To Sub-5 1600, Sub-17 5000, and Beyond!

Just noticed the part of your post about stride length. I agree, it's very interesting. IIRC there's some evidence that trying to force your form to be "better" can be useless because your body naturally self-selects the ideal form. There's also evidence to the contrary though. Most likely it's not a black and white issue.

I'm just theorizing here but I think strengthening muscles to allow for a more efficient form is possible though. (For example, if you have weak hips then it might be more efficient to put more stress on your knees, but if you strengthen your hips then the new "most efficient" form can be better than the old "most efficient" form— again, I'm just thinking here, I don't have studies to back this up)

12/31/16 - Happy New Years Eve/New Year!

AM: 2 mi E

Im at 5:47 0mpw 6ft1 165lbs but that was on grass i could probably beat you in a race tho

01/01/16 - Happy New Year!

AM: 3mi E

XT: 30 min bike

01/02/16

PM: 3mi E + 4 ST

01/03/16

AM: 2mi E + 5x250m (51sec) w/250m r + 1mi E

XT: weight routine

I just did the reps for fun, kinda like a fartlek.

01/04/16

AM: 4mi E + 5 ST

"frustrated runner," have you been doing any running or biking lately?

I was really tired on Sunday (from my workouts, not New Years' lol) so I decided not to do my workouts for that day. I did go rock climbing though. On Monday my arms were killing me haha. I'm thinking about making that a weekly thing, could use a little arm strength.

I was traveling the past two days and I'm leaving again today for two more, so I probably won't be training seriously again until Saturday. I ran a little on a treadmill and I'll probably do that again today. Personally I hate treadmills because I feel like I'm going to fall off at about 1:30 slower than my normal slow pace haha. I'll get a ton of walking in though, which usually hurts so maybe it's making me stronger somehow? xD

I'm a fan of training hard and then taking a couple days off, personally. Last year over spring break I was struggling through the track workouts I planned, coming in too slow, and ended up taking 3 days off in a row. My first track workout back I was hitting faster times and it felt a lot easier. Obviously there are a ton of variables there but I've heard of other people having similar experiences.

Next week I'll start having practice with my team so I won't have total control anymore. I'll probably bike for about an hour a week and try to run a little extra during practice.

How's your training going?

Yes, sometimes it can be hard/next to impossible to get in much training while away traveling. Just happened to me a couple weeks ago.

I've never run on a treadmill, but my 6 mile run today at 5°F (w/ snow) made me wish just a little for a treadmill. xD

I too have heard that having a few days between quality days can be good, or two immediate back to back hard days. In my experience, I can sometimes feel worse two days after a hard workout versus the next day. For example, something like this could be done with 3 quality (1 not so hard) sessions a week:

--Mon: easy

--Tue: easy

--Wed: hard (intervals...tempo...etc)

--Thu: hard

--Fri: easy

--Sat: easy

--Sun: long run

Good luck with outdoor and your training! Do you have any goals? 6:00 1600?

Yikes, that's cold!

In the 1600 I think I'll most likely break 6:00 but probably not 5:50 (and if I do, barely), so I guess 5:50s? 5:47-5:57 is my prediction for this season.

In the 800 I'm thinking 2:32-2:38, mid 2:30s basically. I'd like to break 2:30 next year, which is probably realistic if I'm running around 2:32, probably not if I'm running around 2:38. For the 3200 I don't really know, probably high 12s or low 13s? Most of my training is 8/16 oriented and usually when I run the 32 it'll be after running the 16 and 8 so I probably won't run as fast as a 5:47-5:57 mile predicts.

I think I'm going to run a 5k the week after track season ends. I know that sounds dumb but if I have the compartment syndrome surgery over summer then I'll have no base for XC and I'll probably be faster at the end of track than XC.

Also I'm dying to get my 5k down to where it should be, since it's way slower than my mile. I haven't even broken 25 in the 5k (injured both seasons), but I'm aiming for 21-ish in May. Basically I'm going to break 6 in the mile before 25 in the 5k haha.

