Just had my best week of training ever. What kind of shape am I in for 1500/3000

What does your coach think?

4:20 1500 shape rn. You're not SHARP.

3K, maybe you can sneak under 9:10. MAYBE. You're TOO AEROBIC.

This is the type of situation where you probably can guess your 1500m/3k fitness better than anyone else. I’d bet money you can break 9:00 in a 3k currently, and I’m sure you could go faster.

I’m in about 8:40/3:55 shape atm and would not be able to hang with you on Monday and would really struggle Saturday, but am also probably capable of sub 1:53 in the 800m and 50 400m, so keep that in mind.

The question you should ask yourself is how strong you are with your anaerobic endurance, and your raw speed. You’re clearly in shape to run really good 5k-10k times, especially for a high schooler. You clearly handle sub 5:00 pace very well. How well do you handle sub 4:30? Sub 4:00? If you can run a really solid 400 or 800 right now, you are going to be very good as a miler this season.

There´s literally no 1500/3000m workouts in your week. How the hell are we supposed to predict your 1500m time if the fastest you have run this week is 71s/400m? I´ve met marathoners who would have done this week easily and were unable to run faster than 2,40 for 1k.

Colin, here is the training of a 17 year old this past week. He ran 1:53 and 3:56 in November. These were his first races since he was 13. He started training in May 2021. This past week he has been up at altitude.

Monday 20 min recovery run

Tuesday 12x400 on 2:15 cycle avg 66 seconds

Wednesday 12k

Thursday 4x2k threshold (a little faster than I wanted)

Friday 6k easy run

Saturday 6x1k on 5 min cycle

Sunday 16k in 65 minutes

A very solid week but a few things. Easy days easy hard days hard. Your long run doesn't need to be as long as you think adjust for different times of year.

Good luck with your training but find the right balance.

You're going to have a MASSIVE spring if you manage your progression properly.

I also hope you are doing some sort of strides or hillwork.

I cannot guess at your 1500 because you gave little clue to your speed or previous training. It could be you're an aerobic monster who simply cannot run fast.

However, I've seen some fast 10k guys w/ zero footspeed run 3:51-3:55 off the same training. I reckon you could end up at 3:50 if everything went to plan this May/June.

Best of luck, and keep us updated!

4:02 1500m, 8:46 3000m +/- 2sec can all but guarantee it. You've got perfect speed endurance for those kind of times.

Colin6_9_ wrote:

I am a high school senior, ran 3:58 for 1500 last year. Would appreciate hearing thoughts on this week and what you think i have coming for me this spring as I am self coaches and don’t know a ton about what workouts convert to in races. Thx!

Hard to tell what kind of shape RIGHT NOW you're in for 1500. If you are not a workout hero and racing workouts, you seem to build a very good base. Right now you should at least be able to run a sub 15 for 5k, in my opinion way faster.

From my experience you should be able to enter the 3:50ish range in spring with this kind of base and some sharpening. If you're not able to do this, you probably overcooked a bit. But you're young. A great progression should come sooner or later.

If I were you I'd not do 3 longish tempo sessions plus a fastish long run in a span of 6 days. Additionally I'd think of doing more turnover (like a couple hill sprints here and there or sometimes fast and relaxed workouts like 5 - 10 x 200 at 32'' etc). Much easier to translate without risk of injury to the harder stuff then. You use it or you lose it.

Pikachu

What a weird question. Nothing you have done this week can indicate anything pertaining to 1500m.

My advice is to concentrate on running and let the coach do the thinking.

What's your experience as a runner? There's a heck of a lot you can gauge from the workouts he's mentioned. The big one being his speed endurance which you can use to extrapolate fairly accurately anything from the 800m -10km.

I forgot to put it in but I am doing after each workout 4x200 w/200 jog, which I ran in 31/55 fairly easily after the fartlek on monday, That means I was no where near all out. Other days I do sets of (200, 150, 100) like Alan Webb did, and other days depending on the volume of the day i’ll do 4x600 on a hilly bark chip trail for power and then 4x200 to follow it up. I’m am hoping for sub 8:10 and sub 3:45 this spring before I go on to college.

Sorry one more thing: I also have 52 400 speed that will most likely be at ~50-51 mid by the season.

I think you're in shape for ~25:00 for 8k OP. What kinds of times did you run in cross? I feel like, as a HS senior, your speed is going to be better than your endurance at this point. Idk if you're in PR shape for 1500 but you're likely as strong as you've ever been. I would think the 3k/5k would be your friend rn. 8:40-45ish for 3k, 15-flat for 5k.

Hah this part is funny. I had a huge mental block against racing in cross and only ran 15:50 while doing fairly easy 5 mile tempos in 25:30 each week. I’m hoping to fix that next year at 8k/10k, but my xc season this past fall was somewhat of a failure.

Colin6_9_ wrote:

Hah this part is funny. I had a huge mental block against racing in cross and only ran 15:50 while doing fairly easy 5 mile tempos in 25:30 each week. I’m hoping to fix that next year at 8k/10k, but my xc season this past fall was somewhat of a failure.

This makes me worried that you are overtraining in your workouts and not saving the goods for race day. Regardless, back in college with those kind of workouts I would be ready to pop off some good races. Sub 14:30 for 5k and sub 8:20 for 3k. Granted that kinda assumes you aren't killing yourself in workouts and can step up on race day.

I am trying to be careful about the effort. Nothing this past week was over a 7/10 by the end of the session. I am in Oregon and have no indoor so I don’t race for 8 more weeks which i’m excited about! More time to get in shape. I’m going to start doing 5000/3000 pace workouts this upcoming week, so that’s another source of improvement. One thing that I didn’t include is that my coach last season only had me do 5 workouts at 5000 pace or faster the entire track season, and I still managed to run 3:58, so I think I am in better shape than a lot of posters are giving me credit for. Like 3:55/8:25 right now

You're doing too much...in my opinion.

20x400 with 30 seconds rest means that 71 is really easy for you. I’d predict somewhere around 8:40 for 3k if your speed is at least okay.

If you’ve broken 2:00 in the 800 in the past you’re probably in sub 4 1500 meter shape right now. If you haven’t you’re probably in 4:00-405 shape. Either way it seems like you have a killer aerobic base.

As the season goes on you want to make sure that you’re doing workouts where the pace is varied so you can be ready to change gears in a race.

Yes like i stated before I have 52/1:55 speed