Is it possible to run a 65 minute 10 mile with a 12 minute 3200 PR?

Ok then is it possible to run 58:32 10 miler off a 10:22 3200 pr & a 16:54 5k pr ??

Great posts on this thread, very interesting. I will answer some questions and give some background on this girl who is indeed in high school.

She came into running 2-3 years ago as one of the slower runners on the team. It is unlikely she could have broken 14 minutes in the 3200 back then, probably could not even break 14:30 (she never ran a real 3200 on the track but was close to 24 minutes for 3 miles in cross country).

Since then, she has progressed tremendously. After that first year where her times were subpar, she started to train year around and had a massive drop in PRs. Now, years later, she has run over 80 miles a week during the off season. While some of you may say that this is "far too much for a high schooler", she built up to it steadily, has the drive and willpower to run that much, and moreover has improved a lot. She is also one of those rare high schoolers whose bodies can handle the high mileage and she has run without injury, which may be her true talent. She is determined to continue running after high school, and I think her true future lies in the 5ks, 10ks, and beyond.

The funny thing is that her 1600 PR is 5:49! The race where she ran 12:01, she came in with the slowest 1600 PR by FAR of the whole field. While other girls went out hard the first mile, she stayed back and went through in 6:04 (her previous PR was 12:22 so she did not want to risk going out under 6 and blowing up). She remained steady and picked off runners, closing with an 84.3 last lap and a 12:01 finish. This was a few weeks ago. Her season ended (we live in a very competitive area for high school running) and she is base training. I would like her to run a fast 1600 sometime, as I feel like while the 3200 is her better event, she can take some time off of that 1600.

The workouts we do in practice also indicate some great aerobic capacity. I don't think she could break 75 in the 400 (or would be VERY hard pressed to...), but she is able to do 12x400 with 1 minute rest in the low 80s. She has done some speed, I think when she gets more speed she will thrive even more.

Anyway, after all this background, we must go back to the original question of the post. I asked her for more details about it, and she said she measured it afterwards and it was more like 9.9 miles (or slightly under that). She ran it at a hard effort, close to 90% and I know the area and it is mostly flat with some slight downhill. I asked her the exact time and she said she wasn't timing strictly but it was around 65:20. Today I biked next to her as she ran a 5 mile tempo (which was not at such a hard effort) and she did it in around 32 minutes... did not look phased at all, and this was probably only ~80% from what it looked like (based off of her body language etc). Based off of this, I think it is probable she can run the 10 miles in the time that she did.

So what are your thoughts based off of this new information?

How did she 'measure it' afterwards? Does she have a measuring wheel at home?

Then how is this not timing strictly working. If that was the case she would say about 65 mins. Not then proceed to give the exact time. You either stop watch it or just glance at the time when you set off. The latter involves forgetting what time you set of half way round

Its interesting that she was within .1 of her original guess at the distance

Now the 5 min tempo run sounds more exact, Well it would if I believed you

By the way if you are honest, if don't get speed when you are younger, you never will. Don't turn her into a donkey

By the any runner can run without injury for a couple of years - then it catches up with you, especially on 80m/wk

All this doesn't surprise me at all.

I think she has a comfort zone that needs to be broken. Best way to do this is through Fartlek training. I think she would do well to be forced to go on her longer runs and not be allowed to maintain an even pace, but forced to change her pace frequently.

I also suggest that she needs to work on her power and turnover, not doing 400 repeats w/ 1 min rest, but 100m-200m with full recovery. She needs to know what it feels like to go all out. One that I like is to walk 100m, jog 100m, stride 100m, sprint 100m around a track, repeat. I would also suggest that she do some strength training that could include bounds, hill sprints and squats. She definitely needs to work on her anaerobic system.

Good luck.

I disagree. You are implying that aerobic monsters cannot be trained to run fast. The hardest part is convincing them that they can run fast. Athletes who have an aerobic base can be taught to run faster with intervals and If that weren't the case, then no one would do intervals because they do them to run faster. Everyone has a top end potential, but everyone can learn to run faster. That's right, I said "learn". Implying that the speed isn't 100% due to the training but to the belief of the athlete that they can run a certain speed over a distinct distance. Obviously the ability has to be there, but that ability is developed through practicing that speed through some form of intervals which depend on the race and the speed needed for that race.

