mcmillan calculator question

If you consider yourself more of a middle distance runner, then you want to be looking at the middle distance times. If you are more of a long distance runner, you want to look at the long distance goal times for the respective distance. The idea behind that being that you can have two runners, who both run a 17:30 5k, and runner A can run a 2:00 800m and runner B can only run a 2:10. Runner B would definitely be more of a long distance runner and would require a harder effort than runner A for fast, interval workouts.

Cruise intervals are just a type of stamina/threshold work. They are not as fast as intervals, but the recovery is very minimal. It is kind of a substitute for a tempo run.

When doing your 1000's make sure you know what the purpose is. If they are an interval/speed workout, you should be doing them at about 3:30 and should take about 3:00 recovery.

McMillan describes his training plan here:

http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/training1.htm

and on page 4, I think he describes the different training systems that are listed in his calculator.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the quick response. The purpose of doing those longer repeats were to 1. Get a feel for what that pace feels like 2. Make it feel as relaxed as possible and make sure to, not even once, feel like I was pushing it. 3. Shorten the gap between my normal running pace (7 to 7:35) and my goal race (5:45). I felt like doing 8's and k's were the best way to do this.

I also did 8x800's recently as well, hitting those in about 2:50 w/2min recovery jogs. Both felt comfortably "uncomfortable", if that makes any sense, and felt completely aerobic the whole way. Again, I don't know if I'm going too fast or too slow to improve fitness, but I took off and never looked down for splits until each rep was over. I was very consistent and felt like I had the rhythm I needed to learn.

So if my goal is to run 17:30 and I'm hitting these longer repeats at goal pace, while running a significant amount of volume at this pace, would that correspond more with the long distance, middle, or cruise interval types of workouts?? Does these longer reps work more on VO2Max or LT? I recently read that LT was more important for the 5k than VO2, but I'm still learning and trying to figure things out as I go.

Thanks again.

Does the mcmillan calculator pretty accurately predict your times? Not talking 800m to Marathon but 2mile to 5k? Has anyone had their actual times come close to predicted?

I don't think I was very clear at first about the long/middle distance categories that McMillan lists. How he has it, they are both "speed work". If you look at the paces, they are not much different. If you think it would be easier to run a 2:16 800 than a 36:00 10k, then you are probably more middle distance oriented and should follow the middle distance column under the "speed" section. If a 36 min 10k seems easier, shoot for the "long distance runners" ranges when doing speed workouts. If you aren't sure, just make sure you are somewhere in between the lower limit of the middle distance and the upper limit of the long distance. The speed workouts are usually around your 5k pace and aimed at improving your VO2max.

VO2max is probably the most important thing for a 5k. I wouldn't recommend too much VO2 work before getting in some good LT/threshold work though.

To break it down simply:

Threshold: longer runs at your "one hour race pace" or broken up intervals with very short recovery. These shouldn't bee too intense, but should be tiring because they are longer.

VO2max: Intervals between 400m and 2000m at 3k-5k pace with equal or slightly less recovery time. These should be pretty intense.

Try to avoid workouts that are somewhere in the middle. Decide what the purpose of your workout is and what you want to work on physiologically and stick to it.

Add some short/faster stuff as well, like 100-400m at mile race pace with FULL recovery and you should be good to go.

I think you will hit your time if you are doing those 3 workouts a week. Chose one day to work on threshold, one day to work on VO2 max and another day to work on pure speed (you can start out just doing 100m strides.)

Wanting to Know wrote:

Does the mcmillan calculator pretty accurately predict your times? Not talking 800m to Marathon but 2mile to 5k? Has anyone had their actual times come close to predicted?

Yes, 2 mile to 5k will be very close. The closer the convert distance is to the actual distance, the more accurate it is.

Once you go like 800 to 5k, it isn't too accurate just because they are such different races and every athlete is different. It does give you a good idea of what an equivalent performance is though.

Would you say the predicted times from a 2mile on the track to a 5k xc (fast course) holds true or does the 5k time take into acount that it's going to be run on a track?

