There aren't that many threads that I've actively contributed to beyond the 5x60m thread and this one here. Most others are just a single post that I made discussing something.
LetsRun get's a lot of hate, and some of it deserved. The downside that I see most often are good threads about training being choked with bad advise, insincerity, or just general disinterest to the point that a great topic or question just dies off.
If you're interested in some better posters than me, the Great LetsRun Threads is a good place to start. Particularly the Sub-1:50 thread that has posts by Old Sub-4
V. : But on this most auspicious of nights, permit me then, in lieu of the more commonplace soubriquet, to suggest the character of this dramatis persona. Voila! In view humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the “vox populi” now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin, van guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it’s my very good honour to meet you and you may call me V. Evey: Are you like a crazy person? V. : I’m quite sure they will say so.
V, you said something about how doing long runs has a lot of benefits can you go more in detail on those specific benefits?
I'm not sure where I said that. I'm probably less of a long run proponent than most coaches. We use them each week and I think they are beneficial, but I'd choose almost any workout that we do over a long run any day of the week if it was an either/or situation.
I don't think I've ever had a an athlete with a great (or poor) season and thought, "we really need to rethink about how we do our long runs for this athlete."
From a planning perspective I think their biggest benefit is that it makes mileage easier to hit and it can be adjusted pretty easily to be an easy, moderate, or hard day depending on how we approach them.
Physiologically, it is a unique stimulus. It's not often they will experience 90-120 minutes of straight running so there's an adaptation to it that can be good to have. Over time it makes athletes a little more robust on workouts; it's hard to run workouts that hit 12-13 miles if you aren't comfortable doing north of that for a long run.
There's plenty of science we can get into the weeds on, but I try to avoid that on the internet. Everyone turns into a doctoral candidate and the whole discussion devolves
I am 16 year old 800/1600 guy who ran 4:44 and 2:07 freshman year. I come into sophomore year hoping to be sub 2 and sub 430 if possible. My training week looks like this-
Monday: Vo2 + Lactate Concentration: 400 at 95% + 4 miles alternating 400s at Vo2(5:20 pace) and easy jogging.
Tuesday: Easy 6 miles aerobic @8 min pace with some sprints after or during.
Wednesday: Short hills sprints and jog down usually about 5 miles with warmup
Thursday: Max velocity + Lactate Shuffle: 6x60 all out 3 mins rest, 4-5 miles alternating 200s,400s or 800s at 5:45 pace with equal distance jogging.
Friday: Easy 6 @ 8 min pace
Saturday: 5@ 6:45 steady
Do you think it’s a good schedule? I also lifting twice a week. Tell me what u think.
You're doing some things that I recognize from my earlier days as a coach. I read all of the books, articles, and peer review studies I could find and try to apply the science to what I was doing. Over the years I've steadily moved away from the idea that science is a list of facts or studies that we apply to training and instead view science as the process for how I change, and hopefully improve, our training each season.
We have a hypothesis (our training plan), we run an experiment (complete our workouts/training plan), we get results (from races), evaluate them at the end of the season, and then adjust the hypothesis for the next season and run the experiment again.
I mention this because I think you're getting a little into the weeds trying to nail the science instead of starting with solid workouts that fit your event and goals.
I think your weekly structure is fine. 2 hard workouts and some easier days that incorporate fast running is a pretty bread and butter way to build a solid plan.
Training is going to come down to a lot of personal preference so take all of this with a grain of salt.
I don't like training VO2max. Some coaches much more successful than me have used it well, but I've never gotten a great response from it and I think it's a flawed metric to target. Steve Magness wrote a great paper called the Fallacy of VO2max that sums it up better than I can. In short, don't focus on a training metric in hopes that the metric will lead to a better race; just focus on getting better for your race.
If you decide to stick with the Monday workout for VO2max (which is totally fine), I would shorten the rest. Doing 400m in 80 then a 400m jog you're probably getting about a 1:1.7 work to rest ratio, most VO2max sessions really like to be 1:1 measured by time instead of distance. A good progression might be to start with the workout being 400on/400off and then after that feels comfortable drop down to 400on/300off and then later 400/200.
As long as you're starting somewhere and seeing a solid progression then most workouts at your experience level can be good ones.
I don't think the Thursday workout is enough to push you. 60's are fine, I'd probably lower the reps to 4-5 and increase the rest, but the 200-800m reps at 5:45 can be tweaked a bit.
5:45 pace is probably close to your lactate threshold, maybe slightly faster. Doing 200's at that pace is probably a walk in the park for you. 800's is probably a comfortable challenge. I'd rather see this workout become a lactate threshold session and stick to the longer reps at that pace or even make it continuous as you build fitness.
200's can easily be added on at the end of the workout and be done at mile pace with a 200m jog to teach you how to run fast while slightly fatigued. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At your age I'd also have a long run most weeks. It's a good tool to keep in the toolbox that can pay some dividends when developing. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If it's any help, here's the basic structure I would have for most HS athletes that run the mile:
M - Mileage + Short hills or Strides
T - Lactate threshold (LT) + Something faster
Usually around 2-3 mile of volume on the LT work, for you I'd start at 6:00 pace just to be safe and begin with broken tempos (i.e. 5-6x800m or 2-3x1 mile with 60-120s rest) and then slowly making the reps longer. Then the "something faster" would usually be there to fill in a gap for that week. If Friday's workout is really fast then we might do 6-8x200 at mile pace or some 400's at goal 3200m pace. If Friday isn't as quick then a really fast 300m or 4x200m at 800m race pace can be a good fit.
W - Mileage
T - Mileage + Speed Development (same stuff we talked about in the 5x60m thread)
F - Race Pace
You can play around with this a lot, but something like 8x400m at current mile pace w/ 2:00 rest or 12x200m at goal 800m race pace with 90-120s rest are pretty basic ones to start with
S - off
S - Long run (20-22% of weekly mileage) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your plan builds speed which is great at your age. I think those workouts will do a good job building endurance as well. I don't know if it covers the stuff in the middle as much as you'd probably want. I don't see anything in that 800m-1600m pace range that I think you'll need for those very specific events.
But I hope some of that is helpful or at least let's you think about what you're doing from a different perspective. I definitely don't have all the answers (or even most), but I'm happy to chime in if you felt like it was useful.
Best of luck this season
The 'trick' to succeed with VO2max work is just to know the right purpose. That purpose is not mainly to raise the maxO2 but to make the pace at 5k race pace more energy efficient and biomechanical more efficient and by that make the slower paces needed much easier to do over time. That's the way to succeed with VO2max work. 🧙♂️🇸🇪