Official High School Mileage and Racing Thread 11/16 - 11/22

TannerD22- Curious, what are pacers?

Person Who Runs- Busy week! Sounds like you have a good plan for base until track. What other events do you run besides the mile? Also, I agree with TannerD about the strides. Sometimes you just need to recover and do 0 fast work.

michaelchamp- You sound like a real endurance based guy. What are your XC PRs? Seems like a lot of us here in the thread are building to 50 miles a week.

Cogs- I feel you on the low-mileage team. I'm considered the mileage monster on the team, and I run 50 miles a week at most. I don't like it. Very nice week.

Since I've been here a little while consistently now and have gotten to see training for many runners, I'm going to try to start commenting weekly, starting with this current week:

Oklahoma- I always find runs tougher on treadmill, I feel like I'm moving way faster than it feels outside and always tired. Never tried anything other than easy runs, though. Otherwise, very good early base phase training.

TannerD- I think 3 weeks is a good amount of time if you feel you need a good break, as you don't have indoor so have loads of time to rebuild fitness. Did you find a good coach to work with?

Person Who Runs- Good plan in my opinion (I also like hill sprints btw). Just make sure not to overthink it and then overdo it, consistent running is the most important thing. Why a 9 mile race, if you know? Seems like an odd distance.

Illinois- I love all the races you do, all sound very interesting and fun. I'm thinking about a half this winter too, not sure I'd feel comfortable with that tempo though, it sounds great.

King slayer- Good training and pace, but like others said, I'd suggest 6 days a week rather than 5 except for the occasional times when there's no way to fit 6 days in.

MichaelChamp- Looks like you're really working well for so early in base, what'd you run in XC and track last year if you don't mind me asking? I think you can hit those goals if you keep improving. Also, glad you didn't push for 50, I always have difficulty avoiding pushing for arbitrary mileage/pace goals-something I still have to work on.

Cogs- Extremely consistent week-to-week training, good job!

We the north- Welcome! I'm also from up north, in Ontario. No way I could run 12.5 miles this early in the season. How'd your cross season go?

Work it - I doubt I'll be doing any indoor, but yeah I'm pretty sure I've found the guy I'll be working with; Ihaven't yet made it official but, he's who will be coaching me.

Person Who Runs - What were the splits and such? I always like to run my fartleks pretty fast (6:00 for the hard portions, and around 6:40-7:00 for the "easy" porttions.)

(I ended up doing 7 on Sunday)

To tanner, most of my runs are very slow by many standards- between 8:00 and 8:30 pace. I know there's lots of different philosophies on pacing for runs, most of the people on here seem to be following the "no junk miles" philosophy. I have found the most success so far when I take easy days honestly easy and the harder days hard. It makes it easier for me to enjoy my runs and make them longer, and helps me recover quicker. Usually as my fitness progresses the easy pace will come down below 8:00 pace but that's where it starts. Great to hear from all these motivated people on this thread. I wish you all luck in your training

The Fartlek is on strava- Tanner

To the person who asked the race is in my town and has been going on for 100+ years.

Work it- xc season went well for me top 50 at provincials. People who didn't run the race just wouldn't understand how muddy it was. It was a insane

Yeah, I realize that 6 or 7 days is better than five days. We don't really have a training plan for track as most kids are in winter sports, so the ones that are just kinda run on their own. With that said, my nose is pretty sensitive to the temperature in the winter, and some days I can barely breath, so I try to just run as I go. Did about 430 miles last winter doing that.

Work it- Nice job , man. Muddy course aren't insane, but they make cross country what it's meant to be- hard. My conference meet two years ago had about 2 inches of mud from start to finish.

If the same thing would have happened to me a year ago, I would've pushed it, and then I would have probably affected myself negatively for the next week. Feels good.

I got sick starting last saturday and I am still a little sick, so I haven't been running as fast, but I've still gotten like 6 miles each day.

Curious to ask this, during base phase, what pace do you all do the fast sections at on your Fartlek runs ? Like tempo pace, 10K pace? Just interested to see. N

I do my fartlek surges at mile/2mile pace ish- for about 100-300 meters then recover until I am ready to surge again.

I'd recommend one run a week being around 8:15 pace (LSD), and the rest at least around 7:20 pace. High end aerobic miles are really important and will change you. You'll go through a drastic transformation if your easy runs get quicker, and your mileage keeps going up.

