Summer XC Base

do a search for summer of malmo

holy shit you are 15 and already doing 80 miles a week. You are not racing a marathon you are running a 5k there has to be more emphasis on quality. When I was in high school I ran a shitload over 80 miles and was always fatigued as a result I was not motivated and struggled. in college I ran about 50 miles, focused on improving my speed and saw major results

honest answer - I have heard your perspective many times before, and while I appreciate your honest answer it goes without saying that after a lot of reading on training philosophy and a fair amount of personal experience nothing will change my commitment to the basic philosophy of "more is better". And by the way, I do plan on incorporating a lot of quality into this schedule: two threshold workouts a week as well as an emphasis on keeping runs in the high aerobic zone, the 'steady-state' of Lydiard.

[also 'doing 80miles a week' is an overstatement - I had one such week, and would rather say I did 70mpw as peak mileage this winter (i held that for 3 weeks)]

You are the same age as my son and similarly driven. He prefers a higher mileage approach too. He has run a little faster, but similar range.

I have seen him do really well off very few workouts and lots of easy miles. It suits some in the short term, but I think it helps most in the long run. Just as long as you have built up to it slowly. No big changes. Ever. Just little changes here and there. Building mileage safely takes time and requires great patience.

Feel free to email if you want to exchange notes with him.

save your racing for race day...or the Fall, whichever comes last.

Base training is LSD, not tempo, not threshhold, nothing intense. Get stronger first, the speed will come.

there is no need to do 100 mpw when you are only going into sophomore year in highschool. Going into my sophomore year, i "only" ran about 50 mpw and i still broke 16 minutes in the 5k for XC. All that comes from running that much that early is injuries and bring really tired. If you are only running a 10:40 3200 off 80 mpw, there is something wrong. I suggest doing less milage than you are now, but at a faster pace. also for base training, mile repeats and tempo runs never hurt.

You might want to do a lot of milage, but I strongly suggest against it. I know a kid who ran 8:46 in the 3200 in highschool and I know for a fact he was running less miles then than you are now. You don't need high milage to be fast.

Ok buddy listen

1. This training plan looks a lot like a competitive NCAA D1 summer plan not someone who still has 2-3 years left in high school.

2. I feel that the general idea behind your training is smart but it is WAY to intense. I am a D1 10k runner (not great..30:20) and I have NEVER hit that mileage. I will go on 10-12 mile tempos and get a lot of great work out of them but there is NO need to be doing 12-14 running sessions a week. At the most 10..you WILL burn out and you WILL NOT reach your full potential if you are running that much that young. You are talking about a 100% increase in your mileage in one year which is suicidal..please man, trust me, I know what I am talking about. There is prob a reason you have only run 10:40 in the 3200. College girls run that time easily so with all that work something is wrong. Lower the mileage (60-80 miles a week) decrease the doubles..cross train etc.

3. I know in high school you think high school running is all that matters but once you get to college, what you did in high school dont mean S@%^. Save the 100 miles a week for when in maters..in the NCAA and just concentrate on building..itll come.

Honestly, this sounds like a good plan. Lots of mileage and two tempo runs a week. I think some responders got a little freaked when you said you were going to do a 90 min tempo run, and that you are 15 years old.

Just remember, recovery is just as important as running hard. Recovery is when your body adapts to the hard training, and you get faster.

I bet you think you are invincible...

You need mentoring and an open mind...

You need to understand life much more...

you need to know what strengths and weaknesses mean...

You need to grow up, literally and the other...

You need to understand many people know more than you...

You should contact a high level coach with results and see what they say...Matt Dixon...

10;40 is crap for 60-70 miles...There must be no understanding of quality...not just in workouts, but in form, and in your closed mind...there is no quality in your closed mind...

I would love to coach you though...if you would become coachable...move to FL

What was your training like last summer. No one just jumps into 100mpw with two hours of qual a week without getting injured. Don't be stubborn, you came here for advice right.....

Build slowly on what you have done in the past, if you don't you will get injured right after completely burning yourself out, you will sit out cross country, start hating your sport and then quit.

You run way faster than I did at fifteen yrs, I never did close to fifty mpw.in high school, now I run low fourteen's for five k.

Please, just be patient.

For anybody's interest, i thought i might explicate exactly what i meant by my doubling. I plan on #1 following most people's advice, and taking what i did this winter in singles (60-70) and building on it to doing 70-80 this summer in singles. These runs, aside from being ran on how i feel, will generally either be the sub-threshold quality runs or in the middle-to-high aerobic spectrum. #2 then, In addition to all this, I plan on running as many doubles as I want to/ can/ feel that im up to. [Within bounds of course: despite being very optimistic as to how much mileage i can safely run, no one fear that i plan on incorporating more than say 30miles of doubles a week, and that itself only at the very end if i am able]. These doubles will be ran really as easy as i want them to be: so generally just 20-30min (or maybe longer) of jaunting around a trail at 8:00min pace, just to get the blood flowing and alleviate the boredom of the coming 12 mile runs later in the day. If I occasionally feel good, and want to do 4 miles at 7:00 for no particular reason, than yea, it will happen, but mostly these miles shouldnt have much extra stress other than of course the time spent pounding on the feet. So, in conclusion, if it means anything to anybody regarding my singles approach i do plan on being reasonable and going from 60-70 in the winter to 70-80 in the summer; it is only on top of that that with all my extra time i plan on really doubling as much as i want, so instead of winters extra 10miles a week on doubling maybe ill get 20-30. I know some will cry foul as of course injury is directly related to time spent on your feet; but at least i hope some can see where im coming from that, if i set aside adequate recovery, these extra doubling runs shouldnt really add too much extra stress (if anything they should increase recovery and enhance adaptation).

