I am virtually an un-injurable runner. How would you train me?

Un-injurable you say? 300 miles per week, nothing slower than 6 minute pace. Bam.

Just because you don't break, doesn't mean you don't overdo it. Very easy to burnout on high mileage and fail to realise because the pace is easy.

Train wisely, plan a season. Do your workouts when the time comes. That's it.

somebloke wrote:

Just because you don't break, doesn't mean you don't overdo it. Very easy to burnout on high mileage and fail to realise because the pace is easy.

Train wisely, plan a season. Do your workouts when the time comes. That's it.

Yup, second this. I would consider your (OP) premise of "uninjurability" as a nice foundation, with probable scientific reasons behind it, not a carte blanche. I would stick with sound practices and do all the usual periodization, base building, all the nooks and crannies you'd expect. Usually, the problem for a lot of us are the unexpected major and minor injuries etc. along the way that complicate even conservative plans and require lots of readjustment. Keep doing things like active recovery, stretching, work in the gym, muscular balance, good sleep, good nutrition, a balanced life in general, etc.

Excitement is a long term thing... reflecting on your vast life and experiences and dreams. The joy of doing these different fitness activities day to day. Body health and betterment and being out in nature. Being amongst positive people. Keeping up with the Joneses in the brute way, although partly necessary, is also shallow and not where the real joy of life is. Social media, college, dating, internet message boards, runnerspace, etc. are at best, minor stepping stones. Lose sight of bigger things and get lost in these minor artificial trifling things and you'll lose the emotional and spiritual depth. That depth is wedded to the depth and potential of the running lifestyle over the long term.

Train your mind, your aspirations and your emotions, too.

A male junior in college at a D1 university should be running 8ks? All we see are your mile, 3k and 5k times unless you are a female running 5ks in college then that would make more sense, or am I missing something? Thinking troll attempt...

Maybe I didn't include an 8K or 10K xc time because xc courses are incredibly varying and don't give always give an accurate view of fitness?

I bet no one is going to say "train at different speeds." Yet this is a big one in injury prevention and in improving as a runner.

You do not know what you will be faced with in any race.

It might go out fast, slow, or some fool might decide to throw in some surges.

Surging can be hard to deal with. What you must do with that fool is be wise enough to keep him relatively close early. Late in the race you might have to stay close, especially if you do not know the guy. But you have to get your body ready for anything during training.

In addition or as part of that, I would make sure to do lots of speed development: Hills, short sprints, Fartlek, jump rope, etc.

Avoid hard interval running like 10 x 200 in 28, or longer. Get a good periodization plan. Avoid over racing.

'un-injurable'

change that to young and just wait

haha, yep... young! is entirely different lol

But no offence 100m weeks 80 mile weeks blah blah

if you're topping out at 5k races, id drop to 50-60 and get more speed work in

first target get enough pace to be able to do 54sec 400s and get your mile under 4

being strong is nice but without speed you will never improve enough, plus 'stating the obvious' the more comfortable you are at speed the easier the distance becomes at a slower pace.

i.e. I hate distance runners doing mega high volume

I'd go for lots of moderate interval training, i.e. Igloi style training. Alternatively something like how James Li trains Lagat, low/medium mileage but always pretty hard.

Indestructible Runner wrote:

This past summer I had 8 weeks > 100mpw with 3 at 115-125, handling it fine. My pace averaged 6:50 - 7:00/mi and never did any workouts or tempo, but sometimes would pick it up at the end of a run. Long runs were 19-24 miles usually. Doubled often.

You run a lot and are mediocre by NCAA d1 standards. Why?

You are getting little out of your hard work. Ask yourself 'What is the point of each run?" It sounds like you spent almost your entire summer accomplishing little other than proving you are very dedicated.

6:50-7:00 pace isn't accomplishing anything. Tempo runs are running. You need to 1) do them at least once a week. 2) Run slower on your easy days.

All you are doing is running medium which doesn't do much. Either be recovering or doing a tempo. I'd rather see more tempos, more 7:30+ days.

Let me know if you want JK to coach you.

Dude, you suck for how much you're running. To not even be able to break 15:30 running over 100 mile weeks is terrible. You're not even running at an average D1 level.

