Hey,
I was wondering if somebody could post a two week training cycle for the winter, and then some track workouts for a guy wanting to improve in the 800/1600. I'm a crummy collegiate runner, but i feel like i can get way better. My pr's are 2.08 and 4.42, but i think i should be able to go sub 2 this year with proper training. My previous mileage high is 45 miles.
Please post some training schedules.
Thanks.
d
The "simple" answer is just run a lot. 45 miles a week is really low for a collegiate miler, and that's the most you've ever done. You probably don't have a whole lot of talent, but you're also nowhere near your potential. You can get A LOT better just by running more. I think a good winter training goal would be to hit 70 mile weeks by the end of January. That's about 13-14 weeks, so if you build up something like this:
30-35-40-40-45-50-50-55-55-60-60-65-70
You can get there without (probably) killing yourself.
I wouldn't worry about a rigid schedule. Once a week do a long run of about 20% of your weekly mileage. Doubles are good, an easy 4 miles in the morning will help you without killing your afternoon session. Once a week do something harder, a tempo, fartlek, whatever. Those can be done on the roads even when the weather is pretty nasty. Maybe hop in a road race here or there instead of the workout. Try to measure out a place to do 100m strides once or twice a week at mile pace.
Oh, and you don't have to kill the pace everyday, and LISTEN TO YOUR BODY! If you need to back off, don't be a slave to a training goal.
bump
I don't have any specific plans, but I would definitly recommend trying out snowshoe running. It's a great workout, and really is a nice break from the ice roads.