Cracking 17

some extra information, I will train 6 days a week with 1 day recovery. I am really motivated. And the guys I was ahead of in the beginning of the season ran 18:10 prs. I was far ahead of them in training runs. I'm really motivated to run this time.

Run 7 to 10 miles a day for the next six months and then we'll see.

hey thanks for the quick response man, can't tell if its sarcasm, but this is pretty much what i did to get faster than all the other guys on my team this summer. unfortunately it didnt work out too well and I overtrained. My question is, is this do-able, from how much i've improved over the summer, could i get there?

Certainly possible, lots of high school kids can make big jumps.

The most important thing is to make sure you are continually improving while avoiding 'overreaching'...basically, make sure your body is recovering consistently. In high school, this usually means making sure your easy days don't turn into races inadvertently.

If you can break 4:50 for 1600 or the mile, you'll have a really good shot. I think doing workouts based on time/effort is useful in preventing overtraining.Also, introduce some of these workouts during your base for track season:

http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=16625

Stay healthy, keep your between season breaks to 1-2 weeks, good luck

Overtraining does not result in a 19:49 PR. If you were to have "over-trained" which in this case could have been anything over 50 miles a week, you would have been under 17 anyway. Breaking 16 would come into question with overtraining.

GET OVERTRAINING OUT OF YOUR MIND. At this point, the only thing that will make you lower your PRs is running more miles. If you don't, you will not get faster.

To answer your question, yes you can get there. Anyone can get there. Stop worrying about times so much. Turn off your IPOD and go run for an hour. Everyday. All winter. All Spring. Twice a day during the summer. Then come back and tell us when you run under 17.

Thanks, that's definitely what I needed to hear. I definitely will try and avoid overtraining for this last season and try to make it a good one. Overtraining this season was really what killed me, everyday I went home and ran another workout to supplement the one I did that day, thinking I would get better. Very unfortunate for me, as I started to lag behind guys who took it easy every day. Anyways, thank you for the encouraging words and link!

In response to "i don't believe you", I ran an 18:57 pre-season, I'm not sure why I neglected to mention that, but whatever. Over the summer, I'm sure I peaked at about 50 miles a week. I have at this point been running for less than a year, not sure how I could get under 17 that quickly, as you say. I explained what I meant on overtraining, running doubles, did some research on it, and asked my coach, who confirmed my fears. He was rather angry with me for not following his workout plans and for not getting to districts. So I am not sure if I should go ahead and rack up the crazy mileage I was doing immediately, I plan on working my way back up there. Thanks for another perspective on my dilemma, I'll be sure to run lots of miles in between the two seasons.

Sorry man but dropping almost two minutes in one year seems like a lot. It helps that you have only been running one year but its a big jump. Did you run in middle school? If you're running 50 mpw you're already getting some good training in...prove me wrong. (I'm a debbie downer type for running) Why don't you just set smaller goals right now? Like 18:30, then 18:00, 17:30, etc?

subyo wrote:

Hey everybody, I am a junior in high school who did cross country this season. the season before i did track and field, and had a crummy PR of 5:49 in the mile, i went on to train over the summer and beat most of the people that smoked me in track last season. Unfortunately, I began to get slower throughout the season (overtraining) and set poor PRs(19:49). My coach estimated that I would have been running sub-18 5ks if I had trained properly. So my question is if I can break 17 by next year. I improved fairly significant over a short span and I hope I can do so even more for next year. Thanks.

Yeah, I see that its a high goal, but it seems like since 40 mpw was enough to get me to 18:57 in the summer before XC I could get the time down more within a longer span. I did not run in middle school, I started in February.