You're training does not align at all with your time and you need to figure that out with your coach or find a coach who knows what the hell they're doing. Seems to me that you're severely over trained. Also just a bunch of slow miles isn't ideal, I know that's off season but you need more intensity.

More volume/training is not always beneficial just because you're not getting injured. If you're over trained its going to negatively impact your performance.

Troll=Fed

You're wasting your time if that's how fast you've run off of 125 mpw.

Ideally you should add in tempos and fartleks in the summer, and longer faster runs.

If you don't want to do workouts in the summer and would rather run steady, then top out at less mileage (90-100) but run everything at 6:00-6:20.

Bottom line... Make a change. You should be faster.

jesus, you are wasting so much time and energy.maybe you should train faster in intervals/tempos/steady states/long runs so you PBs get better.....your attitude about being invincible is terribly flawed. i would do higher intensity on intervals and tempos and less miles. maybe 70-80 mpw range. try something new that works, because what you've been doing isn't workingthe amount you are running compared to your PBs sucks, to be frank.i run 40 miles a week, have a full time job and a couple kids and i just ran a 15:30 5k. my college pb was 14:56. i can probably run a mile faster too

Indestructible Runner wrote:

Let's preface this a bit:

I am a college junior running at a bottom tier D1 school. This is mostly a hypothetical "how would you train me", but if the ideas look good they could be implemented in the summer.

My PR's-

Mile - 4:28.7

3K - 8:50

5K - 15:32

Past training-

Entering Sophomore year I topped out at 100mpw and only held that for 2 weeks, spent most of the summer in mid 80's.

This past summer I had 8 weeks > 100mpw with 3 at 115-125, handling it fine. My pace averaged 6:50 - 7:00/mi and never did any workouts or tempo, but sometimes would pick it up at the end of a run. Long runs were 19-24 miles usually. Doubled often.

Let's just assume you were coaching me, let's assume I am un-injurable. How do you train me? What do I do in the summer?

This dude definitely lives in Colorado

People are jumping all over OP for saying he JUST does easy mileage but I believe he's saying that's just his summer schedule, I assume he does faster workouts (tempos, intervals, etc) in season. Could be wrong though.

I averaged 90+ mpw my senior year and had PRs similar (read: a little slower) to OP. Summer training was mostly mileage w/ 1 tempo on the track per week, usual mix of stuff in season for XC + track. Never was injured. Some people just need to run a lot even to be "mediocre".

Icculus wrote:

People are jumping all over OP for saying he JUST does easy mileage but I believe he's saying that's just his summer schedule, I assume he does faster workouts (tempos, intervals, etc) in season. Could be wrong though.

I averaged 90+ mpw my senior year and had PRs similar (read: a little slower) to OP. Summer training was mostly mileage w/ 1 tempo on the track per week, usual mix of stuff in season for XC + track. Never was injured. Some people just need to run a lot even to be "mediocre".

I don't think people are missing this. I think what you're missing is that the OP likely isn't training correctly to maximize his results. Running 100+ mile weeks at around 7 min pace even over summer then not being able to break 15:30 doesn't add up. It seems like he may need to add intensity or reduce volume or both and he may be able to run faster. Obviously has different talent levels but his training and performances don't align and this thinking that because I'm not getting injured the solution is to do more doesn't make sense.

Interval @ VO2 max 2 x week.

Tempo 2 x week (one of them could be cruise interval)

Rep @ 1500/mile pace 2 x week (one of them could be hill sprint)

Long run 2-2.5 hrs once a week.

Double on every day except the day of long run.

Increase your mileage to 150mpw

At this point keep it at 100mpw. As Rojo you need a tempo run. Personally I think a day at cv (about 12k pace for you) too. Just doing these each week for a year will get you great improvements. Here is an example.

Sunday Long Run 18-20 miles

Monday A.M. 8 miles P.M. 6 miles

Tuesday 16 miles with 8x1k at CV pace 90 second jog between, 4x200 at 1500-3k 200 jog between

Wednesday A.M. 8 miles P.M. 6 miles

Thursday A.M. 6-8 miles P.M. 6 miles

Friday14- 16 miles with 8-10 miles at Marathon pace plus 4-6x 30 second hill sprints jog down between

Saturday A.M. 6-8 miles P.M. 6 miles