5:01 in 8th grade. Overtrained in summer freshman year. 17:14 5k in fall. advice on outdoor season.

Those are good freshman times. Using Daniel's VDOT system is a pretty good way to avoid going too hard in workouts.

No one can tell you if you're training right, though, except maybe your coach. If you've got a good coach, and you're following his training advice every day, you're probably training right.

There is no "should" in racing times. The best you can do is to run as fast as you can on race day. You will probably see more improvement in your 2 mile time, since it takes a while for HS athletes to build up enough endurance for the event. Your XC time is really good for a freshman, so you might end up in the neighborhood of 10:25 - or faster, or somewhat slower.

Going from 15 to 50 mpw isn't a bad idea by itself. It's all about how gradually you build up to it. Maybe you should built up to 50 mpw over two summers or even three, rather than all at once. Take it more gradually this next summer and back off if you need to.

1. No freshman kid knows what a vdot is.

2. Your (son is) a freshman. Calm down. Focus on building aerobically.

3. Listen to your coach.

Throw VDOt out the window. That nonsense is only applicable to older marathon runners ie hobby joggers.

HS is all about racing and pushing boundaries.

I have no idea how you got injured on 50mpw. You must have run too fast during base.

Your track season is finished if you took so much time off. Hammer those workputs but take everything else easy for now.

This summer focus on lots of aerobic runs (not easy but not hard) with 1 long run each week and one hard run (tempo or fartlek). Do strides 3 days a week.

Problem with VDOt is it encourages people to run too slow too often because of an exaggerated fear of injury.

Northern runner wrote:

In my 8th grade year of track (2015) I ran 5:01 in the mile. In the summer following I ramped up my mileage way to much. (15 to 50 yea stupid I know). Because of this I was constantly injured and forced to take time off. In the fall (Start of freshman year) I ran 17:14 during xc for the 5k while probably overtraining.

I think your conclusions are erroneous.

You can't just say that 5:01 is better than 17:14 xc, because cross country is more difficult and takes much more development, vs just natural talent. You have to work more to improve at the 5k than the mile.

This being said, perhaps your expectations were too high for the 5k, perhaps the training did help and you're just not aware of it. Injuries are a separate issue, and pertain more to the balance and structure of your program.

In my view, the biggest mistake you made was to take months off in the winter, a result of your improper thinking, and which certainly doesn't help you improve.

My 5 minute guys usually end up around 17:45-18:00 the next fall. Same for most of the kids from other schools around here. I wouldn't say you underperformed at all during cross (assuming that the 17:14 was on a legitimate 5k cc course)

formerD1 wrote:

Problem with VDOt is it encourages people to run too slow too often because of an exaggerated fear of injury.

I was with you to this point. If anything the easy paces in the vDOT table are too fast.

Yea I agree taking the months off in the winter was pretty excessive. Won't make that mistake again.

The reason why I was getting injured was because I was doing all my runs at like 6:30 pace with barely any recovery. I think one point I did a 5 mile tempo first mile at 6:40 and then went down to 6:15 for four. I kept on this path until eventually I got injured.

"I've RUN 4:57."

I run.

I ran.

I have run.

I had run.

I will have run .

You're confusing me now