Am I a training stud and a racing dud? Or is time on my side?

I'm in the same boat, not due to effort just not running within myself -going out too hard. Running some seriously mediocre efforts to say the least.

Im in the same boat too. Too bad there is no good replies. I guess we just keep racing.

Race,

keep your own pace,

you will save face,

and not end up in last place

I've had experiences with this, too. Just make sure you're doing everything right, including all the little things you do, as well as your diet and stuff. I was coming back from a sfx, and training well, but some races were disappointing. After that, though, I started racing really well and improving drastically. As long as you make sure you're on the right track and not getting injured, things should come around.

when I was racing in college I went through this on more than one occasion. Instead of gradually just getting a little better each race (which is usually what happens) or just running the same pace as usual, it seems like you are running way below what you think (or what the training indicates) you should be racing. You "plateau" so to speak and seem to not get anywhere.

It is definitely frustrating because plateaus can last an entire season, maybe just a few weeks, you just don't know. You can try and stress the system and create an overhaul, but sometimes that just doesn't do it.

What I find, more often than not, I will go through a big long plateau and then have a huge breakthrough (or what seems like a breakthrough since I haven't PR'd in seemingly forever) and from then on, things are back to normal. Just have to be patient I guess.

Try going balls to the wall on one of your workouts and putting a huge shock to the system. Run WAY out of your perscribed pace zones or whatever and just kill it. Sometimes that's the trick. Plateaus are sometimes an indicator of your body just needing a little something more. Other than that, just be patient my friend.

Well one thing is that I feel like I'm getting stronger each week. My legs continue to feel good and my upper body feels strong. I'm going to continue to be patient, We have about three real races left (all post season) so hopefully how I'm feeling transitions well into my racing. I hope this plateau is just a "getting back into racing" thing after a long injury.

You are certainly much faster than me, but all I pick up on from what you write is that you may be "over reaching" (not over training) your training runs. I used to think it was BS when I heard "sometimes you have to slow down to speed up..." but after time I see the wisdom in that statement. Good luck!

My life consists of doing my regular runs at the 6:30 range in order to recover from a workout, long run, or race. So I don't know if "over reaching is the case"

Weldon Johnson did his easy runs at 7:00-8:30 pace. And he runs 28:06 for 10km.

http://www.letsrun.com/2006/collegesuck.php

Try that.

I would look at how you are racing first. If your slowest guy on varsity beside you goes out 10-15 seconds slower the first mile, stay right behind him the next race. After the first mile, try to catch the next guy on your team. Repeat this until the end of the race or you catch all of your teammates.

try slowing down the pace and maybe even reducing the mileage of one or two of your recovery runs each week, maybe even do one really really easy run a week. this worked for me when i was in the same situation as you a few years ago

This is ridiculous. You're on a nationally ranked D1 team. Go talk to your coach.

How can you even consider taking anonymous advice before consulting your coach?

my guess is that you are doing the workouts harder than some of your teammates, relative to shape, and as a result are not recovering as well for the races. but as the season goes along, that hard work will be in the bank and the taper will see you improve your racing performance. some other possibilities are that you aren't sleeping enough to recover from the training load or that you are not getting maximum benefit from the workouts because you are doing them too hard, and thereby reducing time spent at VO2 max or going too much beyond lactate threshold to boost it significantly like the other runners (and you were at a deficit in shape compared to them because of your injury).

Actually I have talked to my coach. Have you ever thought that he might be happy where I am but I may have bigger goals. He agrees my training is fine and I look comfortable in workouts.

So here is the lowdown. I'm a top seven runner on a nationally ranked D1 team.

was that need to be stated in the story.

Having confidence in knowing you can race fast is half the battle.

"...always able to complete challenging workouts" tells me that you are most likely racing your workouts...using up your fight and flight reserves during practice and not having them in races...

Thank you mother teresa, the challenging workouts still feel comfortable so I don't believe that I am racing during the workouts. It is a thought though.

You will find this paradox at all levels of the sport--two people run the same workouts, but race differently. Most of the time this is due to one person (you in this case) over-reaching in their training and not recovering fully.

You got injured, which put you a little behind your peers, but you are now doing workouts with them. The issue is not that these workouts are fundamentally too hard, but that they are comparably harder for you than for your teammates. This doesn't translate into overtraining, but just means your teammates are having an easier time recovering than your and, as a result, are running more refreshed at races. If I was in your position and I was certain I evaluated my workout efforts objectively(take the time to do this), then I would slow my easy days down to 6:45-7:15 pace.