List your biggest improvements in any race within a month

There's nothing you can do in a month that would significantly decrease your times. All you're going to get are people who started the month with a bad race and finished with a good race or they came in severely undertrained and gained some level of fitness.

There is no magic 30 day training plan.

Ran my first 10,000 of the outdoor season once in 33:40 or thereabouts. About 1 month later was the conference championship and I ran 32:45 so a 55 second improvement.

Honestly, it really wasn't one workout or mileage number that got me there. I had run consistently for the preceding 12 months after coming back from injury. I think I topped at 85 MPW the summer before but mostly put in 70-75 MPW during the racing season.

My long run did improve from maybe 100 minutes to being able to do 2 hours each week without thinking about it. That year I also raced 'short' 4-5 times in the mile indoors and 1500 outdoors. I think that did help keep my speed sharp while getting the mileage up. Doing that combo though it probably more specific to the 5,000 or 10,000.

I would also note that the first race of the year had maybe 12-15 guys in it so I ran a lot of it alone. The second race the leaders went out pretty slow (guys who could run sub 31 went out in 16:00+) I basically got in a line with everyone else and got pulled around the track which mentally helps a lot in the 10K.

FooYou wrote:

There's nothing you can do in a month that would significantly decrease your times. All you're going to get are people who started the month with a bad race and finished with a good race or they came in severely undertrained and gained some level of fitness.

There is no magic 30 day training plan.

What if they had a great base and were racing say the 800? You don't think you can do a lot in a month of sharpening?

I once removed 8 seconds from 800m in one week.

I'm a freshman in highschool. During the cross country season I drooped my pb 19:51 to 19:08 with two weeks of training. I don't remember the specific training, because it was like 6 months ago. I do remember though that was the only time all cross country season I ate healthy for a week.

Peaking

FooYou wrote:

There's nothing you can do in a month that would significantly decrease your times. All you're going to get are people who started the month with a bad race and finished with a good race or they came in severely undertrained and gained some level of fitness.

There is no magic 30 day training plan.

Sounds like you don't know how to train, son.

Steeple: 10:05 to 9:16. My first effort was a total debacle because I couldn't hurdle. Three week of drills with the hurdlers and a couple of three mile slow pace runs over barriers made the difference.

Freshman Xc I ran mid 18s for 3 miles repeatedly through August/ September. Closed season out with string of 17:0x performances in late October.

I'm sure training effect had something to with it. More importantly, my coach basically accused me of being too scared to race hard halfway through season and I responded.

6525 to 6428 in the half in a matter of three weeks. The first one was solo and the second one I had a big group to work with. Extended my peak for another three weeks and improved a lot. Not a lot of workouts in between just making sure I recovered and we ready to go for the next one.

All kids when they start out improve rapidly. I went 2:19 to 2:11 in the same month.

A more legit improvement might be from 1:54.6 to 1:51.1.

When I was a junior in HS I ran a 35:5510k then a few weeks later dropped to 34:05. My advisor/coach had me run the first 2 miles with a local masters runner. I did, and I crushed it. Basically, I was going out too fast in the first mile. No need to run 5:0x in the first mile to run a 36 minute 10k.

23:38 to 22:19 within a week of training

Then again, that week was taper week before districts and the second course was much flatter, so...

Went from 5:32 to 4:59 in the 1600 in a month, mostly because it was my first year of track. Or maybe it was that my dad told me he'd get me an iPhone if I ran sub-5

My PB went from 57.20 to 55.60 in a 400m race.

The way you did this thread makes it interesting. I thought the title might make it a disaster, but your comments made it work.

As an athlete: I saw my two mile run go down from 10:45 to 10:07 through gradual improvements over about 3-4 races my junior year in high school.

The weather and improved competition helped. (At that time I thought every day and run had to be all out, except before races!)

As a coach: Our team went to a regular season meet and it was rained out.

Upon returning from the meet, I took the distance guys out on a 2 mile run in the darkness and rain. There was a lot of grumbling. The next day we went back to that same venue and competed. Most of the kids had personal bests that day!

It also helped to take a meet off and get in some extra miles before the big races. We had success when the team was willing to do that.

I went from 29 low to 26 high over 8 by tapering to peak. The first race was hilly, but really a moderate course, the peak race was a lightning fast course. I raced a 2730ish 8kk on a fasst course in between. Between the two, I did a lot of prog runs, tempos over hills, and mile repeats around a soccer field.

Junior year of cross country I went from an 18:42 pr to 18:15... A week later I ran 17:08. It was basically a perfect storm of running at my favorite invite + it was my birthday + I hit runners high just after the first mile.

That's still my pr, ITBS kept me on and off from the end of junior year cross all the way through senior year in track.

Any particular stories about the 800? Maybe tried a different strategy (negative,even,positive split) currently struggling to break 2:10

majorkey wrote:

Any particular stories about the 800? Maybe tried a different strategy (negative,even,positive split) currently struggling to break 2:10

Sorry, there are no magic bullets when it comes to the 800m.