notsure wrote:
Hi guys, I'm a high school freshman guy looking to improve this winter and get in good shape for track. This past summer was my first time really running consistently in the offseason, ran about 15-20 mpw. I didn't do as well as I wanted this cross country season, I only broke 20 minutes once...felt like I could have done better.
I'm planning to bump up my mileage to around 25-30 mpw this winter to get in better shape. I've already run a few weeks in that range at a fairly comfortable pace, like around 7:30-8:00 pace. I told my coach this and he said I should run less mileage but at a faster pace. He said like 20-25 mpw but around 7 min pace or faster. That seems way to fast, since my 5k pr was like 6:25 pace.
What do you guys think is better? More mileage at a slower pace, less mileage at a faster pace?
Man Overboard wrote:
A HS freshman should train for where the race times they realistically expect to hit in the near future, not based on past performance.
nhrunnah wrote:
You have to run more miles at a slower pace.
You are a beginning runner, you don't have hundred or thousands of miles on your legs. This means you need to build up your aerobic abilities with longer, easy running. Easy is a feeling, not a specific pace, but a general guideline is two minutes slower per mile than your 5k pace. For you this would be 8:25. Because easy running is a feeling and not a pace, some days easy may be 7:45 per mile, other days it may be 8:45.
Work your way up to a point where you are running 30+ minutes, six days a week at an easy pace. That is the most important part; running consistently nearly every single day. One of those 6 days, go a little longer than the rest of the days, say 50 minutes. This is your weekly long run. After that, if you feel good, just slowly continue to push the boundaries; eventually you will be running 45 minutes a day, and you will continue building throughout your high school career.
Your 5k PR will drop substantially once you begin to do this.
Man Overboard wrote:
In this particular instance I think the coach is right. A HS freshman should train for where the race times they realistically expect to hit in the near future, not based on past performance. For someone your age, I vote for "less mileage at a faster pace" for almost all of your runs. As others have said, if you want to throw in a long run every once in a while, by all means slow it down to 8 minute pace for that run. No problem.