I think this could be quite possible, especially if you're more of an endurance-oriented runner. For example, my SR year of Cross Country i ran 18:55 for 5k XC (6:04 pace), and 24:28 for 4 miles (6:07 pace, flat road). In the middle of the season, because i was a misguided fool, I also ran a very flat, fast 1/2 marathon. I'd never run a 1/2 before, and took out the first 7 miles @ 7:00 pace (crossed the 7M @ 49:10), then i realized i felt great and kinda kicked into gear running the next 6 all under 6:30 pace (final mile was around 6:16).

Now, at the time, my 3,200M PR was 12:00. With the results i posted above, i should have been able to break it, but i didn't tell i got out of college. It's been 3 years and i'm a sub 10 guy.... just took a hell of a lot of mileage.

So, after a lot of senseless rambling, yes, i think if evenly paced, 6:30-6:35 pace would be reasonable.

I ran very first competitive (ROFL slow though) in 5:30/5:28 yeaaa

so 6 min pace for 3200, 6:30 pace for 10 mile.

i've got a PR of 9:55 in the 3200 and a 10 mile PR of 53:35. so that's 4:57 pace in the 3200 and 5:21 pace in the 10 mile. not so different than the girl in question...granted when i ran the 53:35 i was in shape for faster than 9:55 in the 3200, but not faster than about 9:30-9:40.

lonacus wrote:

so 6 min pace for 3200, 6:30 pace for 10 mile.

i've got a PR of 9:55 in the 3200 and a 10 mile PR of 53:35. so that's 4:57 pace in the 3200 and 5:21 pace in the 10 mile. not so different than the girl in question...granted when i ran the 53:35 i was in shape for faster than 9:55 in the 3200, but not faster than about 9:30-9:40.

'

Thats in a race though, what's you fastest accurate 10 miles in training? You are also comparing times at completely different levels of fitness

Coach- thank you for providing more details. I think there are some posters on the board who are trying to equate hs boys times with hs girl mentality. I'm not sure if you're a woman (I am, and a former hs coach)...if you're not (which it doesn't sound like from your responses), I strongly recommend you partner her up with an experienced female mentor before this gets out of control. The fact you are posting this on the boards when I've seen similar splits before tells me you are either inexperienced with coaching at this level or not used to working with female runners- i appreciate you giving this topic some exposure so you can do what's in the best interest of your runner.

Her times are all skewed and it sounds like you're encouraging this high mileage no results mentality. a 90% effort run at ~10 miles is a classic recipe for burn out; the fact that she went back and measured the distance (probably in her car...not the most accurate way to do this) means she is type A and likely prone to overdoing it. have her run for time, not distance. perhaps setting her up with a heart rate monitor is a way she can measure her efforts without being fixated on the distance, which is only hurting her. Workouts like: do 30 minutes at 85% pace, or do a 40 min tempo, will be more beneficial. 80 mi per week (which I did too in hs, I completely understand- this was not advised by my coach but because i thought the harder i worked, the faster i would get) are RIDICULOUS unless she is racing at the national cross country level, which is sounds like she is no where close to doing. and, the fact she can't break 75 sec in the quarter is insane. work on her kick, bring down her milage, and pay attention to her so she doesn't over train. I hate to say it on this message board, but also make sure she is eating heathy, and, again, have her do more cross training on non-running days- not in addition to running days. probably getting her in the weight room will help with the speed too. get this young lady to relax so she can have a long, healthy and fast career.

trailrnr, excellent addition to the conversation. Well said.

yeah like i said i think when i ran the 53:35 (it was actually a split on the way to a 70:43 half) i was probably in about 9:35 for 3200 shape. i'm one of those people with very little natural speed (400 PR 61.8, 200 PR 29.5) so i can understand how what this girl did is possible.