I realize you like to go easy on easy days, and hard on hard days, but I think keeping the wheels on in harder workouts is actually a lot more beneficial, if you run your easy days in your high end aerobic zone. (73-78% max HR) This will naturally teach your body consistency, but it is important to have staple workouts every season that are important; These are when I think you should put it all out there, and really test your limits.

Again, it's all personal preference, but that's just what I think based on experience.

Best of luck in your training.

We The North wrote:

Work it- xc season went well for me top 50 at provincials. People who didn't run the race just wouldn't understand how muddy it was. It was a insane

That's good. I ran it to in the junior boys race and it was crazy, the hills and the mud-toughest race I've ever run for sure

To the person who asked I am mainly a miler- but do the occasional 800m or 3200m. That was in jv track- this year I will be varsity. This might change as I grow- who knows what I will be the best at if I grow to be 5'9 instead of being 5'5ish.

Arcadia-Also in regards to easy pace It will generally go down as you get into better shape- but this should be a natural progression and should be done slowly- Ie. my easy pace last year when my 5k pr was 21- my easy pace was obviously not 7:00-8:00 since that would be more of a tempo and not easy. But now that is my general everyday easy pace since my pr is close to 3 minutes faster- my easy runs have gotten faster. In general for every minute taken off your 5k pr is 10sec off your easy pace.

IE- 20-8:00-7:40

19-7:50-7:30

18-7:40-7:20

17-7:30-7:10

16-7:20-7:00

15-7:10-6:50

14-7:00-6:40

ETC....

This is just a guideline and can vary depending on aerobic base,experience, muscle fiber type ( are you a sprinter or an marathoner), and terrain.

This is not to say that you HAVE to stay within these paces- just what you can expect to happen to your easy paces as you get faster.

This also assumes you are running High mileage- 40+.

Hope this help in the future.

PersonWhoRuns- I might try out doing some fartlek surges at 2 mile race pace. Do you think they are beneficial?

TannerD- I don't know if I agree with doing long slow distance. That seems the mentality that Americans used to hold. Nowadays it seems like new training beliefs are to doing some hard running in it. McMillan suggests that you make it a progression run. So, something like first few miles warmup, middle miles are down to easy pace and then getting little faster, and final few miles getting to HM pace and maybe faster if you are feeling good. My long runs start at 8:00, get down to 7:30 by mile 5, and by mile 8 I am running 7:00, and I might run my last mile around 6:30. I might feel like I am pushing, but I think it has some great benefits. Also practiced by the University of Colorado team, which they pound their long runs. This is the reason why they are able to finish so strongly in a 10k. High schoolers do not run 10k, so we don't need to run them as hard as they do, but still same idea. Another suggestion could be to maybe to alternate each week with easy pace during long run and faster long run.

Do keep pace during base phase pretty good and some easy running, and you will do wonders for yourself.

I personally think they are beneficial for a race where you need to surge- Ie you are running the 2 mile and know that your kick is coming so you go to mile pace. The same for a 5k and going 2 mi pace the last bit. I also think they help your body learn to recover better- useful for repeats.

I'm just saying, if he really enjoys going slow on his easy runs, then he could just do it as a once a week thing. It would basically be a reward.

TannerD- Yeah definitely. Didn't know that's what you were implying. If it helps mentally, go for the easy pace.

Person who runs- Seems good. So would it be something like 8 miles with 12 X 1 min (2 mi-5K race pace) with 1-2 mins rest. And that would be some sort of speed during base phase.

Yea, that is going to be my weekly workout. Though less volume on the actual fartlek- for me. Because off the need to do a proper warm up and cool down- you do not want to pull something . My recent was was 3 mi warm up- then 4mi fartlek. Next week it will look more like this 1mi warm up- 4.5mile fartlek- 1.5Mi cool down. Though you might want to vary the quantity of the surges due to the quality of the surges- and keep the rest like half a mile- 1-2 rest might peak you too early.

ie-

fart

.5 easy

30sec mile

.5 easy

1 min 3mile

.5

1 min 3 mile

.5 easy

30 sec mile

.5 easy

30 sec mile

.5 easy

1 min 3 mile

Repeat till 8 miles-

Just my 2 cents.

Any more posters this week?