I was hour coach, I would lower your AVE weekly mileage 800-mile runners don’t need to run 50 plus miles a week. I’m looking for athletes to train. Hope this helps

Adverbial form, not adverb form.

If I can run a mile in 60 seconds, I will pay you any amount you want.