What about you? I know your goals are sub-17 and sub-5 obviously, but any goals in the 8, 32, etc.? Are you more the 8/16 type of 16/32 type?

From now on I'm only going to post the "important" (quality) workouts and the total cross training of the week and then at the end of the week post them all together with the total mileage. Below is last week.

Week 2 (01/02/17-01/08/17) - 25 miles

Q1: 2mi E + 5x250m (51sec) w/250m r + 1mi E

Q2: 6mi L (1.5K @ ~7:00/mi)

XT: 50min BIKE + 3xWEIGHT ROUTINE

And now on to today's quality workout... it was snowing like crazy.

01/10/17

AM: 7 LP (L progressive) (9:16 8:55 8:45 8:41 8:25 7:26 6:23)

Hey FR! Sorry, been away from the computer the last couple days.

The 5k after track sounds like a good idea in your case. A few days before that race, you could do an easy workout to familiarize yourself with your target pace (21:30... etc)

Honestly, about the 8/16/32 question, I've never run in track, or cross country, or let alone run a single race. I've been doing most everything by myself. Not doing track this spring, hopefully doing XC in fall. So all my prs are from TTs by my lonesome. Don't ask why. :)

At the start of XC there is a 2 mile TT/race usually. I'd like to get under 11:00 atleast (more like 10:35-45). But maybe I'm being too optimistic. Oh well... better than shooting too low. :)

When does track start for you?

Yeah, I'm a big fan of what I call "pace checks"— running like 200-400m at goal pace focusing on accuracy (shouldn't feel hard). Without practice I'm terrible at knowing my pace, but if I practice I can hit 400s exactly on pace.

Wow, I couldn't train alone for nearly that long. Another reason I'd do surgery over summer if I get the CS surgery: I won't have to run much over summer lol. And by the time I can run I'm sure I'll really want to.

I'm obviously no expert but sub-11 sounds reasonable. I mean, IMHO you can definitely run those times, but you don't want to peak too early of course. Definitely know what you mean about trying to come up with realistic goals— I spend waaaay too much time trying to predict what I'll run.

Practice started this week for me, and races start in March. We're doing a time trial on Thursday and I'll probably be pretty slow, but I think I can get like 45 seconds off that time by May, maybe more. Last year I brought my time down by more than a minute from January to May so I'm optimistic. Obviously improvement isn't linear and that's not happening this year (I wish!) but it's safe to say I can improve by a lot. And then I can go adjust all my predictions based on the time trial xD

I hope your training is going well!

Week 3 (01/09/17-01/15/17) - 24 miles

Monday: 4mi E

Tuesday: 7mi LP (L progressive) (9:16 8:55 8:45 8:41 8:25 7:26 6:23)

Wednesday: 4mi E

Thursday: 4mi E + 8 ST

Friday: 2mi E

Saturday: 3mi E

Sunday: OFF

XT: 30min bike + 1xWEIGHT ROUTINE

At Week 5, I'll try to raise my mileage to 30-31 and hold there for a while (~4wks). Nothing written in stone though, just trying to stay away from injury.

F.R., how did your time trial on Thursday go?

The time trial got canceled due to weather, I think I might do an all-comers meet this month though.

30 miles a week seems pretty reasonable for you, the days where you're running 2-3 miles can't take you very long so it doesn't seem too difficult to make it much longer, although obviously you want to be cautious with injuries.

I'm definitely far from an expert so take this with a grain of salt, but I wonder if your mileage distribution could be more efficient. I would think you'd want to have a long run separate from the progression run. Or maybe have only the last few miles be a progression run, not the whole thing. I don't know exactly how to calculate it but I've read that you want your day-to-day variance to be about 20% (could be wrong though).

