What can I do? (junior high track runner)

First, believe that a 5:40 is possible. Young runners improve rapidly all the time, especially when they really care about it and compete hard.

Your coach probably can tell you what to do, and knows you better than a stranger on letsrun.com. But here is something to consider:

You don't have enough time to improve your fitness much at all, so the main thing you need to do is be rested for the races, and don't make yourself too sore or tired.

If you want to run 5:40, you could practice running at that pace, which is 42.5 seconds for 200 meters, or about 21 seconds for 100 meters. You could run some 200s and even 100s at exactly this pace, with lots of rest in between (such as 1 to 2 minutes). See if you can learn to run that pace without looking at the watch very much. Don't do more than about 800 meters of this in any day/workout. Practice relaxing at this pace and getting used to it.

In the "less important race", you could try to run 5:40 pace from the start and see how it goes. You probably will be far behind your #1 guy, but don't worry about that.

Good luck. No matter what happens, you have a long time to keep improving if you want to pursue it.

Thank you for revealing your idiocy. A young runner like him could easily improve with aerobic workouts.

only 800 meters of repeats? That is ridiculous, that would be 4x200s for a workout? I'm a sophomore in high school and 16-20 is our usual 200 workout.

I would say that the best think to do would be to start running on your own if you aren't, our start running in the mornings, nothing hard, just whatever you feel comfortable with, maybe 2 miles at your age.

If you can get a track workout in outside of practice, 300s or 400s are a great thing for a miler. Your are younger so things might be a little overwhelming for you, maybe a workout like 6x400 at mile pace with 2-3 minutes rest, or 8x300s at mile pace.

Also, most youngsters aren't near their aerobic potential, getting in a good long run of 4-6 miles would help you a lot!

Woah woah. No need to start telling this young man to do workouts with a week left of the season.

If you want to run a 5:40 you need to run an even pace, stop going out too fast for your current ability.

After the season, keep running! You should just enjoy running while you are at this age. Run 6-7 days per week. Run twice a day if you want. If you are feeling good, run fast. If you are tired, run easy. A few days a week do 100m (20 sec) strides and walk back. 5-10 strides. Most of all, have fun.