The reason I am suspect of the calculator is because I've seen kids do a 9:50 2 mile and never come close to their projected 16:00 5k after talking themselves up the entire summer of training and how good they're going to be.

Yes, the closer together the distance, the more accurate the predicter. My anecdotal evidence, I ran a 5k and a 4 miler 5 weeks apart, trained well for both, ran near my best in both, I came in 1 second faster on the 4 miler than predicted.

Wanting to Know wrote:

Would you say the predicted times from a 2mile on the track to a 5k xc (fast course) holds true or does the 5k time take into acount that it's going to be run on a track?

The reason I am suspect of the calculator is because I've seen kids do a 9:50 2 mile and never come close to their projected 16:00 5k after talking themselves up the entire summer of training and how good they're going to be.

The conversion assumes the same terrain/conditions. You can't convert track times to xc times. It is a huge difference. In XC, you have hills, trails, turns that are much more difficult and less efficient than on a track.

I think if it's a relatively flat xc course then times should be close to projected? No?

Nope, not quite. Tracks are just faster, you can compare road records to track records to see this.

Of course, your kids were probably also aerobically undertrained, which would account for the weakening times as distance increased.

Wanting to Know wrote:

Does the mcmillan calculator pretty accurately predict your times? Not talking 800m to Marathon but 2mile to 5k? Has anyone had their actual times come close to predicted?

I've ran 3.44 7.59 13.57

All the pr's come out within a second of each other for the relative values.

The run speeds are also good, although my easy run pace is slower than what is recommended below, I do it more like the recovery pace and my recovery pace is slower again.

Recovery Jogs 6:41 to 7:11 (I run 7:30-8:10)

Long Runs 5:41 to 6:41 (about right 5:45s on a good day and up to 6:40s normally)

Easy Runs 5:41 to 6:11 (I always aim for 7's per mile for this)

workouts i've done to back up the projected speed workout times

400m 59.9 to 1:02.5 (10x400 with 90 seconds in 60high average)

800m 2:02.3 to 2:07.9

1000m 2:39.7 to 2:47.1 (8x1000 with 90 in 2:45)

1200m 3:11.8 to 3:20.5

1600m 4:21.8 to 4:31.8 (4x1600 with 3 minutes 4:24)

2000m 5:34.2 to 5:43.8

Also a workout which covers most of the distances above:

1600, 1200, 800, 400, 1600 with 4 minutes in 4:18, 3:09, 2:00, 56, 4:15

The longer recovery makes the repeats a little faster I guess.

I'm quite impressed as this calculator is pretty accurate based on the evidence above! Has anyone else got anything similar to back it up?

I ran 17:00 5k, 22:20 4 mile, 28:10 5 mile, 35:24 10k, and 1:19:00 half one summer.

I was running about 28-32 miles a week.

400s in 72 which I considered more a sprint workout

800's in 2:40

5 mile tempos in a little under 30 minutes.

no, you still can't really compare a flat xc course to the track.

ripvanracer wrote:

I ran 17:00 5k, 22:20 4 mile, 28:10 5 mile, 35:24 10k, and 1:19:00 half one summer.

I was running about 28-32 miles a week.

400s in 72 which I considered more a sprint workout

800's in 2:40

5 mile tempos in a little under 30 minutes.

Great reference. I've been running 50-60 pretty consistently off one a days (except Wed and Sat I double quicker runs).

400s in 78 feel like a long stride (pretty easy); If I really work during 400s, I'd hit more like 8 of em in 72--only then it'd feel like a "sprint workout".

800's (5 or less=2:40's; 8 or more=2:50's)

3 mile tempo in 18min with 2 w/up and 2 c/dn.

I feel very comfortable with my speed; I can run a 30s 200 any day of the week at any point. I'm more concerned with my strength, cause 7 miles at 7 minute pace (today) still doesn't feel as easy as I'd like it to. I would say that's my long "strong" distance pace.

