I have my own thoughts about what went wrong/right in my college training but curious what letsrun thinks.
For reference I was an 800-mile focused runner but had serious aerobic ability and a history of VERY up and down XC results. The situation I'm thinking about is that before my junior year I was coming off a lingering hamstring injury and didn't start summer training in earnest until mid-July (some 4th of July beach pics looked a little chunky!) and never really felt great going into the season. However, by October I was in the best long-distance shape of my life and working out with the team's XC top 5. I think my coach was shocked and ended XC early for me to start track training with other 800 runners. Doing 50-55 mpw and more mid d focused workouts I was running PRs from 800 to mile by January and didnt have a bad race the entire indoor season.
Fast forward to outdoor, I ran close to an 800 PR in 25-30 mph winds, dropping my training partners but then everything fell apart. I had bad allergies and got bronchitis that derailed my season.
This sucked but I was super motivated and thought I could run sub 4:05 mile maybe 3:45 1500 if I could stay healthy and I put in a picture perfect summer of running 60-70 MPW, easy threshold/tempo (Malmo style) culminating in a rolling hill 7 mile tempo under 5:40 pace which was a huge performance for me. I entered the season in the best aerobic shape of my life by far and I sucked. I had a few good long runs but couldnt run any pace, strained my calf, and came back in a week feeling terrible. My races were a disaster and I actually hurt my ankle in a race.
This led me to cut down mileage and focus 100% on the 800 indoor, which worked despite virtually no training for the month of December and by outdoor I was in the best 800 shape of my life. Again, this all fell apart outdoor when I started struggling to run anywhere near my fitness despite my best ever workouts. This was with patchwork training and barely any long runs due to my bum ankle, which I get but my question for LRC is wtf happened in cross country? Has anyone experienced this or coached a similar athlete? I don't believe months of training would disappear in a 5-6 day cross training stretch due to my calf but it felt like it did. I would love to know your thoughts. Discus.