sub 10 in track > sub 16 shape in summer > can't break 17 for 5k now. Why?

Did your mileage drop off dramatically once the season started? This may have caused an early peak, and your fitness may be tailing off now.

Give us your logs

What did your summer training consist of?

Did it change at the season/ from your illness?

Okay, by week

june 5-11 57mi

12-18 45mi

19-25 51.8mi

26-2 63mi (running camp)

july 3-9 63mi

10-16 68mi

17-23 71.77mi (16:36 97 degree heat bad pacing, worth <16:20)

24-30 76.60mi

31-6 66.60mi (team camp, coach said we'd run 80 but we didnt, also the 3x1mile workout here)

Aug 7-13 69.55mi

14-20 65mi, for some reason adding workouts lowered mileage

21-27 53.84mi sick

28-3 52.3mi sick

sep 4-10 56.43

last week, 11-17 63.9 reupping mileage, should be 67-70 this week 18-24

so it goes 57, 45, 52, 63, 68, 72, 77, 67, 70, 65, 54, 52, 56, 64... but other people have also had lower mileage the last few weeks and are doing fine.

bump

How hard did you do the summer runs?

hahahahahah you PEAKED! WHAT AN IDIOT! Good. more victories for us

I'm not sure what your easy days/base building runs were at pace wise, but I'm getting the sense that you're really excited about your running, which is good, but in my experience it leads to a bit of arrogance towards true easy days. Make sure you're giving your body a chance to recover by running your easy days at a truly relaxed pace. I know it's hard to do sometimes, but with your mileage, you need it. I like to tell myself that I should only feel like I'm working on workout days. Some people might say I'm too conservative, but I had the same sort of problem as you in high school and I was also often injured, which I attribute to a lack of true recovery. My recovery days, while I might feel sore from workouts, are ideally never an effort and are often done around 1:30-2:00 slower than tempo pace. Good luck, hopefully you can run some awesome times this season! Even workouts shouldn't always be all out. It's all about optimizing performance on race days.

you peaked early because you ran too hard in the summer. slow your runs down a bit. in high school i was consistently sub 16 and never did a single run under 7 min pace besides workouts. training more and harder does not necessarily make you faster if you dont do it correctly. also, four races already seems like a lot of hard racing early in the season. at this point try to rest up a little bit, get healthy, take your runs a little easier and try to get some quality workouts in. you probably dont have control over how often you race, but if i was your coach i probably would have only had you run one, maybe two races up to this point, its a long season. give it some time, you may surprise yourself when you peak. dont go into races with expectations, just run your best and accept the result.

illegitmiate wrote:

... So I started off the season running awful (couldn't break 18) and we had blood tests run. I had high monocytes (indicating perhaps mono or a recent virus), and low ferritin. ....

Just a FYI, infectious mononucleosis does not cause an elevated monocyte count

Thanks for this, as well as to the other posters (DocB, erryp) idk how to double quote haha. But I will heed all of your advice. I'm trying to peak Oct 23 and Oct 30 for Semi-State and State. I appreciate the advice. Slow run this morning, 23min for 3.2 and last night did like 6.8 in 49.

That's running for you

You are not a robot who can do x training and get y result every time. The body has its own cycles independent of training and sometimes your racing just goes backwards

I would just ease back on training a bit make sure you make your recovery runs slow and keep at it.

Thanks, I'll surely take it easy for a bit and bump when i get results

Where in Indiana are you?

illegitmiate wrote:

My fitness was at an extremely high level, I was running unbelievable including multiple 8 milers in about 44min.

You're just fried. You were training way, way, too fast. Not too far...too fast. Malmo did multiple 8 milers in ~44mins when he could run a half marathon in just over an hour. For you...8 miles in 44mins is a race.

So...the first thing to do is slow down a lot in training. You could try this:

Take your easy days at a pace that is a couple minutes per mile slower than your CURRENT 5k race pace. Run your tempo runs at a pace that is approx 1min per mile slower than CURRENT 5K race pace. And do your speed work (with the exception of strides)at a pace that is slightly SLOWER than your CURRENT 5K race pace.

That would be my suggestion anyway.

Sounds to me like you can come back from this...but you've got to be very careful with your intensity. You need to build up reserves a bit.

All the best!!

here is what i'm getting out of this

keep in mind that you can salvage your season, don't be discouraged by people saying "ahh you peaked early" or anything like that

i'm assuming you have big races coming up in about a month (i'm talking before regionals)

so shoot for those

don't get discouraged by these early races, your body is pretty tired

-44min for 8mi is FAST for a guy like you

-if it's a workout, run relaxed but fast. don't be KILLING IT, 44min is KILLING IT

-3xmile at ~16flat pace in SUMMER was probabaly a bad idea

that's an october workout if i've ever seen one

-milage is good. actually very high for a high schooler, but it obviouisly wasn't burning you out if you were able to handle such workouts. that may be the thing that saves you. i'm impressed with your ability to handle it, just be careful not to get hurt cause i wouldn't have a 16yo doing that much

-take easy days easy

-rest your body for late october starting now. good milage, conservative workout for a few weeks, easy days easy

-last but not least. mentally be IN IT. don't get discouraged, it's too easy for you to say "oh my season is done, time to start thinking about indoor"

The last post was the only decent post of this thread.

Peaking is something relevant for pros and high level collegiate runners. Yes, it is a real phenomenon, but don't think for one second Kenenisa Bekele or Geb (in his track days) couldn't bust out a 1315 5k if needed.

HS runners should be very resilient. Take the next two weeks as easy as you can. If you have a good coach, he should understand why you're letting yourself recover.

If you're running 2 meets a week, see if you can get out of one.

The next week should be EASY the week after should be easy...then you should feel recharged for the part of the season that counts. Show this thread to your coach if he/she worries about you skipping meets.

Sub 16s might not happen, but I bet your team/coach could use someone running low 16s come conference/regionals/state. Unless you're sick (anemic or something), you'll get that quickness back.

yes, the summer was too hard too fast, but it was still good training, and will count for something when you need it.

I heard doing push-ups helps.

8 milers too fast

when rod dixon was burnt he would do long slow run no watch