19/male athlete. going into second year. currently not in the best of shape. i have always been very weak aerobically due to a lack of summer coaching/enthusiasm during base season.
in my best shape, i was a 52.9/2:05/4:23 (metric) guy. did lots of specific work but due to low volume i couldn't recover from the quality workouts.
currently at a 19:xx 5k as of today.
doing about 15-20 mpw now (low i know) goal is 45 mpw by the end of summer, is this realistic?
Don't set mileage goals, just run and see what you can handle. You may manage less than 45, maybe more.
Also, don't fall into the trap of neglecting other aspects of training to fit in the mileage, you need both. Even in base training you should be doing plenty of tempos, sprints/drills/hills/weights/plyos etc for speed and regular intervals around 5k pace, as well as mileage. If you just do mileage, your 5k time will likely improve a lot but your 800 won't.
Look up Summer of Malmo on this site. It works.
Just be sure you are following pace plans for your slow runs.
pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:
Look up Summer of Malmo on this site. It works.
Just be sure you are following pace plans for your slow runs.
This guy is a 400/800 runner, not a distance runner. Summer of malmo would be extremely innappropiate, and would probably make his 800 time worse, not better. Summer of malmo has far too much volume and no where near enough intensity to develop a 400/800 runner.
No. wrote:
pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:Look up Summer of Malmo on this site. It works.
Just be sure you are following pace plans for your slow runs.
This guy is a 400/800 runner, not a distance runner. Summer of malmo would be extremely innappropiate, and would probably make his 800 time worse, not better. Summer of malmo has far too much volume and no where near enough intensity to develop a 400/800 runner.
Sorry. I posted too quickly thinking a 400/800 person would know to adjust it to work for them.
Guys thanks for the replies. What do you think an ideal mileage per week would be? I've read a lot of the sub 1:50 thread and I've known about malmo for years. Just wanted a quick answer if this was a realistic mileage increase. Aiming for three quality workouts (long run, tempo, and intervals) once a week, weights plyos and hills when I can.
The unhelpful but honest answer is the ideal mileage is the mileage you can handle without getting injured. This might be 45mpw, or it might not. Only you can find out, by listening to your body and increasing the volume when you feel good, and reducing it when you don't. One more thing is I think you could probably handle more than three sessions a week. As long as you use doubles to get in the easy runs, you should probably aim to build up to 2 intervals a week, a long run, and 2-3 tempos a week. I know oldsub4 is a fan of one very intense tempo a week, but I find two or three at a slightly lower intensity more useful. For reference, Seb Coe built up to 5 a week!