Attempting to walk on to top-tier D1 school, what do these workouts suggest?

i think you'll be pretty close. I did a workout kinda similar to that mile one and I ran under 4:20. Of course everyones different.

i'd say you're at about 15:30 5k shape, not enough information to make a good guess at a 1500m time, maybe 4:15 or so?

you are taking way too much rest in between your mile repeats. that workout indicates almost nothing. from your tempo run (if it was truly run at tempo effort, meaning that you could have continued at that pace for an hour) i would guess that you might be able to break 16:00 for 5k.

My PRs are 4:28 for 1600m and 16:06 for 5k, both done on less miles and lower quality workouts.

future man wrote:

you are taking way too much rest in between your mile repeats.

I'm sure I could be taking too much rest, but I've been told repeatedly that VO2max work should have equal rests. But on the other hand, I felt like I had 2 more reps in me at the end, maybe suggesting I should shorten the rests, or maybe run faster. How much rest would you take?

As for the tempo runs, I am 100% confident I could maintain pace for a full hour.

I believe I'm easily in PR territory (I was thinking more along the lines of 15:30 5k and 4:05 1500m) but I want my expectations to match what my workouts say.

I ran for a Big Ten school in the late 90's with pr's of 4:07 (mile) and 14:20 (5k). But now I'm 29 and I'm in nearly identical shape to you. I agree that your rest for the mile repeats is too long. Take 2 minutes at the most.

Do you have a shot? Depends on the coach and his requirements for acceptance. My coach let me walk on with worse times. Good luck. If you don't make the team, ask the coach if you can just train with the team as a non-member. If he lets you run with the team, you will improve.

definitely too much rest in the mile repeats workout, although it is at altitude.

Altitude or not, he needs to at least cut the rest times in half.

neanderthal dream wrote:

Do I have a shot?

certainly, if you have a coach that accepts walk-ons. he'd be a moron not to take you. i walked on with a very similar talent level, and ran under 14:20 by sr. year. if the coach is an ass, just keep it up on your own and thank the lord you can practice on your own schedule (i.e., no weekend morning practices)

txRUNNERgirl wrote:

Altitude or not, he needs to at least cut the rest times in half.

Does this include rest times on the 300m workout? This was my first real speed workout this year, so I was uncertain about how to structure it.

Honestly, I'm shocked that you are all saying the rest times are too much. I posted on here a few weeks ago about rests for VO2max workouts, and the general sentiment was that equal rests are what you do.

For future VO2max workouts, how do I figure appropriate rest? Say I do 8x800m, and I figure I'm in 15:30 shape, what should the pace and rests be?

I did 9x800 three weeks ago and I took 1:20 rests. I was only running 2:40's though because I had a half marathon coming up in 10 days. Ended up running 1:11something in the half marathon.

The shorter the distance of the interval, the shorter the rest. I always take between 45 seconds and 2 minutes rest. The only time my rests were longer were on mountain intervals where you have to rest by running back down the mountain.

The mile repeats appear to be a V02 max workout with that kind of rest. If that is the case then your pace should be a little quicker roughly 5k race pace.

Nice job in the half! This whole shorter rests thing is completely new to me and will take some time getting used to. You guys swear you're not messing with me?

I'm still a little confused, though. I thought that the faster you do your reps, the more rest you should be taking. You're stressing different systems, and varying rests will complement your targeted result.

The rests are not so important as the running. Don't let these folks get to you. Formulas are overrated, simplistic at best, and that's all most coaches and athletes ever learn. Obviously you can do VO2peak sessions with short or long rest-- that's really a detail. The right workouts would depend on your unique physiology, and truth is most of the info necessary to make the best call got left out of your first post. Certainly you are working hard enough to get some adaptation. And of course you can be on your college team if you want to.

The 300m workout is very strong, especially if your 400m speed is 55 or slower. You're closer to the 15:10; you got a ways to go if you want the faster 1500m. My guess is you'll be over trained with the college team if you jump in too soon. You'll be better off doing what you can on your own before fall, dialing in on what works.

email if you'd like more help, and please get off that indoor track for your tempo runs.

dsrunner@juno.com

...the point of running a VO2 max workout is to spend time at VO2 max. If you are taking a long rest between workbouts--like the 5:00 between your miles--then you are wasting the first couple of minutes of the workbout getting back to VO2 max. If you take a bit less rest, you are less recovered and therefore will get to VO2 max earlier in the workbout and spend longer at VO2 max. 3:00 seems about right for a 5:00 mile.

neanderthal dream wrote:

Nice job in the half! This whole shorter rests thing is completely new to me and will take some time getting used to. You guys swear you're not messing with me?

I'm still a little confused, though. I thought that the faster you do your reps, the more rest you should be taking. You're stressing different systems, and varying rests will complement your targeted result.

The rest depends on what you're trying to do. Generally your rest on interval work (3k/5k race pace) should be between half to full recovery. So if you're running your miles in 5:00 then you should take somewhere between 2:30 and 5:00 recovery. Those arguing for less than 2:30 (2:00 or even 90 seconds) aren't wrong, but for most people that's gonna either make the workout too hard (you'll be racing in practice to hit the times) or force you to slow down so much that it changes the complexion of the workout (it becomes almost tempo pace effort instead of more V02). You gotta be one fit dude to be able to do 4x1600 at 5k race pace or faster with 2 mintues or less recovery.

