Track and Xc Goals

Great job on the long run! Next time work on the pace. You don't need more than 13mi. When I broke 17, I was doing 10mi @ 7:10 pace. Good luck man!

Also, how fast do you guys think I could run 5k in a month? After 2mo of only x-training I've done a 7mi week and a 24mi week and I just ran 18:21 for a 5k hard-tempo effort. Felt like around 92-95%.

alabama runner wrote:

Also, how fast do you guys think I could run 5k in a month? After 2mo of only x-training I've done a 7mi week and a 24mi week and I just ran 18:21 for a 5k hard-tempo effort. Felt like around 92-95%.

I bet you could run mid 17s on consistent training with no speed work, but any faster would take longer.

Precalc_Runner wrote:

alabama runner wrote:

Also, how fast do you guys think I could run 5k in a month? After 2mo of only x-training I've done a 7mi week and a 24mi week and I just ran 18:21 for a 5k hard-tempo effort. Felt like around 92-95%.

I bet you could run mid 17s on consistent training with no speed work, but any faster would take longer.

Echo what Precalc said. I'd say 17:20s to 17:40s depending on course, maybe a little faster.

alabama runner wrote:

Great job on the long run! Next time work on the pace. You don't need more than 13mi. When I broke 17, I was doing 10mi @ 7:10 pace. Good luck man!

Also, how fast do you guys think I could run 5k in a month? After 2mo of only x-training I've done a 7mi week and a 24mi week and I just ran 18:21 for a 5k hard-tempo effort. Felt like around 92-95%.

Okay, I think if I focused on pace could probably do 10 miles @7:20.

Gonna keep my LR at 13 miles, but improve pace.

Thanks!

Precalc_Runner wrote:

Hey, that looks like a really good week! Doesn't it feel great to get a longest run in? Anyways, even with your day off, make sure you stretch and ice and all that stuff! Good job man, you're looking great for the season!

Thanks alot!!! Yea it felt really good to get my highest mileage week & longest run ever this week. I'm really excited for the season.

PS I entered a 5k for Saturday, not sure what to aim for.

Based on what you said I could run, your training, and your last 5k, I say you run 6:00 for the first mile and see if you can speed up. If anything, that'll make a nice workout. Your last 5k, when optimized from your admittedly atrocious pacing, was 18:45. You can surely better that.

alabama runner wrote:

Based on what you said I could run, your training, and your last 5k, I say you run 6:00 for the first mile and see if you can speed up. If anything, that'll make a nice workout. Your last 5k, when optimized from your admittedly atrocious pacing, was 18:45. You can surely better that.

Yea I'd like to run at least low 18s, considering I now have averaged 50mpw for the past 3 weeks and the 19:29 came off of no running for 3 weeks. I think I'm gonna try to go out at about 5:50, and take it from there.

Joining this thread a bit late.

In high school my progression was very much like yours

Freshman: 20:07

Soph: 17:42

Junior: 16:58

Senior: 16:03

One thing I’ve picked up from my years of running and coaching a bit is to be patient with your summer and progression. Keep focusing on those quality miles and workouts. As the poster above mentioned use this race as a sort of progression to work on your pacing. The goal is to figure out where your race pace is so that you don’t crap out when it matters. Enjoy the summer running and stay hungry for the season, it’s a long one especially with you having indoors too. 5:50/6:00 for your first mile sounds like a solid start and see if you can slowly push the pace after a mile. I’ve been training horribly inconsistently since I left college and that strategy helped me a ton. I tempo’d two (5:20,5:20) and pushed for a mile (5:05). Got to see exactly where I’m at. Good luck to you man. Keep it fun and enjoy the journey, it goes by quickly. Remember that this is all preparation for the championship season. Work on your racing tactics as this will be huge as you become more competitive.

Thanks for the advice! I appreciate it. I'm gonna try to negative split the race.

IMPORTANT QUESTION:

Watch or no watch for the race? I have never worn one for a race but maybe I should to help with splits?

Assuming you have a GPS watch, use it to settle into pace after getting out and then glance at the mile and 2 mile mark. Nothing more. At 2 miles push and don't look at the watch.

I'm gonna second that last bit. DO NOT PEAK NOW!!!

There's this kid in my division who's running workouts now and posting them on instagram to intimidate the rest of us. It doesn't work. I was talking to another one of my competitors in the same division at a running camp I attended, and we were making fun of the guy who's running hard workouts. He's going to burn himself out hard.

The times you run now are really just to adjust your training paces and get a sense of how you are starting off. They don't really matter. Don't do any hard workouts yet, just a variety of tempos and hills.

How did the race go??

Precalc_Runner wrote:

How did the race go??

Precalc_Runner wrote:

How did the race go??

Terrible.

Hit the first mile at 5:40 (a little fast but felt pretty good). Then all of a sudden felt like I was gonna throw up, and my next mile was 6:45, last mile was 7:57, last .12 (what my watch measured it at) was 61.6 seconds for a time of 21:22 officially.

Overall I wasn't that mad, because my time was so slow it was like a joke, I haven't ran that slow in over 18 months.

Also threw up twice after the race. I think I should have probably eaten a little more before, I felt really hungry but after I had some food I felt better.

Considering this 5k was slower than my tempo I know this race is nowhere near indicative of the shape I'm in.

I guess it was a decent tempo run.

Not sure if I mentioned this previously, but I hurt my achilles finishing a 7.5 mile easy run on Monday. Tuesday I ran 5.5 @7:40ish, but once I hit this last hill my achilles starting to have a shooting pain again, so I stopped my run there. On wednesday I tried to run but my achilles just wasn't letting me. Thursday I completely rested, and did alot of stretching, foam rolling, icy hot, heating pad, ice, etc. Friday I ran a 1.1 mile premeet with some strides. And then saturday I ran the 5k obviously. Today I think I'm gonna run a 7.5 mile run to close out the week.

Although I ran a slow 5k, I'm more happy that my achilles is feeling much better.

Aw dang, sorry man. Hope your training gets back up to speed this week!

Rehab exercises and plyometrics are your friend. When I coached my guys I implemented a plyometric and strength routine for the week that focused on form and injury prevention. The better your form is the more efficient you and more resilient you are to injury. Even things like some barefoot running on grass or heel/toe walks can do wonders for strengthening your ankles and feet.

Take it real easy, no need to overload your achilles. Have you tried aquajogging?

You need to focus on staying consistent with your training. Staying injury free is the key the achieving your goals which are pretty ambitious. Focus on going slow on recovery days so you can hammer your tempos and workouts.

Its been a while since I have updated. We have a new coach helping us so we've been doing hill workouts 2x a week, as a pose to never doing any.

We started at 8x150 up hill and we just did 8x300 up hill at an average of 64, with jog back recover on friday.

Saturday I did a 5k with the team for fun and run 19:20, very relaxed. First mile was 6:25ish, and last was about 5:55.

Today, we did our time trials to determine varsity for the season. I've been being put with out other top 3 runners and sticking with them in workouts. Saturday I beat them all by a couple of seconds. Today they were my group for the 3.5 mile time trial, and I ran a 24:40, slower than last year. I came in 15thish on my team, not sure what happened. I'm pretty pissed, as I'm now not on varsity. What do you think happened?

Focused on racing teammates not actual races