If I parallel your success, I should hit my goal by the late summer/early fall racing season. What do you think?

You have identified your weakness. If I ran a steady 10 miler, I would run between 6:30-6:40 pace. I would do 200 repeats every few weeks and at the end, I would do one all out. I could not break 30 seconds!!

Just keep working on that 7 miler either increasing the pace or the distance throughout the summer.

Still, I would think that if a runner ran 9:50 2mile (converts to about 16:00 flat for a 5k) on the track, followed that up with good 60-75mpw summer training, he should be able to run around 16:00 on a faster xc course.

ripvanracer wrote:

You have identified your weakness. If I ran a steady 10 miler, I would run between 6:30-6:40 pace. I would do 200 repeats every few weeks and at the end, I would do one all out. I could not break 30 seconds!!

Just keep working on that 7 miler either increasing the pace or the distance throughout the summer.

Good point and it's something I've really been working on for the past few weeks. Each weekend I've hit (3 weekends in a row) 82min run, 102minrun, and last week 90min all at an easy pace (7:20-7:45/mi). What's frustrating right now is that I can hit 85 min at 7:35-7:45 pace pretty comfortably, but it's hard to hit 10 at 7:15 pace. I've also had trouble with my LT and really think I should focus on that, even WHEN I hit my goal. With my speed, improving my LT and overall strength should make for good times once it cool downs here in Carolina. Got another long run in the a.m. (McAlpine in Charlotte) and hoping to hit 85-90min again and will probably hit something a bit shorter than normal today (5 or 6m) to make sure I'm ready to go in the morning.

Wanting to Know wrote:

Still, I would think that if a runner ran 9:50 2mile (converts to about 16:00 flat for a 5k) on the track, followed that up with good 60-75mpw summer training, he should be able to run around 16:00 on a faster xc course.

I don't think that's necessarily so. I'm really beginning to think that either A. Those who do translate that 9:50 2mile into a 16:00 5k are just naturally geared towards the longer distance events and just more aerobically gifted or B. People are really underestimating the strength needed to run a good 5k, especially off the track. I think this is where I fall.

For instance, although I'm nowhere near capable of running a 9:50 2m, I feel very confident in saying that if I focused on mile workouts for a few weeks I could manage a 4:40. 4:45 or so at the worst, I believe. You would think this would carry over to the 2m, having me being able to at least break 10:30, but I would have to train for months, 2-3 workouts a week, plus long runs and peaking to come close. I just don't have that strength to hold that 5:15 pace twice. For that 9:50 2miler, he/she would have to develop some serious strength (LT-type) to convert that over to the 5k. The mileage (if done all easily) will probably make them "fitter", capable of running longer, but maybe not running longer and faster.

What I've learned recently is that mileage (even 60-75 a week) affects everyone differently. I'm really beginning to believe that if runner "fasttwitch" and runner "slowtwitch" ran the same mileage at the same pace, they are both benefiting differently aerobically. FT may be gaining more "strength", learning to run longer at that pace and probably improving LT (5k specific), but ST may be gaining more "specific endurance" that will carry over to longer distances (10k up). I think this is why folks like Lagat can run 3:26/12:59 but couldn't run 26:20/2:04. I'm sure he and Bekele run about the same pace on easy days. I don't pretend to know as much about this stuff as the next guy, but I'm trying to learn and am sincerely interested in what others think about my observational theory. This is based solely on experience and observation, so I apologize for my unscientific approach/knowledge. Again, I'm still trying to figure things out and am constantly reading/learning how to do things to improve, but this is where I stand at this moment. Until then, I'll just keep running.

Scratched the easy 5 and did a 6 mile fartlek to continue working on LT. 1w/up; 4 miles of 3min on 2min off; 1c/dn. Have no idea how fast the on segments were, but by the 6th one, I felt some serious tightening up and was sucking wind. Next time, I'm gonna go a bit easier on the fast segments and try to get at least 8 to 10 instead of the 6 I did today.

Long run in a.m. Thanks to everyone for the input.