HWBTWTDWH Training Log

Week 1: 2/21/22 - 2/27/22
Mon, 2/21: 4.10 mi, 9:24 pace, 38:31.3 (easy treadmill)
Tues, 2/22: 4.03 mi, 9:44 pace, 39:13.6 (easy sidewalk/paved)
Wed, 2/23: 4.25 mi, 9:37 pace, 40:50.7 (easy sidewalk/paved)
Thurs, 2/24: 2.51 mi, 8:11 pace, 20:31.3 (tempo sidewalk)
Fri, 2/25: 5.13 mi, 9:24 pace, 48:11.6 (easy sidewalk) + 8x100m buildup strides
Sat, 2/26: 5.01 mi, 10:03 pace, 50:23.2 (easy sidewalk)
Sun, 2/27: AM: 800m warmup + 4x800m w/ 400m jog + 800m cooldown
3:50.1, 4:01.7, 4:10.2, 4:04.5; 4 mi (track)
PM: 2.02 mi, 9:02 pace, 18:15.4 (easy trail)
Total: 31.07 mi

This week went really well. I exceeded my initial expectation of 30 miles, and I was pleased with most of the runs. Monday's run was in a hotel in Indianapolis, as I was on a short trip with my family. I was out from 6 am - 4 pm on Saturday, so I couldn't get a double in. I plan on doubling on both Saturday and Sunday as I am not able to during the week. I was very disappointed in the track "workout" on Sunday morning. It was incredibly windy and cold, and I was also running more relaxed than usual. However, I am still surprised that I ran so slow as compared to my usual (and still slow) 3:00-3:15 800m. I guess that this is because of the conditions, losing some of my speed, running alone, and not being able to stop during the "workout." Typically, my team gets about 2-3 minutes of stopped rest in between each interval, whether it's 400m, 600m, 800m, or 1600m. I'm looking forward to next week because I've planned to run 2-3 times per week with a friend who lives nearby. It should definitely help with the motivation. Overall a good week that I am pleased with. I stayed relaxed on all of my runs. Next week, I would like to hit 30-35 mpw. Wondering if I should include push-ups and core work in my routine.

Including the 8x100m buildup strides, week 1 total was actually 31.57 mi.

I can assure you that the “talented” guys who “don’t put in the work” are doing more than 4 miles at 9:00/miles most days.

Talent is a myth. They are working hard. Based on the training you have posted, you are not.

malmo is rolling in his grave.

Agreed. I ran very mediocre freshman times (high 20's for 5k XC) so I thought that I didn't have talent. Turns out it was because I was running horribly on easy runs (first mile or 2 fast, slowing down to a near walk by the end) and thus getting injured. A time in the high 20's is still very slow, but it was pretty good off only about 10-15 mpw.

However, a talented person who doesn't work that hard will beat a non-talented person who works very hard nearly every time. Anecdotally, I know someone who ran a mid 1:5x 800 and mid 4:1x mile off approximately 30 mpw, with his lowest week at ~23-24 miles. He ran every workout very hard, but didn't cooldown and ran about 3-4 miles for his easy runs. But because of his talent, he could run that time with low mileage.

30mpw is not low mileage for the 800m/1500m

mpw is a bit a very good metric of appropriate training.

Your friend was clearly training to run fast 800m/1500m races, not to see how many miles a week he could run.

Stop equating “working hard” with runnnng some arbitrary amount of miles every 7 days.

Give me just one great 1500m runner who was running only 30miles a week all year round. Just one.

Maybe at a different school, but my school is probably an exception. The "talented" guys at my school run anywhere from 17:30 (our best runner this year) to 18:45. My school is a smaller one, and our team doesn't really work hard at all. I know I can't catch up to the 17:30 guys (most of them do actually put in effort - about 40-50 miles), but next year, our best runner has a current PR of 18:30. I know our school isn't great, so I still have a chance of catching up (not to the best runners, but to at least some of our decent runners). My teammates who are doing track (about 10) run about 20-25 mpw. Even during XC season, this is only 25-30 at most for most runners on our team. Maybe five guys will do weekend runs, but this is rare. If they do start working hard and putting in the work, I'm sure these guys can run under 17 minutes, but so far, none are willing to do so.

I'm not very naturally talented. Hopefully I can prove you wrong!

It is also worth it to note that my team does not have a ton of hugely talented guys (our best runner this year ran 17:30, and our best runner for next year (who is a junior) so far has run an 18:30 PR). Obviously, these are not bad times, but compared to some other schools that we race against, 18:30 is above average, but not by too much.

I agree. Training for the 800m/1500m is different than training for the 5000m in cross country. More mileage is typically required for the 5K than the 800m/1500m because it requires a larger aerobic base due to the longer duration of the race.

Wheating

Brazier

Bannister

Idk man, I think you would be happier if you just quit the sport and joined a band or something. No disrespect or anything, but the hard truth is that lots of talented people do work hard, and you aren't going to outsmart them by overthinking it.

