800, 1600, or 3200?

Stop farting around with those bastard distances and try a 1 Mile or 2 Mile. We'll talk then.

What are your current PRs?

uh...we don't have a 1 mile or 2 mile, just the 1600 and 3200 in HS

The easiest to break should be the 3200. Given your speed and extra year of getting stronger.

I just reread your post. So those being the school records. what are your times in XC,400,800,1600, and 3200?

The extra 18 meters always kill me.

well, I haven't run the 3200 since my sophmore year, but it was in the mid 10 min. range. My 1600 PR is 4:43, and XC is 16:56. 800 PR is 2:04. However, I am confident that I can pull out a sweet track season if I avoid overtraining, because that caused me to have a disasterous last two years of XC and track. How many mpw would you guys recommend for a HS senior? I have done up to 80 miles for XC, and 2-a-days are no problem.

You gotta go for the 1600 and 3200, they are a lot easier to break. special a 9:28

Go for the 1600m since you don't run the 3200m anymore. You are also likely to find faster 1600m races than 3200m races. Don't worry about mileage. Do what you can do without it feeling like you are breaking down. IE: don't feel tired all the time. 80 should be fine...but try it in singles. When the season starts, then drop it to the 40-60 range. Talk to your coach about this. Train for 4:21 pace. You can't train as a 4:40 guy and expect to magically run 4;20. 4:20 is :65 pace. Get to it.

Alan

i guess keep at 80 mpw right now, doing good strengthening and aerobic stuff, but make sure to do a little speed workout once in a while, but nothing that builds up your lactic threshold too much(something like 6-8 x 200m @ 800m-1600m pace w/ 400m jog or 45-60 sec. rest)

those are pretty big goals though if your current pr's are what you said above. even if you did over-train the past couple years, these stresses are going to be very much new to your body.

i don't think it would be necessary for you to be doing more than 50-60 mpw during the regular track season. if i were you, and knowing your history of over-training, i would stick to the 40-50 mpw range. focus more on your 1600m and 800m distances for the season, the run a couple of fast 3200m races at the end of the season. i don't think you'll be able to get the 3200m record, but the 800m or 1600m might be within your reach if you have a superb season. just have some good off season training(during this time now) but don't even think about killing yourself in any of the workouts.

do this stuff(general ideas of prepping you for the season):

4 x 800m hill @ 3 mile to tempo pace, jog down recovery

6-8 x 200m @ 31-33 sec. w/ 400m jog recovery or 45-60 sec. rest

4-6 mile tempo runs

8-12 mile long runs

strides, pushups, situps, pullups, x-training, jumping jacks, high-knees, butt-kickers, lunges, & a decent amount of stretching(yoga or pilades might even be a good idea).

maybe 2-4 weeks before your season starts, do a time trial. sometimes doing an off-distance, like a distance no one usually does a time trial for, can be an interesting approach to see where you're at. i wouldn't do an 800m time trial, just because i think a time trial in the distance range of 1200m-3000m could tell you a bit more about where your training is at. you could try doing a 1200m time trial and see how close you can get to running 3:20-25 range(67/68 sec laps). i know that would be a little slower than your goal pace, but it's a long season. here are some good goals to try and aim for in a pre-season time trial for various distances if you want to try and hit the 1600m mark.

1200m: 3:20(as you get in better shape as the season goes along, you will become more capable of running 3:12-15, which would put you on pace for running 4:21)

1600m: 4:30 would be a good opener

2000m: 5:45

3000m: 9:20

3200m: 10:00

I think the 800 is the softest of the 3.

I ran 4:20 in high school, but i never ran faster than 9:40. Of course I never got to run a fresh 3200.....

1:58 was always cake in the 4x8, holding back some for the 1600.

1:56 shouldn\'t be that hard.

I'd say go for the 1600m but run the 800m also. Most would need to have pretty good speed to beat the 800m record. Unless you can run the 400m in 53 seconds or lower, 1600m is probably a better bet than the 800m. If you feel stronger at one distance as the season progresses try to go for that one. You'd have to have a breakout season to get any of those records off of your current pr's but good luck to you.

3200 is definitely the softest record there. I've always looked at it as 1:56=4:20=9:20. To break any of these records, you're either going to be a 1:55 guy, sub-4:20 guy, or 9:25 guy. Unless you can run a 51-52 open, 1:55 ain't happening. However, if you're running 80 a week there's no reason you couldn't run 9:25 if you've got any shred of natural talent in you. It's easier to train the aerobic system.

Most people on here of course are going to be saying whichever one they were best at is the weakest though. I could never sniff 1:56, and I only broke 4:30 twice (just realized that, wow!), but would've completely blown that 3200 out of the water. I'm pretty sure though that if you go on to one of the online time converter things you'll find the 3200 a couple seconds softer anyways. They're all close enough though that you should go for whichever distance you're most comfortable with.

(tangent - I also just realized that makes my 3rd fastest 1600 ever the second 1600 in my 3200 pr)

wow guys, thanks for all the advice.

seriously, nobody understands me quite like people on Letsrun.com

This is exactly why I love this site so much

the mile record is the slowest of these i think.. but twenty two seconds is a lot to drop in one year

I'm in a similar situation. I'm wondering whether it would be good for Paavo and me to take a break of some sort before track starts. Would putting in a very easy week (maybe 5 days with little or no running) before the track season starts prevent burnout? I don't want to put in a bunch of work and end up overtraining. When would be the best time for this if track starts in mid-March?

javan2222 wrote:

the mile record is the slowest of these i think.. but twenty two seconds is a lot to drop in one year

Yeah it's a big drop but these things can happen if you improve your training. My senior year I dropped from 4:53 to 4:33 simply by adding more slow mileage and I felt that 4:53 was the best I could do junior year.