zj wrote: If you do a set of 3x1600 what pace should these be run at if you are in 14:15 or better shape. What about 10x400?
This reminds of something a friend of mine who ran on the great Arkansas teams of the 90s told me. Every year, a new batch of freshmen would show up, and when it came time to start interval work, McDonnell would give them a workout -- say 5xmile or whatever. And someone would always ask, "So, uh, how fast are we supposed to run these miles?"
And the response was always the same: "Well, how fast CAN you run them?"
Don't get me wrong -- I was the same way, I always wanted to know what other people were doing to run certain times and so on. It's always interesting to hear the different approaches, and I hope you get some good info from this thread. But in terms of your own progression, your goal in training should be to run a little faster and a little farther than you did last year. Let your fitness dictate your workouts; don't force workouts at a certain pace based on how you hope to race. If your body is ready to do 14:15-level workouts, you'll do them. If it's not and you try anyway, you'll just set yourself back.