Is it possible to break 16 (5k) with a 63s 400?

HRE wrote:

We're defining fast in totally different ways. If we're talking really fast none of those guys you mentioned are really fast. If they were they'd have run the 100 or 200. Dixon was fast enough to be world class at the distances he focused on. The OP is fast enough to get under 16:00 for 5,000 meters.

Fair enough....Lydiard was a marathoner, and saw the changes in his running prowess and thought it projected well.

I disagree.

If OP was 25, I would have immediately deferred to your recommendation, because so many people can do the mileage when older and so the 400m speed is not as indicative of what he could do for a 5K.

However, he is 17. I disagree that 63 is going to get his goals anytime soon, without excessive running.

Perhaps that was my misunderstanding as to what you were recommending.

for 5 km. All I said was that I think he can get under sixteen if he develops his endurance. He didn't give a time frame. I don't know what his time is now.

PS

I suspect we may also have different ideas about what "excessive training" would look like.

yes it is possible. My best 400 is also 63 and i have now run 15:20 for 5k. Granted I have not run a 400 since senior year of high school and am now a junior in college but I have no reason to think i've gotten any faster for shorter distances . If 63 is your best 400 then the bottom line is you aren't fast. Short fast workouts ( fast 200s-300s) and strength training can help but minimally. I have found that I made much more progress by maximizing my strengths than trying to minimize weaknesses. Instead of doing speed work to make up for a lack of natural leg speed my training is much more endurance based with long tempos (mine can be up to an hour but that should depend on your total mileage) and long reps like mile's or k's. I will still do strides 150-200m but most my real workouts are higher volume and lower speed. Doesn't help with my closing kick but you dont need to be that quick to break 16.

76chine wrote:

HRE wrote:

We're defining fast in totally different ways. If we're talking really fast none of those guys you mentioned are really fast. If they were they'd have run the 100 or 200. Dixon was fast enough to be world class at the distances he focused on. The OP is fast enough to get under 16:00 for 5,000 meters.

Fair enough....Lydiard was a marathoner, and saw the changes in his running prowess and thought it projected well.

I disagree.

If OP was 25, I would have immediately deferred to your recommendation, because so many people can do the mileage when older and so the 400m speed is not as indicative of what he could do for a 5K.

However, he is 17. I disagree that 63 is going to get his goals anytime soon, without excessive running.

Perhaps that was my misunderstanding as to what you were recommending.

I tend to agree that developing 200/400 speed is useful, especially at a young age. If the OP improves his 400 time, even to 60s, there are benefits for longer distances. For example, if he is running an interval session, 8 x 400 at 74s, it will feel less stressful if he has 60 or better 400 speed than if he only has 63 speed. Running economy may improve too. Also, his times at 800 and 1500 should improve which helps with the 5000 providing his aerobic ability isn't neglected.

I ran a 16:57 while I could only manage a 64 so for you I doubt it sorry homes

slow child wrote:

I ran 14:10 with 58 400m speed so yeah that’s definitely possible

How did you test your 400m speed did you run it in a race the same year as your 14:10 and what were your other pb's?

No you would have improved as you naturally get stronger from 16 to 21. You would have improved at least a couple of seconds. If you don't do a race you have no real idea of your speed, One way is to do a 200m time trial while fresh but best is to race.

Here is an example and this kid was training for middle/long distances not 400m

I want to do a sub 16 by senior season, I'm a junior now. I also mentioned earlier in the thread that I've been stuck at a 17:00 and 4:5- for two years now. Considering the way my career has gone so far, I am very doubtful that I will go sub 16.

I would like to at least start improving again though. Hopefully I can get the ball rolling again after doing the workouts 76chine laid out.

Also, thanks for all the replies everyone.

The Predictor wrote:

I want to do a sub 16 by senior season, I'm a junior now. I also mentioned earlier in the thread that I've been stuck at a 17:00 and 4:5- for two years now. Considering the way my career has gone so far, I am very doubtful that I will go sub 16.

I would like to at least start improving again though. Hopefully I can get the ball rolling again after doing the workouts 76chine laid out.

Also, thanks for all the replies everyone.

You could do the workouts he suggested but you'll still be relatively slow. By charts your 1600 and 5K times are much better performances than your 400. That top end speed work will make you slightly faster for 400 but won't help you at longer distances if you aren't doing your mileage. Big gains for a guy like you will come from the endurance end.

This. ^ Mileage (as much as you can safely handle), will increase your ability to run as close to your top end as possible. Just don't neglect speed training either.

The fact is a person that is gifted at the slower end of the speed range will have to work harder than someone who already possesses a natural speed, and if you can gain just 2 seconds of top end speed, it will carry over down the line.

I'm going to pile in once more to agree with this. In high school I once ran a 440 time trial in 59.8. But I could not break 3:00 for the half mile let alone 6:00 for the mile. Our cross country courses were not 5 km then, 2 1/2 miles was the standard though some were a tenth or two either way. I never ran under 17:00 on any of them. I had no endurance.

