sub 10 3200m

heya

You're training to hard.

75 miles a week is a lot for someone in high school. Make sure to run your easy days easy. If your plateauing mabye cut back your mileage a week or two. You won't lose fitness. Hell, I ran 9:56 for the 32 on 10 miles a week and a lot of cross training.

Also, 30 seconds is a lot of time to improve in one season. Try shooting for 10:15 first then try and work down to 10 flat.

Looks like you have the right attitude and are no doubt willing to do the work.

Good luck.

Dude you race twice a week and do intervals,tempo and moderate pace runs. Slow down and don't race as much either. Honestly 2 months from now you will be lucky to run a 11:00 two mile. Either you will be running super slow or you will be injuried. I say take a day or two off before you crash into a brick wall.

Alright, first you are training too fast for how fast you are. You are probably averaging about 7 flat for all your miles which is too fast. Your am run is finishing with a sub 6 mile, why. AM runs should be easy, like super slow aka 7:30 pace. A sub 6 minute mile is about your tempo pace. It is kind of late now but try doing longer intervals early in the season and then work your way down to 400s and maybe some 200s. Remember early in the season you want to do shorter rest to simulate a race. Your long run should be run on Sunday or day after the race on the weekends is alright. Try running about 1:30, runs this long and longer build mitochondria and help you when you are seriously tired in a race. This run at your current fitness should be around 7:20 pace. I think you have a chance to break 10 if you slow things down. Your 1600 is a little weak but it is probably do to you being tired. You are not overtrained because you are saying that your races are improving. Maybe try taking a day off off per week and cycle or swim. Try running fast about 2 times a week, mix it up. Dont get stuck only on the track. With 1 race a week this is about all you can do. A good indicator of breaking 10 would a workout such as 6-8 800s with 1 min 30 sec recovery in 2:30. I am not an expert so this could be wrong. Another thing I noticed is that you are running 10 miles after your race. Remember you just raced, you are tired and you are shocking your body by running 10 miles. If you can run 10 miles after a race, you probably didn't race hard enough in my opinion, because in my opinion I am dead tired after a race. Train smart and you will break 10, maybe not this season but it is possible. A good book to read is Jack Daniels Running formula. Don't run miles to run miles, ask your self is this going to help my running performance or am I doing this because I think running 70 miles is cool or whatever. Good luck with your training. After the season is over don't rush summer training. Take a week off and start with about 30-40 miles of slow miles a build up. There are people out there that don't run anything faster than 7 minutes a mile and go out for a debut 5k and run nasty fast.

I can guarantee that if you cut back your miles or atleast run easier you will improve. 50 miles is adequate for racing 3200 in highschool. 1 day might not be enough but I took a few days off and came back very strong so I know you can do it. You have the right attitude but slow it down. Great runners most the time are not made in a season, it takes years.

First off, what year are you? I am a current High School XC coach and Track Asstant and wouldn't have you running nearly that much. You need to take time to develop. You are doing far too much at this stage in your career. Your training reads like a freshman or red-shirt freshman at the D1 college level. I have plenty of guys in your boat. They want to be very good and are willing to train hard, but it takes time.

I ran well in high school off of 30-40 a week. I usally was about 20-25. I progressed from running 10:04 (10:30 before district meet) to 9:10 by my senior year to win the state meet. I just but in my time, did my hard workouts, and took easy days...easy! Kill your workout and double up or triple at dual meet that don't matter. But chill on the rest days. Forget some of the doubles you are doing. Maybe doing a very easy hour on Sunday to keep your endurance up. Drop your milage to 50-60 a week. Make sure you taper well the last 4 weeks of the season. In high school, racing hard and be competitve with fresh legs is always better then killing yourself day in and day out and then being cashed for the races. Just relax and you will run great...

cut out the morning runs. Sleep in. on race weeks one hard workout and one tune up or fartlek is sufficient. You are doing the work, scale it back and 9:59 will feel easy.

I agree with the other comments. You are doing too much fast running and probably leaving your best stuff in your training log rather than in a race on the track. Don't drop to 40 mpw, but take the advice about slowing down and cutting back - a bit. Now, one question... are you pacing yourself when you race? What is your split when you run 10:30? I would guess 5:00 and then 5:30. (I could be wrong, just a guess). As you pick stepping stone goals (ie: 10:20, 10:15), run even 400s. You will probably be in last place in the first 800, but you will meet your goal at the finish. Good Luck

why run doubles at 75 mpw?

