What did you do / change in your training before your biggest breakthrough?

Easy days super easy, hard days hard. Don't get sucked into other peoples workouts. Broke out that year.

PR- 3:44 1500m

8:01 3000m

13:38 5000m

started doing only x-fit.

Consistency, not racing workouts, building miles. I will go by relative xc times rather than track because weird things always happened to me in track like the flu or something.

HS Junior 5k (40mpw): 16:29

HS Senior (60-65mpw): 15:50

Frosh 8k (75-80mpw): 26:10ish

Soph 8k (85ish): 25:20

Junior 8k (90-95): 24:57 (ran 30:20 on the track)

Senior 8k (90-100): 24:24

All this time the focus was on consistent miles, long tempos up to 10 miles, cruise intervals, long fartleks over hilly terrain, long hill reps, long runs in the 16-20 range, mileage put in between 6:30 and 7:30 pace, and doing strides every single easy day. I never left out strides, even during the summer. Summer training had a very high density of hill running. I was doing somewhere between 3-6 vo2 workouts per season, theory being that racing took care of the rest. I hardly ever went past LT pace in an LT workout, and if I ever did it was because my training pack did on accident.

Also to avoid burnout I focused on eating a lot and sleeping a lot on a regular schedule. Some ice baths, no more than 2 a week.

I still had more left in the tank, and do, but life has gotten in the way since college. Resetting and focusing to break 30 before I turn 30.

[I'm surprised you feel that way. Running solo may have some benefits, but I don't believe that's one of them. I think most of the post collegiate runners here would like to have a training group to run with. It's a whole lot easier to hit your own pace in practice if you have 10 other guys also aiming for that pace, racing in practice shouldn't be a problem unless you are running with junior high kids.]

Different strokes for different folks. Some may like running with others. I do on occasion. I find it easier to worry about what I need to do when I'm running alone. It's rare that you have 10 different runners all shooting for the exact same pace especially in an interval workout. Generally, they have 10 different PRs and/or 10 different levels of fitness; therefore, they have 10 different target paces.

I guess what I'm saying is that there is a need to coach the individual and not coach everybody the same. When you have 10 runners shooting for the same pace in a workout or otherwise, then it seems that the coach is only coaching the best runner (tailoring the workout to the best runner's capabilities and everyone else just has to keep up). This is good for the best runner but not good for everyone else. Everyone else is running too fast for their capabilities leading to increased chance of injury, burn out, and perhaps regression.

Okay, my best xc season came after I started running triples on the weekend. Stopped wearing a watch and ran how I felt for 45min to an hour morning/midday/night. All on beautiful hilly and inspiring sheep trails and paddocks.

Was probably my fittest when I just decided to start running 200km plus per week in doubles, with no rest days. No watch. 1hr to 2.5hr each run. Running how I felt. All super hilly on fire-trails and zero-trails. Made me feel like superman eventually.

I am lucky. I can go from 0 ks a week to 200 ks with no injury problems.

Took my running show to 7000-10000ft EL and switched from useless track BS to Progression Runs by Feel and NEVER forgot the long run. If I felt it I'd turn a Long Run into a Nice Long Progression Run.

Dropped from 18:30 to 16flat 5k on NO speed work. (Speed was only strides)

70mpw. Translated really well from XC to Track after a base like that.

How's the sub 30 coming doo doo? Curious but also wanted to bump the thread as its one of my favorites. See if anyone has anything else to add...

Prior to Jr. Year of hs I got a road bike for my 16th birthday. Added about 70-100 mpw of cycling to the running the coach had prescribed. Most runs were easy to moderate, but most rides were pretty hilly so I ended up getting in a bunch of high end aerobic work without beating my legs up too much.

Did a couple of very hard runs just prior to the season.

Prs went from low 19 for 5k to 17:09