But I began working on it for college cross country. We ran some 440 time trials there too. I managed 61 plus as a freshman but never got under 63 again. But I graduated with a 3 mile best of 16:14 and actually "blazed" my way to a 2:28 half mile despite getting slower at the 440, A year after graduation I did 5,000 meters in 15:34 and three years later got the 15:33 when I had slowed to 66 for the 400.

The difference was mileage. I was doing almost none when I ran the 59.8 but began working my way to 35-40 as a college freshman and doing more each year. The 15:34 came after averaging over 100 a week for about a year. There's a very general correlation between 400 times and 5 km times. If I'd wanted 13:30 I'd have been in bad shape with a 63-66 400 time but if I'd focused on the 5,000, I was only interested in the marathon after college, I think I could have flirted with 15:00;

The OP has enough speed to run under 16:00 but lacks the endurance to do it. Getting faster at 400 won't hurt unless it takes away from working on endurance but even if he makes a bog improvement, let's say to 57 or 58, that alone won't get him there. High school cross country teams are swarming with guys who can run under 60 for the 400, often a good ways under, who cannot get close to 16:00 for 5 km. Advice like "run a lot more" just seems too unsophisticated or simple, or possibly time consuming to impress a lot of people., But it's usually the thing new runners need most.

To make sense of the 400m time we would also need an 800m time. if you run 63 2:11 then your endurance is good. I ran 56 2:16 which is just average endurance and was only good for 19.xx minutes at 5k. Of course I could run faster at 5k when I got older and could run more mileage but I still never broke 16.

Well the last time I did a 400 I was a freshman hammering every run at 30 miles a week. I did 2:14 and 4:55 in the same day.

After that year I've ran more or less 50 miles a week.

Every time I try to hold 70 miles a week I fail. During early season sophomore year I kept getting allergic reactions, especially at night. It would also happen a couple of times after practice.

Last summer I tried holding 80s at one point and then started feeling very anxious. My workouts got worse so I had to stop.

I got as much sleep and food as I wanted. I think it was more of a talent issue.

800*

Why would talent and being anxious correlate? What do you mean you get anxious when at high mileage, like you experience insomnia?

I would get a weird sensation in my legs that made me nervous to run more. I would have ran more anyway if my workouts didn't get slower, but they did every time.

I think the nervousness was a body signal telling me to stop.

Oh. Never heard of that before.

Increased turnover is not the key.

Why wait to OP's 3rd year of college before he can have the success he wants.

OP will get very good results working on his speed, and in a couple of months he can post.

His 2:14 and 4:55 are fine times. Especially on the same day.

I could have broken 16 for 5K at the end of my HS soph year in track. We didn't run 5ks.

CC my junior year was 3 miles. I got pushed from behind in the chute at the CC sectional meet, 8th place on a hilly course, and landed awkwardly on my fully extended leg (no flex to absorb the shock). I ran the state CC meet while having to take short strides with no power because of the injury to my lateral-collateral. My coach was massaging my sciatic nerve in the team box at the start before the state championship race, in the hope that I could run at all. Therefore, on a rainy day with mud patches on the course, I still ran just over 5 min a mile, The wet ground, and especially the mud patches, strained my swollen lateral-collateral, so I had to run gingerly while trying to run as fast as I could. My time translates easily to a sub 16 minutes for a 5K. This is a well-known CC course for the state meet, and not some "fast" CC course. If not injured, I would have raced with the runners that I normally finished around, and on this slow day those guys averaged 4:53-4:55 a mile, and that projects to about 15:20 for 5K.

Maybe my running with short strides and not much push is how slower runners normally run...I don't know.

As a senior in HS, I was expected to finish 1st or 2nd in the state for CC. On a dry, decent day, I was expected to break 14 minutes, which is sub 14:35 for 5K.

These times occur while in HS, not waiting until my 20s.

No sports my senior year. Before the start of the HS CC season, I jumped into a 4 mile road race (ran 20:04). A few weeks later, I ran a 10K held on a golf course in 32:33.

That same fall, I won the AAU CC Junior Olympic district meet on the hardest course in the state (3 miles), and had a wood chip catch on my spike for the last mile (thought I was going to damage my knee, and I couldn't take of the shoe and run barefoot because of all the wood chips that might cut my foot, and other impediments). Even though I had to float the last mile, I still ran one of the fast times that had ever been run there, and others who ran near my time raced in the low-to-mid 14s for 3-miles in the state CC meet. I also got 4th in the regional AAU CC Junior Olympics, held in another state after leading the entire race until the last 400 (too many flags and sharp turns at the end, it was like running in a maze).

[The only runner who could have challenged me for CC that year--if we had sports--ran just under 14:10 in the state meet, but that was because it was a freezing cold day, and I could not hoped run much faster, and maybe around the same time, under such cold conditions.]

The focus on mileage may work well for some, especially in their 20s or older, but OP is 17.

By working on his speed, OP may break 15:33 for a 5K within a year, after he gets much faster, .

He will get much faster if he pursues the interval workouts with the suggested way of taking long, powerful strides by leaping forward while maintaining momentum.