01/17/17

AM: 7mi Lp (L progression) (9:12 8:46 8:43 7:55 7:33 7:11 6:43)

target -> (-- 9:00 8:30 8:00 7:30 7:00 --)

FR, I'm planning on jumping up to 30 miles next week and then sticking with that for a while (at least 4 weeks) before moving up anymore. I'm really trying to be cautious of messing up again. I get the idea of an even mileage distribution "philosophy", but right before my injury most of the days were pretty much the same (same distance, same course, and same (or faster) time). Also, in these last two Lp runs, the first 4-6 miles are well within my normal easy pace. They're really great aerobic workouts. It's easier to distribute miles around when you have more of them. (right now I feel like I don't have enough miles to work with... which is a good sign I guess)

Good luck with that meet if you decide on it. How do you go about finding all-comers meets?

I understand, hope I didn't come off as critical or anything— you know what works for you better than anybody else. I definitely see what you mean about mileage distribution being difficult when you're not running a lot.

On a related note, I was just looking at another training theory study that I found interesting. One group did a lot of explosive training and the other had the same volume but with a higher emphasis on circuit training and barely any explosive training. The circuit training group improved ther VO2 max but saw no significant change in 5k times, while the explosive group saw a decrease in VO2 max but 5k times improved.

http://m.jap.physiology.org/content/86/5/1527.long?view=long&pmid=10233114

Thanks, I just looked up "all comers meets (county where I live)". I think it's probably classified as a winter track meet since it's January. Lately I've been warming up much faster than I used to (7:40 pace, 0.75 mi) and it doesn't feel that difficult, so I'm hoping that's a sign that my fitness has improved. Considering I ran 7:30 for a hard-effort mile almost a year ago, I feel pretty good about that haha.

01/20/17AM: 2mi E + 7x(250m on + 250m off) easy fartlek + 7x30-50m (short) sprints + 1mi E

Hey FR!

Didn't take your previous post as being critical at all.

Those study statistics are quite interesting. Kinda nudged me to do those sprints today. I'm going to try to add more sprints, drills, hill bounding, and hill sprints to my regular schedule, but right now there is a lot of snow on the ground in most (all) hill areas so I can't do hill stuff without tearing myself up. :)

I thought it was funny how in the study they said they tested "elite" male xc runners... who had a 5k at around ~18:00. I'm sure if the study was done on true elites (sub-13:30 male), the results wouldn't be hardly as noticeable probably. But luckily for most of us... we are there yet. :)

That's a fast warmup! I'm sluggish and usually start my warmup at 9:00 or slower.

I run my easy runs super slow so it balances out haha, probably shouldn't have run quite that fast but it was fun.

Earlier this week I did a "pace practice" workout. My reasoning is that because it's been shown running at the same pace over and over again makes you more efficient, practicing running at those paces regularly will improve my efficiency in the long run. So I ran 3x300 then 3x200 at 64-66 for the 300s and 41-43 for the 200s. Then I ran 3x150 at about 28. I took really long recoveries because my goal was to run at the right paces, not to run a hard workout.

Ugh, hills. Hate them. We did a run that was basically 1.5 miles uphill and 1.5 downhill this week and my foot went numb twice xD

I didn't notice that they referred to the runners as "elite" in the study lol. There's another one that gave specific exercise directions, was much less time consuming, used faster runners, and achieved similar results. Still definitely not elite but better than an 18 minute 5k. I'd also like to see a similar study conducted on more elite runners.

"They had a minimum of 2 years of competitive experience at national and international level, with personal best times that ranged from 3:50 and 4:27 (minutes:seconds) at the 1500 m (men and women, respectively) to 2:32 and 2:52 (hours:minutes) at the Marathon (men and women, respectively)."

After 6 weeks of 2x30 min sessions of plyometrics, they improved in a 2.4 km time trial by an average of 3.9% (vs 1.3% for the group that didn't do the exercises). So the plyometrics improved times by 2.6%, which essentially translates to a 7-10 second/mile improvement compared to if they hadn't done it.

theres no way, nobody has ever prd by 36 seconds. i would try a different sport, like wood wheedling. there might be a chance though. if you increase your mileage to the triple digits, there is a chance you could run 4:59.99, but you would be a freak human. you would have broken 5, but youll be shunned forever by society and risk living alone for the rest of your days.