How good can you get in one summer of training? If you go out and kick your ass for 3-4 months, how much can you expect to improve? I'm a speed based 800 runner looking to move up to the mile/cc and I've never really trained for long distance at all. No more than 20-25 a week. What if I push it up to 70-80?
if you are aiming for the mile next spring, vs: trying it make a splash in X-C in the fall; then I wouldn't worry about piling up the mileage during the summer; but would run summer track meets, through June at least and July, if you have local parks and rec meets offered. Work on your speed and interval training. Then in the fall, (Sept-Dec), will be THE important time for you to build up an endurance base; where you will want to get your mileage up. Strengh is the key to a good mile, not pure speed. Get the mileage in, during the fall and winter and a good mile will follow in the spring.
Well say I wanted to run well in cross as well? How good could I get after one summer really?
It's possible to make pretty dramatic improvements in a few months if you're fairly inexperienced. I'm assuming you're in high school, and your xc races are 5k. Do you have any 5k times from trials or races that you can share?
you will get injured/feel like shit if you do 75-80
focus on your strengths-your speed, and only build the mileage up to 45-50
what most people don't understand is that miles per week isn't always a good indication of endurance gained
running- if the pace is too slow to provoke an adequete stress on the body then (surprise surprise) the body will not adapt because it wont have too. I'm sure most people on this forum would disagree with me but I dont see the point of going for a run unless its within 2 minutes/ mile of your (predicted) 5k pace
5 10 4 9 6 14 5 (53) is probably better then
8 8 8 8 8 8 8 (56) because the easy days let you recover by flushing all the crap out of your legs from the day before. Also, you can add strength stuff/form drills/hills to the hard days (NOT the easy days) so your body has even more stress on the hard days and you reach a higher fitness level. just add those in as you progress.
Just wondering though-why would you be thinking about summer now?
If you're going to do it, just add a bunch of pathetically easy runs in the morning to what you are already doing.
Summer between my soph and jr year I did a bunch of runs (4-5 per week) in the morning with my girlfriend (45 min runs or so). She was a decent runner so the runs weren't a joke but probably 30-45s per mile slower than I would ordinarily do. In the afternoons I did my usual training with my friends. I wasn't planning to do some secret training I just wanted to hang out with the gf and didn't think those slow runs "counted" as my training.
At the end of the summer I caught a couple PRs in late allcomers meets when my speed wasn't sharp. I later PRed by almost 5 minutes in the 10k. In the first XC meet of the year I whooped everyones ass including a few guys who were sub 930 2 milers (my PR was 10:10 at the time).
Unfortunately I did not run any track races during that time so it is difficult to compare. But I'm sure I could have run 9:30-9:40 during that time if not better. That was after 6 weeks of 65mpw instead of 35mpw.
Once I was in season (and back to 30mpw) my fitness fell off dramatically and I struggled (although I was much better than I had been before). I never did another period of high mileage like that again (unfortunately I was unable to see the correlation until many years later).
I agree, get up to 50MPW but don't go higher.
I believe that Dellinger espoused never going higher than 50% of your mileage the previous training year. Ergo, if you have previously maxed out at 20-25 per week, 40-50MPW should be your goal the first year at longer stuff.
You're young and have plenty of time to develop: just be consistent with your training and patient. DON'T RUSH IT, THAT'S A GREAT WAY TO GET INJURED. Nature doesn't like to be rushed.
Good luck. Kick ass. Take names.
thewonderer wrote:
How good can you get in one summer of training? If you go out and kick your ass for 3-4 months, how much can you expect to improve? I'm a speed based 800 runner looking to move up to the mile/cc and I've never really trained for long distance at all. No more than 20-25 a week. What if I push it up to 70-80?
Read about Jeff nelson the summer before his senior year. You'd probably get injured if you tried to emulate him, but it's inspiring nonetheless.
Jeff Nelson
By the way, I went from a 10:46 3200 as a junior off of no base (literally) to a 9:34 (at altitude) after running 55 miles a week before senior year of track. TRAINING MATTERS, especially for you if you even so much as double your mileage without getting hurt. In hindsight, I wished I'd run the summer before my senior year and put in 70 miles per week, because it would have carried over to track even more.
if you want to make a big jump in X-C, then (after a week or 2 off, after track season), you will want to start building up your mileage thru the end of June and thru July and into August, when your official team workouts start. run an easy 5-6 in the morning, before the heat and before you go to your summer job or summer school, then run another 8-10 in the pm. Work up to it in stages if you aren't used to running mileage, yet. Do a hard run at least once a week. Compete in local road races if you want, to use as 'hard workouts' and to keep you 'interested' through the summer. I have personally seen guys take huge jumps on their teams by putting in the mileage over the summer, while others did not. X-C is a relatively short season and if it takes you all of Sept to work your way into shape, 1/2 the season is over.
Says a lot about Alberto. I have heard similar comments about OU in the 70's before, too.
He made the right choice, clearly he is not losing sleep at night about it.
This from the australian coach of mottram and benita johnson, who seems to disagree with your "running within 2 minutes/mile of your predicted 5k pace"
We’re often asked how itis effective for Mottram to do his recovery runs with
Benita Johnson despite him being about to run almost two minutes faster than
her for 5000m. They feel that if he races 5000m at close to 2:30 min. per
kilometer and Benita closer to 3 minutes per kilometer, why should her recovery
runs be run a similarly slower pace? But it doesn’t actually work like that.
Running at 4 minutes per kilometer is just as comfortable for Benita as it is for
Craig. The key is that the pace is comfortable, and the pace is simply decided on
how the athletes feel. There is often a need to tell athletes to try to run slowly on
these runs, as it’s very difficult to run too slowly and quite easy to run too fast at a
speed that doesn’t really challenge aerobic fitness and certainly doesn’t allow
athletes to recover maximally between workouts. The key is to remember that
these runs are for recovery and that there are another 2 or 3 days in the week
where the focus is on building fitness.
I've run 18:31 for 5k on the road. Can I get down to around 15:00 after a summer? I'm not in high school by the way. Freshman in college. 1:57 in the 800, 51 in the 400.
high school guys tend to improve alot on 3-4 months of solid base training and puberty.
worse thing you can do to your high school career is to overtrain. distance running improvements require patience. the hardest workers do not always equate to the fastest racers.
so don't kick your ass for 3-4 months....all you will do to yourself is burnout and become useless to yourself and the team. slowly build up your mileage and be patient.
ehh not a high school guy
In one summer i went from 31.50-29.45. Trained my balls of from March until August at 6000-9000ft, was hitting between 80-100miles a week (until that summer I had never really run more than 70miles). Only one tempo a week and one set of mile/2k repeats.
burnout is mental
partially, yes burnout is mental
but if you think its only mental you are wrong-ever come off a hard training period and felt pain in your leg muscles and joints? is there anyone who hasn't?
bump...15:00?