Workouts to help me crack 5 minutes in the mile

nice, i'm working on my mile too and been having a blast. i've been seeing steady gradual improvement with my time (consistently about 5 sec per 2wks for the past 2 months) while basically doing the following training:

hard days:

- 20min tempo run then 8-10 x 200m sprint repeats with plenty o rest (4-8min depending on how i feel)

- 45-70min of fartlek running or broken up into something structured like 9min hard, 1min rest.

- long runs around 1hr 30min in length, trying to do a decent but not too crazy tempo

- mile/1500 race + 800 race

easy days:

- slow ass hobby jogging for 30-60min

I'm usually taking 2-3 easy days between each hard day and trying to increase my easy volume gradually as well.

I've never really focused too much on short/middle distance stuff so I am finding the 200m sprints to really be helping my top end speed and efficiency at just below top end speed. Still got to have lots of endurance for the mile though which is why I do the tempos/fartleks/long runs.

You are pretty young though so you will be riding through some probably inconsistent growth spurts in the time ahead of you. I'm 24 so yah. Just don't be too crazy with your training and get injured, any running is better than no running.

by the way I just recently dipped under 5min and my best for 800m was also recently run in 2:13. In my case developing speed has been huge because before I started this training for the mile my 800m pr was around 2:30 and my mile pr was 5:25.

Thanks so much that was very helpful and I am going to tryadding the fartleks I never tried them before

lukas.b wrote:

On october 29 2015 I am going to have a 1 mile time trial and I really want to break 5 minutes in it, but I am having a major plato and feel lost in my trainging. Are there any workouts that anyone could tell me about to help me crack 5 based on my Pr's

Going to 9th grade next fall

PR's

100m:15.67

200m:34 secs( I don't know the last two digts)

300m:54 seconds

400m:1:14

800m: 2:36

mile: 5:30(I nearly died)

2 miles: 12:40

Plato -> Plateau

Good luck with the training.

6-8 weeks out I would add some 400's at 1:15 with 2 min rest (90 sec rest if can handle it).

Sign up for XC in the fall.

Plato is pretty advanced reading for Grade 9. Well done.

Plateaunic relationship wrote:

Plato is pretty advanced reading for Grade 9. Well done.

lol

Take the red pills.

nice catch. I could not figure out what he could possibly have meant. You can major in Plato, but cannot Plato in major.

All that distance will help you but at your level you're more likely to get injured. Instead, just do strides every day, alternate 200s and 400s plus 800 repeats every week. Go for speed on the 200s. With a 400 of 74, you need to drop that down a few seconds, since you do not have a strong aerobic base. With 71, you might be able to do it.

Obviously this won't really apply to you since you're only going into 9th grade, but I didn't break 5 in the mile until my 9th year of running. I set a 5:15 1600m PR in my first year, and finally, a couple years ago, I figured I needed to break that, with the goal of breaking 5. So I set aside a couple months to focus on speed training. However, I don't think I was able to work on the speed as much until I built up my strength, and I had done that with a high-mileage marathon training cycle. Anyway, I did a bunch of 200m repeats and 400m repeats, treating the 200s as almost-sprints, the 400s at either goal mile race pace or slightly under. Tempos are good too, they can help build strength. Anyway, two years ago, I PR'd twice at 1600 from these workouts, going 5:12 and then 5:06 two weeks later. Not quite sub-5:00. Finally, this year, I broke 5:00, and it was awesome. The strange thing is, I did not do ANY speed work leading up to this, other than one track workout nine days before. I believe that my training the last two years has led me to be able to do this - and, of course, I have done a lot of mileage the last two years, with two (and a half) more marathon training cycles under my belt. And my marathoning cycles, during which I ran anywhere from 70-100 miles per week, consisted of weekly long runs, a tempo at least every other week, a few marathon pace runs, and even a couple track workouts (but those weren't particularly fast, and they were months before this time trial). I went into this 1600 with the goal of breaking my 5:06 PR but wasn't expecting to due to the lack of training for it. Ran splits of 75.9, 76.3, 74.3, and 71.0 - 4:57.51, or roughly 4:59.3 for the full mile. I was absolutely flabbergasted that I was able to do that on one track workout, but it was just a testament to what running high mileage can do for you.

Anyway, So I don't know what you can take out of that, since you obviously aren't going to run 70-100 mile weeks training for marathons. But my point was, I think strength is important in focusing on the mile. So you can do that in whatever way you can. Obviously if you have an experienced coach (I really don't know anything about shorter distance training) that would be best, but if you just run a bunch of 200/400 repeat sessions, as well as tempos, you would be fine. Fartleks are fun too, and another poster suggested them. Good luck!