800/1600 Winter Training to KILL IT in Outdoor???

My best advice is to just get the miles in. Show up in spring aerobically fit and do what your coach tells you.

Mileage. 200s at 1500m pace with long rests for leg turnover and not conditioning, and 10s hill sprints. Do some mile repeats at XC+30s pace if you really want to.

Would you say to do the same mileage as I did in the summer, or slightly higher or lower? I thing to note is I do a lot better on shorter interval work compared to longer tempo + threshold pace, and I have a slower easy pace than other people (even those who are slower or just as fast as me in races), so I don't know where to go for the best results

Run good mileage over the winter and develop a little bit of speed/speed endurance.

A few good middle distance introduction workouts to hit over the winter:

3-4x300m. Take plenty of rest, and run them fast. Should be in the ballpark of 800m pace. Make sure to keep the rest as long as you need though. This can turn into a very hard workout that gives the incorrect stimulus if you are going into each rep not recovered from the last.

8x200m with 200m walk rest. Run them fast and controlled. You should feel the burn the last 2-3 reps.

8x400m at 3200m-5k pace, with 2:00 rest.

Do 2 of those a week, 3-5 50-150m strides on easy days, and lots of easy miles and you’ll be set up to run really solid middle distance races come spring.

Should I do tempo runs as well, or just keep the workouts intervals???

be careful to keep these workouts near CURRENT pace.

So near current PRs? For the workouts? Not goal pace?

I’d say with your current fitness, you’ll still develop a ton aerobically just by doing your easy miles and spiking the heart rate during workouts.

I think it’s more important to develop your turnover, efficiency at faster paces, and a bit of lactate tolerance.

Most high schoolers also tend to not do tempo runs correctly, so I think it’s best to leave them alone until you get more advanced with your fitness. Lots of high level 800/1500m guys don’t even do flat out tempo runs, and opt for things like cruise intervals and fartleks to develop their threshold instead. That 8x400m workout I gave you is a good introduction to that.

Thank you so much. As well, when should I start workouts? Do I do them immediately as I start, or do I take a couple weeks to build mileage, then do I do them? And if I do those three workouts, can I repeat them weekly, or should I include more variety? And should I look to go faster and faster each week on these workouts, or just stay on my PR pace no matter what?

Depends on your ability (time, weather,...) But the same or 10% more. Don't worry about pace too much. 2-3mins slower than race pace would be reasonable. If you need much more (ignoring weather and the like) on a regular basis (not 2 miles at the start of a run while you warm up or the one day when you feel tired), you are probably doing too much for your current fitness. If you are running faster, slow down and do more mileage or do some harder days.

Most people do "better" on short stuff. It is too easy to just lean on the anaerobic system and crank out hard stuff.

Doing some faster aerobic stuff helps with development more than just doing distance but the volume tends to matter more and fast stuff is easy to overcook. Doing 4miles at HM effort is hard but sane. Run those same 4 miles 15s faster and you are at 10k pace and that is harder than what you want to be doing. During the base you are just better off backing it off. Running at MP instead of HM. Those last 12-16 weeks is plenty to crush some hard vo2max and anaerobic type work.

You might need to talk to your coach about doing a bit more aerobic work til that last month...

Id keep it to 2 workouts a week, once you can get a feel for how each of these workouts feel, you can totally alter them to keep it interesting, just keep it feeling the same energy wise.

If your season is done, I’d do 2 weeks of easy running with strides every other day and maybe a few 200s once a week.

Thank you so much. Since I'm focusing on "middle-distance," should I run mileage of 45-50 max? Or should I push it to 60-65? I ask this cause I ran up to 55 miles max in the summer for XC. However, I'm not to sure to go that high again or higher this winter cause its shorter events, and my easy pace is on the slower end of people who are around the same level as me (and I don't know if I should spend that much time with high mileage pounding slow miles)

I'd run however many miles you can without feeling bad. if thats 65, run 65. if thats 40 run 40. higher mileage isn't gonna negatively effect you unless you start getting hurt, especially since you're running the mile which is a highly aerobic event. I think young runners often think that *relatively* higher miles has to be reserved for "distance" runners aka 1600-3200 or XC season. Thats not really the case, it helps 800-1600 too, but I don't think you need to be super strict on hitting a specific number goal. Since you already ran 55 in the summer, that shows me you can go at least that high again if you feel like it. as someone else mentioned, discuss with your coach about maintaining your higher mileage into the regular season. it doesn't have to be as high, but maintaining even 35-45ish is better than dropping down to 20mpw. the workout outlines given above are solid, if you follow that you'll be on the right path for a strong outdoor season.

if anything, I'd err on the side of caution and run paces slower than pr pace. like unless you go and run an indoor race thats around 5:12, whats the indication that you're in the best shape of your life? run fast on strides though. another thing to think on, in my eyes your weakest PR by a pretty good amount is your 800. Your 1600 is the strongest but I'd say a low 18 in XC is a tad better than 2:20 for 800. just something to think on, the 1600/3200 may be where your strength lies on the track.

I did not get a lot of chancs to race the 800 last spring season, and those times I did were always after the 1600. I have a feeling that I'm not completely built for distance, because I'm always the slowest on distance runs and suck at longer intervals (like mile repeats) + tempos, but I do better at faster intervals. That's why I also ask about mileage. I went up to 55 miles in the summer, but in spite of that, I did not have a good XC season as I hoped for. And like I said, my easy pace during the summer was around 10 minutes per mile, and doing all those miles (and potentially more like 60, 65), especially at that pace (even if it were to improve slightly this winter), seems like it would not work for me, thats all.

10 minutes per mile is honestly way too slow for someone who races a 5K at 5:50 pace.

Yeah I know the mantra is you can't run to slow but at 50mpw if you are running 3+ mins slower on average than 5kbpac you are probably going to slow. It can work but you are going to need some hard days in there (i.e. you are recovering from doing like 6*1 mile at 6:20 off 90s)

it sounds like you are already decided on lower miles and didn't actually want advice on that. thats fine, you can find success without it but 10 minute pace is way way too slow. you should never run that slow, literally. not on warmups, not on cooldowns, not even if you're on deaths door. with your PRs you should run under 9:00 pace on every easy run. 7:00-8:40 or so would be in the sweet spot. a big reason why you didn't find the success you looked for in XC with your higher miles is likely your super slow pace. as to your "not built for distance comments", I think you should take races as a bigger indicator than your workouts. I kind of don't care that you didn't run the 800 fresh ever, basically no highschooler does. but if you weren't able to run around 2:15 with the mile/5k ability you've shown then you're probably not as built for mid distance as you might think. I'm not privy to your whole situation but think about this, the 5k and mile are your stronger events relative to your 800, and you pretty obviously haven't done any serious aerobic development which is more important for 1600/5k performance. so you're already better at the longer distances and you haven't even been training for them right. so if you began training for them better then that gap would widen, not shrink. why try and force yourself into mid distance if you haven't found success there? at the end of the day, run the events that make you happy to compete in, but its usually more fun to compete at events you're best at. but hey, what do I know.

I did not make up my mind about running less miles, I just wanted to see a different persepctive, cause I did spend a lot of time running for that mileage, and I was not sure if I could spend the same time again. As for the easy pace, that's simply what feels conversational, comfortable, and controlled for me. I don't know why its "slow," but that's what it feels for me. I run it around 145 beats per minute heart rate