Breaking a 9:00 Two Mile

55-60 mpw most of junior and senior years. Hurt for a while fall of senior year.

tempo run every week. Either 20ish minute tempos on the track or longer tempos (5-7 miles) off of it

Examples of workouts while in 9 minute shape:

4x1600, 4 minutes rest, 4:35 average.

7x1000 with 3 minutes rest, low 2:50’s average.

5-7 mile tempos off track, 5:15-5:30 pace

4 mile tempos on track, 5:00-5:15 pace

My coach used Jack Daniels’ stuff a lot, my R pace workouts usually had 400’s at 61 and 800’s at 2:04.

Working on running efficiency like mentioned above was key for me. Hurdle drills/form drills completely changed my form for the better.

I also broke 9 without ever breaking 2 in the 800 haha

I didn't break 9, but I ran around 9:17. When I did that I was running 75 miles a week, and could run 5x1600 in 4:45 with 2 minutes rest as a hard but not all out workout. Maybe I underachieved pretty badly, but if you wanted another indicator or measurement as you progress towards Sub 9, that's what I did. Mile PR was about 4:30 at this point.

Just get down to the point where you can run a 4:05 mile. 9:00 shouldn't be too difficult off of that. That's what it took for me to break 9 for the first time! Granted, it was 3 years out of highschool...

Note that this thread jumped ahead a year on page 3...

OP are you out there? Injured? What did you end up running last spring? this fall?

Are you serious?????

I ran a 4:31 as a sophomore and, while my running history was slightly better (ran 25mpw that xc season, winter, and spring, and did xc freshman year but no other base) and I'm no where near 9 flat on 50-60 miles.

Okay so I was injured for 5 weeks two times, but still, I would say now that i'm back in shape it would be hard to break 9:30(im a senior now). So I didn't do exactly what you guys have prescribed because I would get minor injuries every so often and my mileage would dip every so often or I wouldn't be able to do workouts, but no way I woudl be anywhere near 9 flat.

4:45 pace for mile intervals gives you a VDOT of 70, which equates to 9:16.

4:37’s give you a 73, which is 8:55.

It’s just an example of a workout. It was also raining the whole workout and after a tough week of racing and training, so could have been faster otherwise.

I was just under 4:30 my sophomore year

I shouldn't be surprised that reading comprehension is so bad on this message board. But so many have got it so wrong...

Read every word in the quote, "Running 9:00 on 50-60 does not take extreme talent but it will take MORE THAN 2 years and giving up running 8:40 on 70-100." SO IT DOES NOT SURPRISE ME THAT YOU CAN'T RUN 9:00 AS A SENIOR. The longer time frame allows you to finish growing and make up for injuries, distractions and the silly idea of only running 50-60.

I again state NOT extreme talent to run 9:00 on 50-60 BUT it most likely will take YEARS AND YEARS of 50-60. I guestimate that you only need the ultimate ability to run 8:40 on near perfect training to run 9:00 on a reasonable 50-60 program that doesn't neglect any training pace.

To clarify, running 4:30 on the amount of broken up training the OP claims demonstrates significant talent but certainly not extreme. With this significant talent if the OP trains the modest amount of 50-60 and has a good variety of workouts every week for years and years eventually he will crack 9:00.

Everyone runs 4:30 in high school. Haven’t you heard?

I coached a HS runner who clocked 8:52 for 3200m as a Junior and 8:58 (in much worse weather and with less competition) as a Senior.

Before I began coaching him, he ran 10:04 for 3200.

His sophomore year he dropped down to 4:15 for 1600 and clocked 8:33 for 3000m (worth 9:07ish for 3200).

Junior year was 4:09/8:52

Senior year (with a few more injuries) was 4:09/8:58

He basically did Daniels training for most of the year with a little Bowerman (Date pace and goal pace reps) during the second half of the track season.

We didn't do anything revolutionary, but some things he did do:

- a LOT of Lactate threshold pace running.

- Never ran faster than about 1% below prescribed pace unless it was the last rep or two of a workout.

- Understood the purpose of every run/workout

- Use some races as threshold runs rather than 'race' every meet

- Got at least 9hrs of sleep every night

- Ran on soft surfaces as much as possible

- Changes shoes regularly

- Hydrate well every day, avoided sodas

His mileage averaged in the low 50s for his last two year, with a few 60-65 mile weeks in the summer, I believe.

Consistency and gradual progression is the key.

I think the key is having the kind of coach who regularly reads training manuals, talks to top college and high school coaches, has the kind of personal skills to get an adolescent to trust him/her and can develop confidence in kids who may lack it. This was something I most definitely didn't have with my HS coaches, though they were basically nice guys (which may not be a compliment when it comes to coaching).

brush wrote:

Man your 5k sucks

That was worth bumping a 6-year-old thread.

What do you mean by this, in highschool it’s at every race ever.