What is your strength as a runner? What can you split for a 400?

From Running Times:

Understanding your fiber type can help you train smarter. While most runners do the same workouts to focus on a specific race, your training and racing should reflect your physiology. For example, if you have 90 percent ST and 10 percent FT fibers, your best race will likely be the marathon and your training should focus on mileage and tempo runs. If you have 60 percent ST and 40 percent FT fibers, your best race will likely be the 800m or mile, and your training should focus less on mileage and more on interval training. If both runners want to race a 5K or 10K, the former runner should initially do longer intervals, trying to get faster with training, such as 1,200m repeats at 5K race pace, increasing the speed to 3K race pace or decreasing the recovery as training progresses. The latter runner should do shorter intervals, trying to hold the pace for longer with training, such as 800m repeats at 3K race pace, increasing the distance to 1,200 meters or increasing the number of repeats as training progresses.

[quote]Stretchy wrote:

What is your strength as a runner? What can you split for a 400?

Not sure my 400m as I've never really raced it fresh (and dont ever plan on it); but rest assured it wouldn't be anything special. Although a 4:49 seems a greater performance than a 17:30 (XC- but a pretty flat course)I'm quite confident I'm the long distance type. I'm not big on intervals and so this winter i did mainly long tempos (4 to 7 miles), occasional mile repeats (4 to 6), and long progression runs (e.g. 6 miles out @7:20; 6 miles back @6:40). Anyways I consider my strengths in long distance and volume, so thats what i intend on pursuing this summer.

Keep us updated. Either on here or a blog or something.

To the OP.

That sounds like a heck of a lot of miles for your age and previous mileage. If I were your coach I'd say don't do it. Run 70 to 80 miles at most.

Something I'd like to point out, you state that your natural talent lies in the long distance and that is what you would like to train for. My suggestion is to ALSO work on what you are naturally weak at in order to maximize your potential. (you say you've never run a 400 and never intend on doing so) If you totally ignore your speed you will never be all that fast at a 5k.

My personal experience was when I first started running I only focussed on long workouts because that was what I was naturally good at. One year my father (also my coach) realized I needed to work on what I was weak at and we started doing speed work. It was absolutely amazing how my times dropped just by working on my weaknesses rather than my strengths.

Injury is not directly related to time on your feet...

Pounding on the feet is not all that those extra miles are doing....

Agree with that last guy...work on weaknesses, duh.

You need more understanding...

Remain coachable...or start being coachable

Don't listen to all these slow white kids. I say go for it. None of these losers posting know anything about you. Why do you think White-males are getting smashed by the Africans? Because they are all pussies and think running 50 miles a week will make them good.

Balls to the wall!

FLCoach wrote:

I bet you think you are invincible...

You need mentoring and an open mind...

You need to understand life much more...

you need to know what strengths and weaknesses mean...

You need to grow up, literally and the other...

You need to understand many people know more than you...

You should contact a high level coach with results and see what they say...Matt Dixon...

10;40 is crap for 60-70 miles...There must be no understanding of quality...not just in workouts, but in form, and in your closed mind...there is no quality in your closed mind...

I would love to coach you though...if you would become coachable...move to FL

This.

10:40 is garbage and so are your other times based on how much youve put into training. Don't like guys who max out at 25 mi/week beating you? Then, get faster, get more competitive. Do this by working on form, running shorter races, and practicing sprint speed. And focus on RECOVERY. train smart, race fast.

The most important thing for a young runner to know regarding training is that you know NOTHING

How would you prescribe working on speed during basework? I recognize that it will become important to work on my weaknesses in speed, but think that the time for that will be in season, with downhill striders and 400m workouts. I also plan on using some light strider-work in the base phase and neuromuscular strengthening to improve my form and speed, but cant imagine doing too much more than that. If running 100mpw this summer for me is folly, then including some bouts of 150m 98% max speed things on top of that is folly on top of folly. (even if i went to 70-80mpw, I think that kind of speed training is simply wrong for a distance runner in base-phase). I would like to hear any suggestions though.

Although of course one can see it anyway, my philosophy stems from the face that, for example, while a 60sec 400m is a mediocre time for a highschool male, somehow stringing four of them together becomes a world-class feat. My explanation is that, while you can take any reasonably fit young male and train him up with 12 weeks of speed and anaerobic training to make a 60sec 400m runner, it takes professional athletes years of intensive high mileage work to cultivate the aerobic capacity necessary to run 4:00 for a mile. There are exceptions to every rule; but i do subscribe to the Lydiard-ian notion that endurance and aerobic power are the true limiting factors in performance. Hence if i can slog out 18miles at 6:30 pace, a 5k at 5:15 pace will just happen naturally (this statement is a simplistic misunderstanding of many training concepts, but if taken lightly it conveys my point)