Training mile without speed

Yes, would love to hear some ideas. One of my high school guys cannot do track work-outs due to shin splints, but has run 4:48 on just distance runs.

why not faster than race pace?

to the other guy, have you considered doing the faster stuff on grass (soccer field, or around the football field) or dirt trails?

Thanks, will try grass on Tuesday at the beginning of the work-out. He has been starting the track work-out with the group and has pain, but then is able to go off on a 6 mile run, no problem.

Does 9 or 10 on Sundays fine, also.

I think he also changes his form on the track to compensate and it looks like he is running more on his heels, not pretty.

Missed most of cross due to his shins hurting all the time, so I would like to solve this issue.

Reality check223 wrote:

why not faster than race pace?

I'd rather avoid a discussion over whether it's necessary or not to avoid faster than race pace, but let's just say injury/risk of injury from sprint/near sprint. Hopefully this restriction will go away later in the season. For now though, it needs to be in place.

So, a Daniels style routine minus the R-pace stuff? Or Coe-ish without the anaerobic capacity?

there was a long related thread a few months ago - not exactly what you are asking, but similar. My memory is that a coach was wondering if he could get his xc team to race well on just tempos. I believe the consensus was 'probably, but some guys will be left behind'

question is if the mile is a different beast than xc.

Not sure if I can help, but what about threshold training?

I haven't done much threshold work with my team, but am hearing more and more about the great results with 1000s at threshold with 1 minute rest keeping the pace manageable.

Pretty reputable college and high school coaches have said it is "More bang for the buck" and less chance of injury. Many have been doing it for years.

Am definitely going to do more threshold next August versus VO2 work and want to try it now for two of my guys that are dealing with nagging overuse injuries.

agip wrote:

there was a long related thread a few months ago - not exactly what you are asking, but similar. My memory is that a coach was wondering if he could get his xc team to race well on just tempos. I believe the consensus was 'probably, but some guys will be left behind'

question is if the mile is a different beast than xc.

That sounds like a thread of interest if anyone can help with a link.

As far as the question, I know the answer to that one! Very different (at the HS level at least)

this is probably it - not exactly as I remembered, but it might be interesting to you.

Maybe some speed work in disguise => hill reps at 800 or mile effort?

Serious Question for real wrote:

Ideas for a mile training plan for HS runner that includes nothing faster than race pace, and as little at race pace as possible? Assume runner is very strong aerobically.

Not faster than race pace because of injury risk?

You need to adress what causes the injuries before you go any further. Does he have hamstring problems?

A good physical therapist is what he needs. The PT will give him a guide to the exercises he needs to prevent injuries.

Just a thought... wrote:

Maybe some speed work in disguise => hill reps at 800 or mile effort?

Just what I was thinking

like the people above said, find out what is causing the problem first: too much speed, speed too often, plyos, bad shoes (too big), bad feet...? what i've done for myself is work the speed at the end of longer runs when everything is warm and with limited recovery: ex. 10x35sec and go on every minute= 25 sec recovery. Don't worry about the specific distance covered. Start at fast feel good (FFG) and keep it there for the workout and you will find that it is very close to mile race pace. Your breathing will be labored/heavy after the first few but your legs will be fine because you are not accumulating a lot of garbage in your legs and the 25 seconds allow you to buffer it easily. This feels good on the legs and tied with another tempo type workout and easy miles you should do fine. Finally, jog/build into your repeats= less stress getting up to speed.

First of all, develop a WORK ETHIC. Sure, you can finish a mile off XC type training, but it won't be close to optimal.

You could follow a El Guerrouj type plan, with VO2max work about 2X a week, 10X300m hills, and mostly steady state runs (this is base), then add 1600-1200-1000-800-600 breakdowns, and finally 300s close to race pace. Lagat does something similar, with long lard distance, then hard tempos, then 300s close to comp.

But a mile is raced at ~120% of VO2max. You cannot train the necessary speed by jogging. As others have said, fix the problems (warmup, strength, progression) that keep you from training speed first.

I ran 3:48 in the 1500m and 1:53 in the 800m using only tempos and slower intervals while training on my own. My fastest 400m split ever is ~53. And yes, I still had a kick, as I closed in 58 in that 3:48, and 56 when I ran 3:50.

I had five simple rules:

1. Always take one day super easy (<5 miles) or OFF per week. (Usually Thursday).

2. Never go shorter or longer than 10 miles unless it's a Sunday, rest day, or the day before a race. (This was more of a mental thing to force me to do mileage).

3. Go 12-16 miles every Sunday.

4. EVERY Monday: 4-mile progression tempo, dropping 15 secs/mile. Every week drop the starting pace a little. (I started with 6 mins, and at the end of the season I would start at 5:15). I would always be spent afterwards.

5. EVERY Wednesday: 16x400m repeats at just under 3k pace w/1 min recovery OR 10x800m at 3k pace w/ 1:45 recovery OR 5x1600 at 5k pace w/ 2:30 recovery.

Total mileage/week was about 60-65.

My training is radically different now, but that's another story.

I hope this helps and I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Here's the problem: you run faster than race pace at some point during the race. You'll have to kick, respond to surges, get out fast, etc. If you've only trained at race pace, responding to a surge means running faster than you've run at any time all season. If injuries are a problem, I'd be more worried about throwing down a kick at the end of a mile race with no preparation to run fast.

I'd find some way to at least run a little bit of quicker stuff. Just doing a couple of quick strides on grass could help.

Injury is ball of the foot bone issue that is healing. Uphill running won't help much since it puts the same kind of pressure on the ball of the foot as sprinting or near sprinting.

This forum has plenty of great injury threads, no need to make this into one.

Easy running, plenty of tempo, some vo2 intervals (how much considering can't do stuff faster?)

Worth trying to do any form of xtraining to reach near max heart rate? Or does the non-specificity make it not worth it?

can't be done wrote:

Here's the problem: you run faster than race pace at some point during the race. You'll have to kick, respond to surges, get out fast, etc. If you've only trained at race pace, responding to a surge means running faster than you've run at any time all season. If injuries are a problem, I'd be more worried about throwing down a kick at the end of a mile race with no preparation to run fast.

I'd find some way to at least run a little bit of quicker stuff. Just doing a couple of quick strides on grass could help.

Completely agree. Quicker than race pace strides will have to be done before mile race can be safely attempted.

Why not take time off to heal the injury? You can still run a fast mile without hard track workouts, but i would def suggest short hill sprints and speed drills to keep the fast twitch muscles active. If it is something where he can't even do a few short hill sprints, it sounds like doing whatever fixes the injury quickest is most important.

Thanks. That's beautiful. I assume the threshold and track days were accompanied by a distance run as well?how would you characterize your daily distance runs that weren't recovery or long days? Daniels-easy, or more moderate?