as for fastest 10 miles in training, i know i've done 8 miles tempo at 5:35 pace and i've done 18.6 miles tempo at 5:54 pace. haven't done a 10 mile tempo run in years. and i know my times are accurate cause i calibrated my bike odometer on a track and it was about 0.3% (5 meters per mile) off.

asking you all... wrote:

The funny thing is that her 1600 PR is 5:49!

that predictor gives her 1600m time as ~5'48.1

so, close to her pb

however, the giveaway is here

The workouts we do in practice also indicate some great aerobic capacity. I don't think she could break 75 in the 400 (or would be VERY hard pressed to...), but she is able to do 12x400 with 1 minute rest in the low 80s.

the predictor says she shoud go no better than 81.1 for 400, so if she can do reps in low 80's, that means she must have significantly quicker 400 speed than 81.1 & we'll go with your 75

1'15 / 65'00 ->

800m of 2'38.3

1500m of 5'10.7

1600m of 5'33.0

3200m of 11'38.8...

it means that when/if she ran her 65'00, her 3200m ability was nearer 11'38 than the fairly pedestrian 12'00 she actually ran

it's easy to measure things on google maps, gmaps, etc. these days

it means that when/if she ran her 65'00, her 3200m ability was nearer 11'38 than the fairly pedestrian 12'00 she actually ran

Again, I've seen this kind of thing before, where a runner has the basic leg speed (based on 400m time) and has the endurance base, but flounders in the 1600m or 3200m because of the duration of the stress. They can go all out for 400m and they are comfortable at a given pace for long runs, but the 1600m and 3200m require that they endure a level of stress for longer than they are mentally prepared to handle. So it is probably a mental thing.

So, I think that ventolin^3 sends the correct message. That she should be running her 1600m and 3200m races better, but for whatever reason has not trained/prepared properly for them. It seems that she is doing her long runs too hard and is probably doing too much mileage, this combination has not prepared her for the higher pace and the duration of the stress of the 1600/3200 races (she needs more quality, less quantity training), and in her races she needs to be encouraged to go out a little faster (needs confidence that she can maintain the pace without blowing up.)

OP, get her to read the first chapter of "Bowerman" by Kenny Moore. Moore trained like she does until he was a sophomore in college. Then Bowerman forced him to train right for a month or so. He set a 2 mile PR by about 25 seconds. It is not an accident that everyone is telling you the same thing.

I totally forgot I made this thread a year ago and found it recently. I'm sure many of you who contributed to the thread still post on here so I will give an update on this runner, she completed her senior year of HS this past year.

She came off of a strong base from cross country and shattered her XC PRs. While in cross country it is more important to go by place than time, she placed well for the competitive region we are in.

When track season rolled around, in March she did PR with 5:39 and 11:38 but was running on tired legs and still keeping up her mileage. We kept up mostly tempos, and then started to do more standard interval workouts as the season went on which worked very well for her. In April she dropped her 3200 PR down to 11:29 but her big PR came as she started to taper (not a huge drop in mileage, but some drop) in May. In one of her qualifying races (we live in a competitive area and there are a lot of qualifier races) she ran a huge season PR of 11:16, 45 seconds faster than last year!! Her season ended at the race the week after where she ran 11:18.

She will be running at a D1 school known for higher mileage runners this fall (originally was hoping to walk on but as her times dropped as the season went on, it is possible she will be on a scholarship soon enough if she keeps improving).

I have to say that she is the hardest worker I have ever coached, probably the hardest working runner I have ever met, and a true example of how hard work can help break barriers. For a runner that couldn't even break 24 minutes for 3 miles, to leave high school with an 11:16 3200 PR is amazing. I look forward to see how she progresses beyond HS, her college coach already has her running close to 100 mile weeks now but knows how to develop runners (including ones who ran high mileage in HS).

Anyway I'm sure now she can easily break 65 minutes for 10 miles!

What a wonderful post. It's a shame you don't see more like these on letsrun.

Thanks for updating, and good luck to your runner next year!

Is she hot? Pics???