My goal of sub 4:00 1500-I will not stop until I reach my goal.

sair, sounds like training's pretty promising. you are sure to run fast when you get to the off-treadmill majority of your miles.

boingo, tough to miss a race, but maybe a good thing with an incipient injury. if you've decided not to do another race (i think the next nyc races are st. john's night, then 6/3, 6/10 at icahn w/nyrr--both have 1500/3k.), it's a good time to take off running for awhile and get your foot healthy. you could do cycling for aerobic and maybe swimming as well. the barefoot on grass stuff that sair was doing also seemed to help me a lot last year--just a few super slow yards on grass, building up a bit.

ron, kc track club is one possibility--http://www.kctrack.org/group_runs/index.php

even if they don't have people that fast, the very fact that you are running on the track or doing a tempo with them should motivate you to run faster than solo: that worked for me w/abq rr, whose 2:40s marathoners were injured and couldn't train hard, yet i got some okay workouts with them.

but even better, try asking a college coach if you can run with them on one or two workouts a week. missouri kansas city had underclassmen at 1:52, 1:55, 1:58 800m this year and a sub-4 1500m guy (unfortunately, a senior). they do xc and track, so they would be a good option for you. it worked very well for me, when the guys were working out--often they weren't because of meets--to run with the university of new mexico team for track workouts and some tempos. compared to solo workouts, those were good and they pushed me to run more intervals than my track club back in nyc does, e.g. 8x800 instead of 5x800, 16x400 instead of 12x400, and with much shorter rests, 45 seconds on the 400s.

Thanks for the support jonesy! What's the next race?

Fri: 2.65mi elliptical, 3mi treadmill - thinking of tempo but bagged it - feeling v tired+lethargic, busy week catching up with me!

PM: 31mins easy.

Sat: AM 2.75 XT, 8.25 treadmill(inc 4.7mi tempo 26:05, progression style), 2mi outdoors. Felt nearly easy!

PM: 42mins outdoors.

Sun: AM: 9.25 treadmill (1hr)

PM: 51:20 outdoors, 11pm-12am, great run!

Mileage: somewhere around the 100mark I think. 2 decent tempos, 4 big mile days, more outdoor running. Decent week, ankle coming on!

I've been overoptimistic with the ankle before, but I'm really starting to think it might be coming around now. 4 runs of 40min+ outdoors this week, ankle still a bit tender (pathologically afraid on kerbs and sharp left turns!) but not going to sh** on me, which is an improvement! One or two more tempos on treadmill, then I'm finding a lovely flat outdoor loop and doing some nice fast miles, loose and strong - can't wait.

Turns out sore heel was from ankle strap I was using, strangely enough.

ran a crappy 16:24 5000m on the track this weekend. twenty seconds slower than two weeks ago. the truth is that i had driven five straight days to get to this race, having moved out of albuquerque on tuesday and moved back into my nyc apartment on friday evening, then driven four more hours to the race on saturday. moving the heavy boxes of books may have done it more than the driving but in any case i was very tired. i went out in 5:03, fairly even, but then had nothing and ran 5:21/5:27/:33-4. i could see this coming from my short run friday and from my warmup. but i had a good workout tuesday in abq before driving, 3x200,5x600,3x200, with 38,37,35 warmup, 1:48,1:53,1:54,1:54,1:49, 33,32,32, on a hot morning, solo except for the beginning of the third 200 and the first 600, where i had a unm guy to follow. also felt quite good in oklahoma the next day and pretty decent in tennessee thursday. hopefully after returning to nyc in the next couple days i'll start getting the workout times down, get some more speed and the races will go okay. i think i have a road four miler, maybe a five miler, a couple 1500/3000 track days and then a 5k on the track again in a month. hopefully i'll have another four pr's or so prior to the 5k.

What kind of recovery were you taking on those 6s and 2s?

It's a lot of pressure to put yourself under to PR every time. In your upcoming track meets, it might be worth sounding out the fields and getting yourself into a few heats where you have a legit shot at winning, even if it means not necessarily being dragged to your fastest time. After all, this is what the sport's about in the purest sense, and it's easy to get caught up in times and not train yourself to excel in a competitive, tactical situation. I think you'd be good in such situation, because you've got good pace, and the mental strength to close workouts with big negative splits when called on.

And believe me, winning is a great feeling.

