I graduated from college in the spring and want to continue running and improving. My major goal is to run a fast 5000 on the track in the spring, possibly at Duke or Raleigh since I live on the east coast. My question is whether I should do some road racing now or just continue training. I've been doing just mileage with some strides and light fartleks during the last couple months, but no tapering or racing. I've been building my mileage since July from 70 and am now up to 100 for the second week. Should I just keep doing mileage since I want to run fast in the spring or would it be beneficial to do some road races and track workouts now and then build up again over the winter. I want to run fast, low 14:00s and keep improving for 2004.