Advice needed on training

I would take out the 400's for now. In its place I would add a longer medium run of 8-10 miles. The summer is about building aerobic capacity. Pretty good schedule overall. I would separate you quality days without the 400's something like this:

Monday- AM 35 min. Pm 45 Min. + 8 x 100m strides

Tuesday- 8-10 miles

Wed. AM 30 min. pm 30 min. tempo+ 8 x 100m strides

Thurs. pm 35 min.

Friday 5 x mile/8 x 1000

Sat. 35 recovery run

Sunday 1h 40min. long run

Good luck!

Cheers this was the sort of reply I was hoping for

Vigil, at what point do I add in the 400m reps?

I'm sure you feel you don't have time to run longer miles, and maybe feel the speed work will get you in shape faster. I feel I have to tell you to run more miles. I'm suprised someone hasn't jumped all over that aleady. I tell you this from personal experience. I was running your mileage (minus spped or tempo or hills), and had run 17:45. Mind you, I'm running again after years off to explore the bottom of beer bottles. But I felt like I didn't have much of a chance to get faster. I made a commitment to raise my miles. I have- very slowly. I've gone from 30 mpw in October to 60 mpw now. Hopefully, I can get to 75-80 yet. I, too, work full time. I've run 16:32 w/ NO speed ,tempos or hills- thaqt'll come next summer. I rarely run faster than 7min/mile. I can tell I'll get faster yet. I tell you this as gently as possible. RUN MORE MILES! It's easy and your chance of injury is severely decreased if you raise it propoerly. And ,you have to be patient. But I promise you- it works! Best of luck with whatever route you take!

bump, please

Well I agree about more mileage...in time. The schedule I outlined is about 55-60 MPW. This is up from 20-30 MPW. I thought I was being quite agressive. But how can I argue with GerrytheJogger!!

I like a slow progression of mileage. If this mileage works out, increase it to 75 MPW next XC season. I think it all depends on your goals.

I would add the 400's in early September.

Cheers!

55-60 mpw week off of 30 minute doubles . . . not much endurance built in 30 minutes in my opinion. I would drop a double or two and add in some medium distances.

Secondly, how do you plan on doing a tempo run the day before a track workout? I think at this point in your training the tempo's should be a key workout along with the long runs.

To me it appears that you may be "spreading yourself thin" doing so so efforts each day. I personally enjoy real dramatic changes in my runs. One day with the gf and the next 12 miles hard with 30-40 minutes of tempo. Next day 50 minutes crawling to slow etc.

Good luck

lol...I'm not even close to Gerrythejogger! Just some schmuck in Wisconsin! I bring the mileage issue up because : a) it has really been working for me, and b) the OP mentioned being injured for 5 years. I made the assunption (I know..."ass u me") that too much speed was being done with too little base. As my previous post points out ,I'm not hammering 100 mile weeks. But this slow progression in weekly mileage is really, really working- for me. When my racing times stagnate, then I'll throw in hills for a while. Sort of a really long Lydiard cycle.

Cheers lads. Im interested in knowing more about the value of a 35min easy run. Mottram dismisses it as a grey area with not much value added but a lot of UK athletes still do 35mins easy on there "easy days"

Some endurance must be added in 35 mins of running, at very elite level the returns are diminishing so thats why they might not value it?