MilerInTraining wrote:
Hey LetsRun, I'm a high school 800/1600 guy about to start racing in a month or so. I haven't raced a mile since sophomore year (I'm a senior now), and I'm hoping to run 4:20-4:25 this year. In the month leading up to my first races of the season, I'd like to work in a track workout and a tempo run each week, in addition to my basic road runs. I'm from a low-ish mileage program, so at the moment I'm hitting 35-40 mpw. My question is, what kind of tempo runs should I do as a miler? I've recently done a 3 mile tempo at 5:35 pace, and a 2 mile tempo at 5:24 pace with 4x200 after at about 30 seconds. How should I adapt these runs as I build up to the season, and what kind of paces should I strive for to hit my goal? Thank you!
You're a month out from racing. I guess this means you're running indoor? I don't coach a team that competes in indoor, so take this advice for what it's worth:
De-emphasize indoor and think about using those races simply as your harder workouts during your base phase. That's not my advice, It's Coach Mostert's, from American Fork, and to me it makes really good sense.
The mile is mostly an aerobic event, so stick with the stuff that is going to develop aerobic ability for the next 3-4 months while the indoor races serve as your speed / anaerobic stuff.
Longer (30-40 min) tempos at 70-80% current vVO2 max
Shorter (20 ish min) at 75-85% current vVO2
Threshold Intervals of 5 ish minutes at 85% with 1 min easy recovery jog
CV intervals of 3 minutes @ 90% vVO2 with 60-90 seconds recovery jog
All of those sessions accomplish roughly the same things: to develop your aerobic system and specifically to raise your velocity at lactate threshold. So, depending on what type of runner you are and what you prefer, any of those sessions would be beneficial. Add in EITHER 4 x 200 at goal 800 pace with full recovery OR 4 x 300 OR 3 x 400 at current mile pace with full recovery and your week is looking pretty good.
for the intervals, it could be something like 4 x 5 min @ 85% vVO2 OR 5-6 x 3 min at 90% vVO2.
What are your most current race times?
I don't think you said what your cu