If you had built up properly to this mileage, there would be no need to do doubles. Anyways 75mpw is way too much with the season coming around the corner. Cut it down to 50-55. And rest for a couple of days, you are racing way to slowly for your training

ok to answer some of your questions: i am a senior in high school; for intervals i do what ever my coach has us do( yes he is a good coach and i truly beleive in him and his workouts and i believe that he is going to make me better); saturday is usaually my long day of running for about 1:15 to 1:20 consitstantly at about 7:10 to 7:20 per mile pace(usually dont have invites on saturdays); i do set short goals of like 10:25 but the big picture is sub 10; and usually at the end of races i feel and know that i could have gone harder but i cant actually do it in a race(its like my body and heart are saying go but my mind says no) what can i do to break that mind barrier. thanks for all of your replys

My senior year of HS I ran 10:06 and was running 60-70mpw. When I started running my freshman year, I ran a 7:13 mile, and finished my first season with a 5:45 best in the mile and a 12:40 for 2 miles.

The volume is likely fine, but it is too fast. That was my problem too. I was running my workouts way too fast and that cost me about 15s my senior year. I should have run around 9:50, but I was coaching myself and doing a particularly shitty job of it.

For those that say the volume is too much: as long as it has been built up to, it is fine.

I ran 1000 miles my first year, 2350 the second year, 2850 the third year and over 3000 my last year of HS. My XC 5k dropped from 31min my first year, to 20:07 the second, 17:41 the third year and 16:10 my senior year. So long as the volume is well planned, don't think that "it can't be handled."

how on earth are you doing 70-75 miles a week off of an 11 mile long run? (1hr 20 minutes at 710 pace = 11.16 miles)

if you look at my first post i run two adays during the week and only one aday on the weekend. most of my week is between 10 and 15 miles per day.

I know someone who was like you. And it will take a while until you start to see results that you are satisfied with,(unless you find correct advice to enhance your training in a smarter direction) but this guy, he never gave up. He slugged out his last placed finishes his senior year, he trained like a mad man with a vision that no one else could see, and now he is a runner that will be representing his country.

If your will is what it seems to be, you will find your way. Continue to study your sport man!!

Best Wishes

Again I will stress the importance to cut back your mileage. I think 60 would be a little much. 50mpw is probably optimal. 70-75 is way too much.

Lean Wolf who is the runner, I am curious. Thanks.

DublAK2 wrote:

Again I will stress the importance to cut back your mileage. I think 60 would be a little much. 50mpw is probably optimal. 70-75 is way too much.

Why?

xcountrysucka wrote:

if you look at my first post i run two adays during the week and only one aday on the weekend. most of my week is between 10 and 15 miles per day.

I would not run in the AM the day of a race. I would also run that 10 miler on Sunday. Run it easy, not even close to steady-state. I was 10:19 in my first indoor race as a soph (in March) and 9:50 in my fastest outdoor 3200.

I honestly feel that the AM 4-5-6 milers are great if you run them easy. We pushed ourselves too much in the mornings and regretted it.

I would say 50-60 is plenty if you are racing twice a week in the 3200. One thing you may want to try in dual meets is this...

3200 drill:

goal pace is 75, on your dual meet 3200 assuming your competion isn't too stiff, do the following.

week 1-2:

400 - 75

400 - 85

400 - 75

400 - 85

400 - 75

400 - 85

400 - 75

400 - fast enough to score

= ~ 10:30

week 3-4:

800 - 2:30

400 - 85

800 - 2:30

400 - 85

800 - 2:30

= ~10:20

week 5-6:

1000 - 3:07

200 - 43

1000 - 3:07

200 - 43

800 - 2:30

= ~10:10

Each time you are increasing your amount of time at goal pace and racing faster and faster. It makes it easy to not compare your times each race, becasue you are not going all-out in a time-trial mode every race.

I was a natural 2-miler and tried to PR in every race and I ran the 3200 twice a week sometimes. IT si really hard to be fresh enough to do that and do enough training to keep improving. Also, in the Spring the weather isn't good enough all the time to do better than 3 days ago.

You will get very stale if you are banging out a 10:20 at maximum effort every week.

However, the fastest I ever ran before my first sub-10 (9:56) was 4:48 for 1600m. So i think you can do it.

Trackhead,

Its a fellow McMullin product (I ran in the same race that you ran 10:06). Let me know if you\'ll be around next week to run some workouts or do some easy runs.