my cross country season ended this saturday at states, and it was a really tough season for me (along with im sure every other runner). however, I do know that cross country is not my true passion, and my true passion is track. i consider myself more of a 800/miler. last year as a freshman in highschool I ran a 5:17 pr in the mile for indoor track. any tips on how to get down to sub 5 by the end of highschool? I know it is a big goal but it is one i have had since 7th grade.
Lots of LSD in the summers....70 miles per week, no speedwork.
mileraf wrote:
my cross country season ended this saturday at states, and it was a really tough season for me (along with im sure every other runner). however, I do know that cross country is not my true passion, and my true passion is track. i consider myself more of a 800/miler. last year as a freshman in highschool I ran a 5:17 pr in the mile for indoor track. any tips on how to get down to sub 5 by the end of highschool? I know it is a big goal but it is one i have had since 7th grade.
It's not a big goal, you'll smack that out if you train well
When you get back to training run 2-3 miles easy in the morning, do your doubles!
Do hills, short hills build speed and you'll need the speed to run fast.
Also, begin adding a long run, you may want to start with an hour and move up to hour fifteen and eventually hour thirty, but that's the last piece of the puzzle
Be consistent and build up with mileage, but could you also give me some more insight on your training, workouts you do, miles a week?
4:45 miler wrote:
Lots of LSD in the summers....70 miles per week, no speedwork.
Visible confusion
You’re pretty young. No need for real workouts in the off-season.
Do a long run a week that’s roughly 20-25 percent of your weekly mileage. Do striders 2-3 times a week and once a week do short (5-8 second) hill sprints with long recovery.
The most important thing is to stay consistent. Don’t get caught up in running as much as you can, or as fast as you can. Just try to get out and run everyday. Whatever your peak mileage was over the summer or in XC, try to get to that +5 miles a week. I ran about 40-50 miles a week as a sophomore and ran 4:40 after running I think 5:15 my freshman year
If you ran 5:17 indoor (I assume in a race before the outdoor season was cancelled), why does sub-5 seem so distant? Especially since you were just a freshman.
You don't mention your times for CC. Often fresh-soph run 2.5 miles, unless you ran varsity, and as a sophomore I thought 3 miles was too long for me. Even though our team swept the conference in fresh-soph CC (1st 13:00, 2nd 13:07, 3rd (me) 13:09), I was glad that I was not promoted to varsity, as the other 2 runners ahead of me were.
I only started running after my freshman year, in which I ran 12:16 to win my gym class 2 mile, and ran the 440y in 63 as a freshman in gym class. My best friend ran 53 in that 440y, and our track was dirt and sand, so his time was amazing (training shoes). He convinced me to start training with the HS coach, and that summer I started training.
In track my sophomore year, I started out in JAN with a 2:13 half-mile indoors. In a 2-mile relay at an invitational in April that year (the next year the relay's became part of the state meet), I ran a 2:05:9 split, and my friend anchored in 2:00. A few weeks later, I won the conference fresh-soph 2-mile in 10:04 and the mile in 4:35.9. The next week, I ran the district (varsity)2-mile in 9:55.
My coach had trained with the Oregon CC team when he was a grad student, I think it was 1967. That was when Dellinger and Bowerman were coaching, and we trained under that system. No indoor track (poor high school), and we had to run races at the neighboring school's track for outdoor (rich high school). We did tempo runs, some slow, some fast, and some intervals. Lots of snow and cold weather during the winter, but by late March we were doing more training, on our dirt/sand track, and less mileage.
What is your current 400m speed? 200m speed?
These will improve, and then so will your 600m. Once you can run a fast 600m, even if in practice, your 800m will follow shortly thereafter. Within a month after a couple of quality 800m races, your mile will be very good, as well.
? BOOMER ALERT ?
hi! i think i forgot to mention that I am a girl, idk if that makes a difference. 400 time is a 1:02, 200 is 28
62 and 28 are excellent times.
With that kind of speed, and your 5:17 for a 1600m as a freshman, I am not sure why you don't think you will break 5 in the 1600m this year. I say that even though breaking 5 minutes is a "gold" standard for HS girls in the 1600m,
I was a half-miler who could run the mile, two-mile and CC, so I thought my example from my sophomore year would help assure you, but a girl who runs 4:35 would be one of the top 20 of all-time.
1. Our team did one long run on Sundays of 1 hour at a pace where we weren't short of breath.
2. Also did runs of 5-7 miles with builds of about 1/2 mile to a fast pace, which we held for about 400m, before slowing down again. This pattern was repeated several times in the run.
3. In addition, runs of 4-5 miles at a good pace, but stopping 2-3 times and doing 4 sprints of 100m with very little recovery.
4. As to the speedwork, your speed should allow you to run fast intervals.
5. Moreover, once you are below 60 seconds for the 400m, you should be able to run 65 or less on the way to a 600m in a time trial. It is usually best to push the 400m, and accept that the last 200m will be a little slower and require a strong effort to not slow too much.
6. You might also post an excellent 800m this year, especially if your 200m time dips below 28.
Every second off your 400m time, once you are below 60 sec, will show up in the other intervals, and once you are running much faster interval workouts, it also shows in a faster pace in the longer runs.
After your 800m is quite fast, and it appears that it will be, within a month you should be able to run the fast mile.
If in racing season and your 400m and 800m are good, expect to run first 800m of the 1600m about 8-10 seconds slower than your best 800m. This pace will not diminish much on the way to the 1200m, and the last lap will go well and probably you can kick the last 200m.
If someone runs 15 seconds slower that their best 800m for the first 2 laps of a mile, and your times are fast enough that this measure is appropriate, that person is running too slow to achieve their best time, but that runner can expect to run a fast last 400m.
For example, Ron Wartgow won the IL mile in 4:07.8, but he had run 1:52.6 for 880y in April, so when the first 2 laps were only 2:05.5 for the leaders, Wartgow was almost 2:06 and ran the last 880y under 2:02. I wasn't in that race (I was in the 2-mile relay), but I watched and I had raced Wartgow many times because he was in the same conference.
I should mention that you sound like a 400m/800m runner who wants to run a very fast mile. Two of my teammates on the 2-mile relay were 400m/800m runners, and the next year (my senior year), it would have been two 400m/800m runners again, because the graduating senior was a 400m/800m runner, and the sophomore becoming a junior also was. a 400/800 runner. The farthest they raced on the track was a time-trial 1200m, but they ran it very well.
If the workouts I suggested for you seem too long or too much right now, cut down on the minutes, like only run 45 minutes on Sundays, and only run 3-5 miles for the other runs. That is more like what our 400m/800m runners did, and they never ran CC very well.
But they were elite 400m/800m runners!!
I didn't think of this aspect at first, because you were asking about running a fast mile, and I was an 800m/1600m type of runner, with a very good 400m.