Running 4:57 full mile and 17:23 5k off of only 2 yrs of athletic background

Not impressed.

Wasn't trying to impress you...JeFf

Think about baseball players, ballerinas and violinists. If a baseball player, ballerina or violinist said they goofed off and did not take their activity or sport seriously until age 17, what would your answer be? That seems to only work for 7 feet tall basketball players and 275 pound American football players.

Have you ever run an all-out 400?

My son ran 4:50 in 7th grade gym class in the fall without ever having trained. He hasn't run the times that you listed. You should shoot for 4:40 and 16:00.

Rhododendron wrote:

Have you ever run an all-out 400?

Yes, 60 flat in practice. Haven't actually run a 400m race since 9th grade.

4/10, the line about ripping a 76 was good but otherwise this was kind of a sh1tter.

right...I didn't slack or goof. I just didn't have any interest up until that point.

david42069 wrote:

4/10, the line about ripping a 76 was good but otherwise this was kind of a sh1tter.

bruh seriously? Not every highschooler who posts on here is a troll or David45. Get out of here with that crap. 0/10

Also, reaching those times is highly improbably, I know ..but as long as I can I'll try

I'd say I trained relatively hard that summer before 11th at about 30-40 miles a week (I thought 40 was high mileage at this point). Following that stint of training, I peaked with a 17:23 5k that XC season in my division's championship race.

This is above average. 30-40mpw for a 4-year average XC runner usually gets them low 18s by their senior year.

This is when I got really serious and became a bit obsessive with improvement. I dug up every book and every piece of advice I could find on training. During winter and fall after this past XC season I built up to around 65 miles and finally ran a sub 5 mile time trial.

4:57 on 65mpw is below average. I don't really have a reference for this since so few HS runners *actually* ran more than 50 mpw, but the ones that I'm aware of did not run slower than 4:40.

17:23 5K XC is a better time in itself than a 4:57 mile depending on the course. With that significant mileage increase not resulting in a 4:40s mile, it probably means you probably don't have a ton of natural speed so running elite times will be very tough. But if you continue 65 mpw, it sounds like you're likely to be a top runner in XC in your league.

nice brag bro

13:50 is a lot better than 4:12, but I would suggest focusing on your next race, instead.

Agree. No speed. 4:57 for a17:23 guy is pretty slow.

I suffered the opposite problem decent mile but embarrassing 5k times.

Enjoy it and try Hard. It’s okay to have goals but don’t set concrete expectations and obsess over them. I ran similar times to you (4:57 and 17:21) in my first season. I was at a not very good at track high school and my coaches were super excited to finally have someone serious and paid pretty much all of their attention to me in XC. This really got to my head and I became super obsessed. Managed to improve a good bit and got to a D2 school. During my first year and a half of college running I saw absolutely no improvements from high school in my times despite my workouts and training being much better. I created some sort of mental block where I would just fold up and freak out over every single race and end up dropping out of half of them. This was in large part due to me being obsessed with proving to myself that I could be “that guy” and that I had all the potential in the world, but I was not happy, put no focus into any other aspects of my life m, and basically self destructed. Ended up quitting the team after that and took a year or so away from running. Got the rest of my life back on track, became happy with myself as a human, and now I’m getting back on the team and looking forward to just enjoying the sport. Training with my teammates and having fun every race and hopefully seeing some improvement is my only goal. Enjoy the sport, train hard, eat well, and you will improve. Take its day by day and don’t try to keep improving as quickly the farther you get into your running career. Sorry for the rant but just though my personal experience could maybe help you out. Good luck with your season and hope you continue to improve! Despite what people on these boards would have you think, those are pretty good times and show you might have some potential to run at a decent college program if you work at it.

This does not indicate a lot of potential but it shows that you have mental decent endurance and physical capacity to train a lot, which is good for improving.

You definitely lack speed and you will never be a great miler. But you might be successfull on longer distances.

13'50 5k seems too optimistic given you lack of speed but 14'30-15' should be doable.

I think you are better suited for 10k-Marathon. You could end up being a great marathonner.

Try a 10k.

also dont be obsessed with races and PR.

Focus on enjoying running and improving daily in training. I'm not talking about times and racing the workouts but rather feeling that your legs become stronger, that your heart is more powerfull, that your long run become easier etc. Try to identify your weaknesses (speed is one already, some muscles are weaker than others, running form etc) and work on them.

New PR will be the consequence of this mentality without even thinking about it

I'd listen to Impala