Performance Estimate (based off of workouts)

Looks pretty solid but a few important questions:

How much recovery between the 800s? How many miles a week are you running?

Just based on that info I'd say sub 18 on the road.

We had about 1 and a half to 2 minutes recovery between the 800s, and I've been at about 55 miles a week for 3 weeks now. Thanks for the input!

Runnergirl appears to be a mid-level collegiate runner or possibly a top-tier high school runner, as she should be running somewhere around 17:15-17:40. How am I so confident about this? This is a page out of my own training log, and I am a low-to-mid-17 runner. (I'm a 37 year-old male, so my best years are behind me!) She's probably a high-16/low-17 runner on the track.

To look at this with a little bit of math, let's add up the last 6x800m, because she was doing "cut-down" intervals, and thus, they are her fastest:

2:52 + 2:50 + 2:48 + 2:47 + 2:44 + 2:39 = 16:40

Now, let's add half of a second to each interval, to factor in the addition of the hundredths of a second to each interval. Half a second is the average. (For example, unless she's already rounding up/down, her 2:52 might be more precisely a 2:52.42, and her 2:50 might be more precisely a 2:50.88.) I do this because it adds 3 seconds to her time. 6 x 0.5sec = 3 seconds.

So this will be a 16:43 for 4800m (6x800m).

Then, let's factor in the last 200m, to make this 5000m. Based on her pace, she appears to run 200m comfortably at about 0:42. Her cumulative 5000m time, therefore, will be:

16:43 (4800m) + 0:42 (200m) = 17:25 (5000m)

Although this is anecdotal, I have found that the cumulative time of my "race-pace" intervals over 5000m matches pretty closely to my race pace for a 5k whenever I do 800m or 1000m repeats. (If I run 400m or 600m repeats, the cumulative time will be faster than 5k pace, whereas if I run 1200m or 1600m, the cumulative time will be slower than 5k pace, and so the 800m -1000m range is the "sweet spot" for predicting 5k pace.)

I would also factor in that she did an additional 3x800m to begin her workout, but I think they were done at a slow enough rate to not factor significantly. Perhaps with the addition of these 3 intervals, let's take away 5 seconds, and that would put her about 17:20. Of course, so much actually factors into a time, especially on the road, where terrain/elevation change can skew a race, and not to mention weather.

Good luck, runnergirl3.1! I hope this helped.

You're just about right on! I'm 16 and I'm going to be a senior in high school, and my p.r. for cross country last year was 18:08. Our school record is 17:32 for cross country (5k), so hopefully I'll be around 17:30 by early November! But there's a local 5k road race coming up and I was just starting to wonder what kind of time I should be expecting!

Thanks for your input! It makes a lot of sense with all of that math you used. So hopefully I'll run at least sub-18 (hopefully more like 17:20 or 17:30) at the road race and can keep improving from there for cross country! Thanks again!

Wow, so that's 2 things that are impressive. First, you're very fast for a 16-year-old, and second, you're only 16 going into your Senior Year, which means you skipped a year somewhere along the line. You have a bright future ahead of you, and so I wish you the best of luck!

I just reviewed my training log, and here is one example of a 6x800m + 1x200m workout that I've done:

2:47.33 + 2:42.00 + 2:42.55 + 2:44.25 + 2:44.74 + 2:45.15 + 0:43.60 = 17:09.62.

I ran 400m recovery jogs, at about 2:00 each. According to your workout, you actually had less recovery if you said that you were running some at 1:30.

Anyways, I ran a certified 5k road race two weeks later at a 17:15.2, so that's a 0:06 difference.

I hope this gives you some confidence, and I see no reason as to why you can't claim the school record, especially as the weather starts getting cooler, since your times should drop with the temps. Good luck, and stay healthy!

Thank you so much! I did skip a grade when I was younger, so I am a year young for my grade. I will try my best to stay healthy! This record has been standing since 2000, so I think it's time to break it. This has given me a lot of confidence, so thanks for that! Too often I find myself being doubtful, even though the numbers show otherwise. Thanks again!