I appreciate the input, but I'm not gonna quit running. I love running, I love cross country, and I'll keep running even if I'm not great at it. I might as well get better because it would kind of suck to be running the same times for the rest of high school. I know that there are lots of talented people that work hard, but I'm not trying to beat them. I'm mainly trying to beat the guys on my team while also bettering myself in the process. I will make sure to update this thread weekly with my training log, and I look forward to proving some people wrong!

Also, I am already in the school jazz band :)

There’s just so much that rubs me the wrong way when I read this.

First of all… why are you not doing track??? You’re a beginner high schooler, you need speed in those legs. Never in history has there been a sub 19 5k XC runner that didn’t break 6:00 in track. Running and racing is a year round sport - race in the fall and spring, train in the summer and winter.

And then we get to the actual “training” you have done… 4:00 800m repeats??? Is that a joke? Not to mention doing a mere 3200 of interval work in the base phase is asinine in and of itself. “Tempo” runs (and 8:11 is not a tempo, sorry) in your first week back training???

You’re talking about hard work when you haven’t even done that - you take 4 weeks off (already too long of a break if you want to make good progress) then you find reasons and excuses to find more time off after that. Baby steps.

I don’t feel like typing out a good training schedule for a thread like this on letsrun for the umpteenth time so I will just say to look up the Summer of Malmo. Forget whatever plan you have right now, it’s bogus. Do SoM or comb through old training threads on letsrun to come up with something half decent. There’s plenty of information available on this site. You can definitely drop 3 minutes but you’re gonna have to up the miles, the quality and the structure of your training.

lol not that kind of band...

Although I am beginning to suspect you are a troll.

I'm not gonna go into specifics, but I'm not doing track because of my ride situation: I don't have a ride back from practices and meets. I'm also taking more challenging courses this year, so it will be tough to balance two hours of practice daily with three to four hours of homework daily, while still getting enough sleep to recover (I'm attending a college prep school). I tried to convince my parents to let me do track, but they won't budge. That option's over.

Yes, I too was shocked when I saw the 4:00 on my watch. I will be doing another workout on the track tomorrow and will update this thread by Monday with this week's training. Hopefully that was just a one workout thing. I have never run that slow before. Ever. Some things to keep in mind, however: I have never done interval training during offseason "base" training (so my body was not used to doing track workouts), it was about 20 degrees outside (which doesn't factor in the wind, which I was running straight into for about 75% of the workout), and I did the workout in some older spikes which are slightly too small (I have never done actual training in spikes before, only races). I still don't think that this makes up for my slow speed, but I was trying to run them relaxed and probably ended up going too easy. Also, 8:11 felt closer to a tempo for me, not you. This is my training log, not yours. However, I will admit that I was probably going a little bit too easy on this as well.

I realize that I have made excuses, but I'm behind that now. I am gonna stay consistent with my training from now on. No more excuses, guaranteed. I hope that you will revisit this thread from time to time and check up on my training.

I am doing "Summer" of Malmo based training, but it probably looks weird because it's at a much lower mileage and I was only able to double once this past week.

I will take this as constructive criticism, and I truly appreciate you taking the time to give me feedback on my training.

Haha, don't worry, I am not a troll.

Week 2: 2/28/22 - 3/6/22
Mon, 2/28: 6.06 mi, 9:34 pace, 57:59.1 (easy)
Tues, 3/1: 5.04 mi, 9:29 pace, 47:48.8 (easy)
Wed, 3/2: 5.20 mi, 9:13 pace, 47:54.4 (easy)
Thurs, 3/3: 3.00 mi, 7:58 pace, 23:52.5 (tempo)
Fri, 3/4: 4.77 mi, 9:31 pace, 45:24.1 (recovery)
Sat, 3/5: AM: 2.00 mi, 9:03 pace, 18:05.9 (easy)
PM: 5.04 mi, 9:05 pace, 45:45.3 (easy)
Sun, 3/6: AM: 800m wu + 6x400m w/ 400m jog + 800m cd (track)
1:41.5, 1:43.5, 1:44.2, 1:45.3, 1:46.9, 1:44.9; 4 mi
PM: 2.02 mi, 9:21 pace, 18:52.5 (recovery)
Total: 37.13 mi

This week went pretty well. However, I am getting slight knee pain. This started during Friday's recovery run but wasn't anything too bad. It went away pretty quickly but also came back during the cooldown after Sunday's track "workout." I think it's feeling a lot better, but I think I'm going to take this next week as a down week or just hold at about 35 miles. I'm happier that the 400s were a lot faster than the 800m pace from last week. The weather was really nice for most of my runs. I do want to add, however, that about 150m of the 400m during the track "workout" were run into the wind, so those were probably closer to 1:35-1:40 on average in better conditions. I stayed relaxed during all my runs, and I think I could've gone sub 1:30 for all of those 400s with ideal conditions and if I went a little bit harder. I will take Malmo's advice here, and I'm going to resist the urge to speed up. The only run with conditions that weren't good was Thursday, when it was really windy and colder. I was running straight into the wind for about half the run and with the wind to my back for the other half, so it probably balanced out pretty decently. Other than that, I'm pleased and excited. Soon, I'll reach a new all time weekly mileage high (right now it's around 38, not sure of the exact number). Looking forward to next week. Spring break starts on Friday!