So ask yourself, or ask your coach, what's the purpose of your workout? If you're gonna take 5 minutes rest then you better be runner your repeats fast (and maybe you are) like closer to 3200 race pace than 5k. I would say with 5 minutes rest you're probably in closer to 15:50 shape than 15:30 shape. If you're going to take 2-3 minutes rest than you should probably be running closer to 5k race pace.

Basically you've got two schools of thought (although it's much more complicated than this). School one: you don't rest in a race so you shouldn't rest long in training. Basically advocates of this philosophy believe taking anything longer than 2 minutes (maybe 2.5) ever (other than maybe peaking) just make soft runners. School 2: If you want to run fast then you gotta run fast. Advocates of this theory believe that if you want your body to run fast in races you have to run fast in training, even if that means you take an extra minute or two. Neither is wrong, just different. There's a lot of ways to get to California but you'll never get there if you keep switching maps. So trust your navigator.

Personally I went from a 17:42 guy to a 14:54 guy using mostly school 2 (and by running miles).

i would recommend doing that same mile workout with about 2:30 rest. 1:30 is fine for the 300's. instead of just doing a 4 mile tempo, try doing a 10 mile run where you start out around 6min pace and gradually work down to your tempo pace towards the end, staying relaxed the whole time. also make sure that youare doing a quality long run each week, 20% of your total mileage

VO2max happens physiologically at about 4k race pace, so you can estimate it with a little slower than 3k race pace.

All this talk about VO2max is false because you can't really do 4k race-pace for 4 x 1600 on the track -- it is too stressful.

Mile repeats are actually supposed to be done at a pace a little faster than LT (15k race pace), and most people's experience will bear this out.

VO2max workouts should be about 2-3.5 minutes for the repeats and matching rest is OK as long as it stays below 3-3.5 minutes.

Something like:

6-8 x 800 in 2:20 / 2:00-2:30 rest -- for a 9:15 3200 runner.

5-6 x 1000 in 2:55 / 2:00-3:00 rest -- for a 9:15 3200 runner.

4-5 x 1200m in 3:30 / 2:30-3:30 rest -- for a 9:15 3200 runner.

Once you get beyond 3.5 min at your current 3-4k race pace that is too stressful to spend 20 minutes at that pace, no matter what the rest.

JK has an excellent explanation of it on this site.

Mile reps are done between VO2max and LT pace (between 5k and 15k pace) -- so that is why the recoveries are shorter (relative to 1:1 recovery).

It is simply because at VO2max effort (MAXIMUM OXYGEN USAGE!) you will be at your max HR by about 25% of the way into the rep and you need about that much time to return to a HR of 120. AT mile rep pace you are below your MAX HR and therefore it takes less time to return to 120.

Try HR intervals ... like 12 x 400 at current mile pace / with a rest long enough to return to 120. 6-8 x 800 works well with this also.

For the 400s take off almost the moment the HR reaches 120 and kind of watch the time ... it should be around 50-70 seconds or your effort is off.

For reps longer than 400, wait until it hits 120 and then wait 10 seconds or so and see where you end up timewise. 1:30 would be pretty short and 2:30 would be getting long.

We used to do these in HS all the time and it was nice because you knew you would be recovered before the next repeat, but you knew it wouldn't be too short. We just focused on running even pace and effort on the reps.

that's old school thinking. the real point of a workout is to stimulate adaptation and improve performance velocity -- a runner adapts on many levels, and it's not just a V02 thing getting those adaptations. runners are more than mitochondria with shoes. truth is sometimes not running at all does more for a runner than a hard workout. and what's resting metabolic rate while reading on the couch? 5% V02peak for an good runner (almost none of that from skeletal muscle).

the first two minutes of running at higher speeds are useful for the adjustment itself, sorta like a pilot practicing take offs. this kid who posted is also at altitude. he needs to get the lead out, but he also needs his CP. coming from his pbs, 5' pace is just fine. thats 5k goal pace and goal pace means something to him beyond the physiology.

at vV02peak (of course that can be anything from 1k to 5k pace) the recruitment patterns include the range of fiber types. short rests might be fine if you are all ST fiber, but longer rest work better for other runners with different muscle fiber mix and different needs. take the kipketer workout, 3x km 2:25 w/ 12' how much time at peak? answer zero. good workout? for him, yes. hall, 15 miles at 5 pace. VO2peak? no. good workout? yes.

as Billat and some others have shown, if really you want time at V02peak, long intervals with short rests are not that great. short interval, short rest is better but then you are running some risks with the speed changes and you are also practicing slow as much as fast. the other approach is to go out hard and slow down. not something most runners are ready to do at this point in history, so most just call this workout a bad race.

as Billat and some others have shown, if really you want time at V02peak, long intervals with short rests are not that great. short interval, short rest is better but then you are running some risks with the speed changes and you are also practicing slow as much as fast. the other approach is to go out hard and slow down. not something most runners are ready to do at this point in history, so most just call this workout a bad race.

you heard it here dsrunner say go out hard and slow down is best way to train?