Good day for me so far. 5.5mi treadmill tempo in 30:10 (pace increasing throughout, started at 10.7mph, ended at 11.7), last 4.5mi in 24:20 at 2% incline which I consider solid running for me (provided treadmill's calibrated correctly!), hopefully another 5/6 easy later tonight. Feeling reasonably fit!

I hope the others return to this thread as well.

sair, you're cruising! eager to see how you can race this summer.

I did the 3x200's with 100 jog rest, a little under a minute, then 200 jog rest and a little stretch after the third 200. I did 200 jog rest, avg. 1:45, after each of the 600s. and then the second set of 200s were again 100 jog rest. I saw a couple of the unm runners sitting around after my fourth 600, so I thought that I should man up for the last one, :74, :35. a much better workout than my 6x200, 5x1000 workout (3:18s) the previous week.

as for the racing/pr's, i'm out there solely to maximize my potential, such as remains, so the pr's are my goal. but given that, i am of course trying to beat anyone in range. last june-july, I ran a number of winnable races, taking second in a 5k road race, first in a usatf master's (and sub-master's) 10k, second in a 5k track race, and i think third in a los gatos 2 mile. but most of the times were slow and i'm really looking for some people to push me. the last two 5k's this year were ideal there, but I wasn't quite aggressive enough in the first one and lacked splits, but I felt fantastic, and I was too tired in the second one.

depending on the comp, i'm probably good for top 20 or top 10 in the 4 miler next week, unless it's a team points race.

ultimately, my thought is that being so far, far, far away from elite status, the race places are solely dependent on who happens to show up that day--that is, arbitrary, but the times are for real. and of course i will try to beat everyone i can in any race.

looked up the log, it was actually 6x600-1:48.4,1:55,1:55,1:53,1:54,1:49.0. and the last three 200s in 32,32,32.

last three weeks, roughly 71, 91, 71 miles.

have felt pretty crappy since x-country trip. am in new hampshire for a few days.

monday 12.2

tuesday 13

a.m. 3-UNH loop-21:40; p.m. 10-t/f UNH track-6x1600m (200 jog rest-1:33 avg.)-5:45,5:46,5:53,5:48,5:55,5:35. windy. foot sore after last interval. went so slow on first interval that i shortened the rests and called them cruise intervals. the wind on the homestretch was slowing me by 4 seconds per 200m at times vs. the backstretch. pretty clear too that if i were running with people, the intervals would have been much faster. will see tomorrow if the foot soreness is serious or just temporary--too much pavement running up here.

Hey Jonesy,

Thanks again for the info. I'm going to look into it.

An update on my progress...

This evening went to the local track and clocked a solo 5:16 1600m with approx splits of 74, 79, 82, 81 . I'm moving in the right direction in decreasing my times. As stated before, no interval training yet... just mileage in base phase. Interestingly, what I remember about my training years ago, we did tons of interval work. However, in getting more educated since that time, it seems mileage is the key. I think it's one thing that was lacking in our goals to get faster in the 800m/1500m. We relied on our fall cross country base to carry us into indoor and outdoor.

Just completed a 57mile week. Next stop is the KC Hospital Hill run on June 7th. I'm doing the Half marathon. I'll post my results. My goal is to break 1:30... Best Regards!

Ron

can this f***ing thread die already. when was it started? 2 seasons ago? either way, this thread needs to die. im sick of always seeing it. damnit.

can someone update me on whether or not eddylee went sub 4? i dont feel like sifting through all 25 pages or whatever it is.

Ran a couple times this week.

S - 55 slow on hilly trails near State College. Maybe 7.

M - Off.

T - 52 fast on local trail. Not much pain.

W - Off.

Th - 25 on turf infield with strides. Some plantar fasciitis pain but nothing from my right ankle, which was the real issue. Managed to give myself some blood blisters but whatever.

I picked up the Daniels Running Formula this past week and am going through it, trying to figure out how much of it I want to use and how I want to change it. Probably lengthen the first phase, among other things.

ran 82 for the week in six days, with a day off for foot soreness.

back in new york friday.

12.5 friday @sub 7 pace. central park.

18 saturday, most at or under 7 min. pace.

14 sunday w/a 4 mile race in 22:33, 5:43/5:45/5:47/5:18.

had very little after saturday.

racing again in a couple days but trained through because I thought I had lost some fitness from travelling. foot soreness returned today in race.

Jonesy, are you training to run the 1500m? What time are you shooting for?

no.

