Training not matching race times? Any ideas why anyone?

Your workouts are way too low in volume for your mileage and too fast as well. Your feeling in the first 400m is typical of someone who is not fully warmed up.

SMJO wrote:

Your workouts are way too low in volume for your mileage and too fast as well. Your feeling in the first 400m is typical of someone who is not fully warmed up.

^ this. the total volume of your 4x8, 4x2 workout is less than the volume of your 5k race. Definitely up your workout volume and work more pace specifically. Also, run your workouts based on the pace you are running now, (15:51), not the pace you THINK you should be running.

Try doing 4x1mile in about 4:45, with 3 min. rest....then you MIGHT be ready to run under 15.

SMJO wrote:

Your workouts are way too low in volume for your mileage and too fast as well. Your feeling in the first 400m is typical of someone who is not fully warmed up.

that's true. However, if that was his main problem then I think he would be dying at the end of races, rather than feeling strained from the start.

Try doing a 5k time trial alone in practice - that way you will get a solid effort in practice, and confidence for a full effort in a race. I recently ran 15:43 by myself on the track (flats, not spikes), then raced just a hair under 15 on the track a week later.

Another workout recently was 3x1600 in 4:51, 4:51, 4:48 (two minutes rest), and then 6x100 meter strides in 15-16ish.

But I don't necessarily think your workouts are lacking too much; you just need to do something more race-like (5000 meters at 3ish seconds slower per lap, in my case) in your practices.

You may also be hitting your workouts at the wrong time of the week, leaving your legs a little dead for the meets - hard to say if that might be happening without knowing more.

Thanks for the input everyone.

Your filler days are to fast, incr milage on filler days, decr milage on workouts. And on the week of the important race only do a workout 3 days before

bonkers wrote:

SMJO wrote:

Your workouts are way too low in volume for your mileage and too fast as well. Your feeling in the first 400m is typical of someone who is not fully warmed up.

that's true. However, if that was his main problem then I think he would be dying at the end of races, rather than feeling strained from the start.

No, insufficient warm up will mean that you are stuggling for pace right from the start.

I doubt a lack of interval volume would explain the feelings you had in the race. With the adequate mileage, and assuming that it is not too much for you, you should feel fit and strong with even just a little interval work.

You might need more variation in your training speeds. The 1600 interval workout, the 800 interval workout, and the 5k are really at fairly similar paces. Your legs were simply saturated with that specific type of stimulus and were tired of it in the race.

IMHO, most people, most of the time need at least 4 different speeds of training to maintain during a race season. Recovery speed, "feeling good" distance speed, "tempo" speed, race speed, and faster than race speed.

Race more. Training is not the same as racing. Training gets you fit but racing gets you ready to use that fitness in races. Most people now who race more poorly than they think they should respond by going back to the drawing board and adjusting their training when their training is fine. They need to take the next step and race frequently but they don't.