What's the biggest drop in time you've ever achieved in one year? (800,1500, or 5000)

My senior year of HS I PR'd at 4:37 for the 1600

Then last spring as a freshman in college I ran 3:57 for the 1500 so about a 23 second improvement.

The difference is caring about running, Alot better coaching,and running higher mileage (about 65-70 for that spring)

i dropped from 2 min flat the year before to a 1:53 the next year. i did a lot of physical maturing over that year, but the main aspect was a new coach and completly different training system (focused 100% on the 800m, whereas in years past the coach would just try to run me in as many races as possible to try and score points.)

I went from 4:24 mile to 4:10 from high school senior to college frosh and 1:57 800m to 1:53.

the difference was: much more base mileage in the fall and winter months than I ever did in high school. Strength is the key...not necessarily speed.

[Would a 4:09 1500 suggest you could have run a much faster 800 than 2:06?]

As I could barely break 60 at the time, probably not (although did eventually go 1.51 & 3.44)

My yearly mile (not 1500) progressions were as follows:

4:51- 4:31- 4:22- 4:14

800 wasn't very extreme at all, but here are the years leading to my PR:

2:03.6- 2:00.0- 1:57.6- 1:56- 1:54.8

5k was the most extreme:

17:33- 16:12- 16:01- 15:30

All of those were road races.

Biggest change was doing more mileage, harder and longer workouts, and being consistent. Also, I had a great group to train with. Hope this helps, especially since my times are so close to some of your goal times.

sophmore year hs

800- 2:00.1

1500- 4:15

Junior year

800- 1:53.04

1500- 3:59

Freshman - 2:01

Sophomore - 2:03 (injured)

Junior - 1:52

9 sec PR in junior year, but I trained like a crazed demon on a Schwinn Airdyne all spohomore year. The results didn't quite make it to the track that year, so it was really a 2-year progression.

My senior year in high school I ran 4:36/9:51/17:20 for the 1600/3200/5000. My freshman year in college I ran 3:58/8:49/14:59 for the 1500/3000/5000. These are improvements of roughly 0:15/0:26/2:21 adjusted back to the high school distances. I went from running 25-30 mi/wk to 80-90 mi/wk and actually having a coach that knew what the hell he was doing. You can tell from the improvements that I had absolutely no aerobic base in high school. I eventually moved the times to 3:47/8:21/14:32 over the following 3 years.

Pipe Dreamin? wrote:

I'm looking to drop down from 2:00/4:07/15:45 down to 1:54/3:57/15:00 this season? It doesn't seem like that drastic of a drop, but then again, I haven't run that fast so I wouldn't know. Anybody been able to make these kind of improvements from one outdoor season to the next?

Impossible to say. It depends very much on the training you are doing now. If you train not so much, strengthening your training will help. But if you trained very hard until now, then big drops are unlikely. Sure, 2:00 – 1.54 seems optimistic, but the other drops could be achievable. One advise: why don’t you concentrate on 800/1500 for this season by doing more speed work, and postpone the 5000 drop for the next. Or other variant: why don’t you increase your “quality mileage” this season and better your 1500/5000 marks and then concentrate on 800 in the next season. But without knowing what your trainings are, all this is an empty exercise. I might be fool if I recommend you something that you are doing already. And finally, why setting exact times for achieving? Do you think it will be success if you drop to 1:54, but fault if you run 1:55.2, for example? This could be boring. Please, try just to train hard and to improve your times. Good luck.