THarrier wrote:

can someone update me on whether or not eddylee went sub 4? i dont feel like sifting through all 25 pages or whatever it is.

ron, i'm shooting for sub-4:20 1500m tomorrow, and a pr at 3k as well--the tables say 9:22, which would be a ten second pr, converts to 16:04, and then we'll see, but travelling and racing have messed up the training schedule enough to limit my quality speedwork for awhile, so I have my doubts. but I should at least be better rested than in yesterday's race as I took today off.

Sorry I haven't been on lately, internet problems. Anyway, good news is ankle's well on the mend, did my first two 'hard' outdoor runs last week. Mileage pretty high, a bit of quality now and I hope to be in shape pretty soon! Feeling pretty beat up though.

Mon: 2.75 XT, 10.25 mostly treadmill, incl 5.5 tempo in 30:10.

PM: 6mi easy, weights (squats).

Tue: 1hr easy outdoors.

PM: 1:02 easy, first 22min outdoors last 40 treadmill.

Wed: AM 2.25mi elliptical, 5.25 treadmill. Too tired for tempo, will do it tomorrow.

PM: 50min easyish - exhausted!

Thur: AM 2.5 elliptical, 7 treadmill. - bottled tempo after ~2.3mi in 13mins, not feeling up to scratch.

PM 62mins outdoors, strides.

Fri: First outdoor tempo! 21min w/u, 21min tempo, 2:30 break, 10min tempo, 21min c/d. On a side note, when kids shout 'steroids' at you on a run it means you've been spending too much time in the gym!

PM: 51mins, last 25 on treadmill.

Sat: 55mins easy

PM 50 mins easy.

Sun: Hill climb workout, 10x3mins, 1 min recovery for most, 2-3 mins after 5 and 8 when I had to go back and look for my friend. Whole run took ~1hr45 (had to run back down the hill).

Mon: 1hr v easy.

Over 110miles for last week, 3 decent workouts.

How did your races go Jonesy?

sair, it sounds like you are doing some heavy training and should roll in a month or so.

my first race was terrible, 1500m in 4:35 (54/2:09/3:24/3:42). I was walking over to the starting line when the first men's heat went off a minute before the meet was supposed to start, and I thought they did women's heats first. Anyway, I ran in the second heat with only a couple strides for warmup, went into the early lead and then was immediately boxed. The boxers then slowed down, I went through 300 in 54--very easy--and then they slowed more and we went through 400 in maybe 73-4, finally I slowed down, went around the box and went to the lead at about 450, and won by 6 seconds, but I just didn't pick up the pace that much, so can't really blame them. maybe the non-warmup.

second race was the 3k about an hour later-9:32.5 .05 off my pr from sickness in december, but probably a couple tenths as this was hand-timed. went out in 77-2:32-3:47-5:02 and then reeled in guys who were projecting much faster times, but who were actually running 80 or slower at that point, unfortunately--should have been more aggressive at the beginning and gone with someone I thought was at the right pace (he ran 9:23)--so it was 79's for the next three laps and 33 last 200. foot is sore again, but I think that these three races in the last three days are going to help next week and on the 24th when I race on the track again. I clearly need speedwork to be able to run a better 1500m, because even that 4:20 felt like sprinting, whereas the 3k pace felt fairly easy. I'll try to add some strides and faster stuff toward the weekend, as thursday is 10k with four intervals along the way.

Well, a win is a win, and it's hard to run fast in the 1500m with no competition and without a proper warmup. I do think some dedicated race-pace work helps a huge amount for the 1500m, it's just a matter of getting your body used to what it has to do.

Maybe consider some 600s with 2 min recovery at 1:43-44, or even 3x800m with say 4min recovery trying to hit race pace. Your training is getting you into great shape, but other than a few fast 200s there's been little close to or faster than race pace. The aerobic stuff will stand to you, though.

Good day for me yesterday, 8k tempo on a 1k grass loop, 26:57 (13:44, 13:13), 5 minutes break/jog over to track, 3200m hard 9:55 (4:57/4:57). Good way off where I'm going to need to be, but it's a good starting point, and it'll only get easier from here.

Plan is to ramp the intensity up gradually, with some more half/half workouts of this type over the next few weeks, before turning to full-out intense work.

Boingo, good to hear from you - enjoy the break and have some fun!

Ron, welcome to the thread!