5 minute mile

You have a week, there is nothing really anyone can tell you to do for a workout that would benefit you at this time, there might be one thing, but it wouldn't make you magically drop 21s. In other words its too late for workouts.

You say you have plenty of sleep the last few days? How about last few weeks? Months? And by plenty of sleep i hope you mean at least 8 hours or so.

Are you pushing too hard in workouts? If so you might be overtrained. Maybe take it a bit easier if this is the case.

There is also nothing you have presented that would indicate you could possibly run sub 5 at this time anyways. Remember, you also have 3 more years to run sub 5 (I am assuming you are talking about indoor track, so actually you should have outdoor track to break 5 possibly), don't worry about it too much if it doesn't happen next weekend.

gotcha thx

What about a workout to drop as much time as much time as possible?

spence wrote:

I started out at the beginning of the season running faster than I am now, which confuses me because I have been training almost every day.

You're overtraining.

My friend if you really think that you are worth 5 flat at the mile, then by all means try to reach 809 with 2:27. If the group starts faster go with them even if it means going in 2:23. If they go too slow then thats their problem and you lead it.

Aim for 1:12 and 1:14 the first laps. Even if you sorta relax the next 500m, you kick the last 300m. If you do bring a watch don't bother looking at it the last 600m.

Great, thanks man!

easy now wrote:

spence wrote:

I started out at the beginning of the season running faster than I am now, which confuses me because I have been training almost every day.

You're overtraining.

Bingo, boy

Thanks for all the help and advice guys!

What might do the trick is if you take 2 days off, maybe even 3. If you take 3 off, make sure that you do a recovery run one of the days so you don't lose fitness.

Make sure not to focus on you're early season meets so much. Focus more on the races later in the season so you have more time to improve and follow training advice.

I am most likely going to do outdoor track too, and I know I have plenty of time there to train for the sub 5 mile. Any workouts that you guys think would help?

I'm not willing to say you are over training as we don't know.

How many miles are you running each week?

Do you run any runs over 10 miles? (you should).

Are you doing speed work outs 2 days a week (no more, no less)?

Flagpole wrote:

I'm not willing to say you are over training as we don't know.

How many miles are you running each week?

Do you run any runs over 10 miles? (you should).

Are you doing speed work outs 2 days a week (no more, no less)?

These are guesses as I am not really keeping track, which I guess I should

MPW- 15-20

No runs over 10 - normally distance runs around 7-8 miles

Lots and lots of speed workouts, definitely more than 2, about 3-4 I guess

Too much speed work with no aerobic base. Did you do cross country?

With a week to go your only recourse is lots of rest/easy jogging with a session of 10x 200s at 34 seconds and maybe two sessions of 4x400s at 75 seconds with two minutes rest, relaxed in order to memorize pace. You cannot get faster by "hard work" at this juncture. After indoors, start easy distance training and gradually work up to 30-40 miles before spring track.

spence wrote:

Flagpole wrote:

I'm not willing to say you are over training as we don't know.

How many miles are you running each week?

Do you run any runs over 10 miles? (you should).

Are you doing speed work outs 2 days a week (no more, no less)?

These are guesses as I am not really keeping track, which I guess I should

MPW- 15-20

No runs over 10 - normally distance runs around 7-8 miles

Lots and lots of speed workouts, definitely more than 2, about 3-4 I guess

Holy shit man do milage

spence wrote:

Flagpole wrote:

I'm not willing to say you are over training as we don't know.

How many miles are you running each week?

Do you run any runs over 10 miles? (you should).

Are you doing speed work outs 2 days a week (no more, no less)?

These are guesses as I am not really keeping track, which I guess I should

MPW- 15-20

No runs over 10 - normally distance runs around 7-8 miles

Lots and lots of speed workouts, definitely more than 2, about 3-4 I guess

Good grief, brother. you should be doing TWO workouts a week MAX at this point. Since it's just indoor season, you could really just be doing ONE workout. The rest of the days should be distance, distance, distance. And, when you are only running 15 miles a week, an 8 mile run as one of your long runs is too long. So many things wrong here. Is this the direction of your coach?

Here's what you SHOULD be doing now (though you can't do this NOW...you have to build up to this):

M - 8 miles

T - workout - 2 mile warm up, 5 1000s, 1 mile cool down

W - 10 miles

TH - workout during OUTDOOR (200s and 400s) OR 8 miles during indoor

F - 8 miles

Sat - 2 mile warm up, RACE 1600, 2 mile cool down

Sun - 12 miles

If you are injury-prone or didn't run more than 40 MPW during cross country season, then you could pare the Sun run down to 10 miles, the Wednesday run down to 8 miles and the 8 mile runs down to 6 miles.

This is crystal clear to everyone here that you aren't doing enough mileage.

To be extra clear, this is not what you should try to do this week before your last race of the season. There is no work out that will help you for that.What Flagpole wrote is a goal to try to get to for next season, or even next year really.

My coach understands that these speed workouts do not suit me, and has told me on many occasions that outdoor will be much more fruitful as the practice mileage will be much greater. In indoor, since we have so many runners, so few coaches, and a track that we share with several other teams, we are categorized into two groups, distance or sprint, so we do not really have workouts tailored to each specific distance. Distance comprises of 800 runners to 2 milers, and as most of our "distance" runners are 800 runners, we mostly run workouts meant for training for an 800. I definitely am a better distance runner than sprinter, and run the 3200 as often as I can, but it is not always available to run in. Therefore, I must run the next longest event, the mile, as we freshmen do not have the 3000.

Thank you everyone for the advice and workouts - this should help me become a faster runner