Back on June 25th I posted the following:
I took more or less a year off from training because I hurt my IT band in spring 2003 and still ran 2 hard races, which were the only miles I ran in those last 2 weeks. I PR'd last spring with a 16:04. A week later I hurt my knee the day after running a 1500 in 4:23 which I negative splitted the whole way (I probably ran a 60 second last quarter or very close). I still finished out the season with 2 sub 16:15 5K's. My main event is the 5K in spring track. In April I began building a base for fall XC. I ran by how I felt for about a month, felt crappy so I bought I started running with a heart rate monitor my dad got me for christmas on may 11th. Since then I've been running high 40 mile weeks. Last week I ran 60 miles. This week I might hit more than 70 depending on how tomorrow and Sunday go. My mileage goal is 80 miles a week. With the HR monitor I've found that I've been over training my whole life. Before 50 miles a week killed me, now it's a lot of fun. My realistic goal is to run low 15's in the spring. My dream goal is to run NCAA DIII qualifying times in the 5K.
That being said, right now I'm running all of my runs between 60 and 70% of my max hr. I'm trying to train my slow twitch muscles so I can use more of them more efficiently during the 5K. I'm also trying to improve all the physiological factors that come into play by running at this pace. I will start doing some tempo's once August rolls around. I'm going to mostly try to stick with slow-long stuff for now. Once winter rolls around I'll begin to get into more speed and do some races. I'll then do a few weeks of slow high mileage then get back into speed to before spring track. Basically right now I'm building a foundation. In the fall I'll start building a frame. I'll build a roof during the winter. In the spring I'll do the interior work and all the finishing touches.
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Through July and August I've ran 60 miles a week. My mileage topped out at 72 miles a week during the summer. I took 3-4 days off before practice started for fall XC. In 2001 I ran 28:18 for 8K XC. In 2002 I ran consistently faster but never beat that time. I took fall 2003 off due to an injury that spring. Once fall XC practice started we ran more mileage than I ran during the summer at a higher pace. I can now run at a higher pace using much less effort than I could during the summer. I ran 5 good race this year. I ran a 8K XC PR of 26:46. I'm pretty certain I'm going to break 16:04 in track for the 5K this year as long as I keep training. My goal is to run 14:20, but I know the low 15's is probably a more likely reality. This winter I'm aiming for 80-90 mpw, with down weeks every third week so I don't break myself like some people do when they become more obsessive about hitting mileage goals then staying healthy.