Today we did a five mile threshold and he told us to start at 5:20 and work down to 5:05 or 5:00. We raced this weekend on a flat course and averaged between 5:01 and 5:12. Is this typical college training?
Today we did a five mile threshold and he told us to start at 5:20 and work down to 5:05 or 5:00. We raced this weekend on a flat course and averaged between 5:01 and 5:12. Is this typical college training?
Yes, sack up.
Run your races at 4:30 pace. Then your 5:20=>5:00 tempo won't be faster than race pace.
If you start at 5:20 and eventually work down to 5:05, you will average what, 5:15? And honestly you'll spend less time at 5:05 than 5:20. If you're the 5:12 avg 8k guy you're in a tad of trouble, but even roads vs. grass buys you 1% or so. So yeah, sack up.
If your threshold is on the track you should be able to do that workout at your fastest XC pace.One year my college coach switched to workouts like that and I hated every single one of them as I felt like I was giving it my all in each session. That hate lasted until the track season began and I had a breakthrough at every distance.Suck it up.
Uh, what? wrote:
Today we did a five mile threshold and he told us to start at 5:20 and work down to 5:05 or 5:00. We raced this weekend on a flat course and averaged between 5:01 and 5:12. Is this typical college training?
Uh, what? wrote:
Today we did a five mile threshold and he told us to start at 5:20 and work down to 5:05 or 5:00. We raced this weekend on a flat course and averaged between 5:01 and 5:12. Is this typical college training?
Yes, very typical. You will improve.
your workout is do-able, but makes no sense. i have a coach with a similar philosophy and that is why we will finish last in our conference again this year, despite having a huge amount of talent. training for 8k, for someone averaging around 5:10, should be doing their tempo around 5:30 pace.
Yes, race every workout, especially threshold runs. This way you can win a few races, aka workouts. How do you expect to win real races if you can't win your races in practice? You should always run as hard as you possibly can to make you tough. You may become injured or burned out. This is just a side-effect. Don't worry about it.
Maybe, maybe not
If it your shortest tempo, then yes. But in most cases its better to go around 5:20-5:40 for 6-8 miles cutting down. Was this on grass or road?
asdfsadfsdaf wrote:
If you start at 5:20 and eventually work down to 5:05, you will average what, 5:15? And honestly you'll spend less time at 5:05 than 5:20. If you're the 5:12 avg 8k guy you're in a tad of trouble, but even roads vs. grass buys you 1% or so. So yeah, sack up.
You're not very smart.
Uh, what? wrote:
Is this typical college training?
I would say not typical, but not unheard of.
As to "is this an effective workout", we'd have to see a bigger picture than just what you all raced last weekend and this workout. Like, what did you do last week prior to the race? And what has the training cycle been for your team? And what is the plan over the next 30 days. It's hard to get context of a coach's training plan based on just 1 workout.
In my opinion, with many assumptions here, cutting down from 5:20 to 5:05/5:00 could have been a productive workout for your 5:01 guy, but probaby not for your 5:12 guy. The 5:12 guy is likely better served by going from 5:40 to 5:20 or 5:30 to 5:10. Of course, if the 5:12 guy has been a 5:01 guy in the past then the original workout may be ok.
These times assume you were doing the workout on the road or track, and the CC race was accurate and on grass and/or dirt.
There's a bit of a language issue here. In the title you say "tempos", but in the body you say "threshold". To a lot of coaches, tempo means more steady state sub-maximal work (hard but with something in reserve), whereas threshold indicates closer to race pace. In my program, when we do threshold work, sometimes it's faster than current race pace (but not as long as race duration), whereas if we do tempo it's roughly as long as race duration or sometimes longer but the pace is slightly slower than race pace.
Both workouts have value in the big picture.
Maybe these coaches should start calling these "threshold" or "tempo" runs what they really turn out to be...RACES with a bit less fanfare.
Even a 5mi run at 5:30 pace for a person who normally averages 5:12 pace is essentially a race. Very little difference.
Uh, what? wrote:
Today we did a five mile threshold and he told us to start at 5:20 and work down to 5:05 or 5:00. We raced this weekend on a flat course and averaged between 5:01 and 5:12. Is this typical college training?
This could make sense. What's the terrain like that you raced on versus the workout?
This could make since. What's the terrain like that you raced on versus the workout?
Fixed. I hate when people misuse that word.