winnr1 wrote:
Lastly, best of luck in your journey top the 2024 trials! Your high school progression is absurd and I hope you get the OT standard (here's also to hoping it doesn't change until then). What have you run/what is your current training like? I'm pretty interested to see what you've been doing.
Thanks
So I started running in 11th grade, and ran 4:48 in the first mile race I ran in, and 2:01 in the first 800m event I ran in. Prior to this, I was a soccer player. In my 2nd track season, I ended with PRs of 50.1 (400m), 1:54.0 (800m) and 4:26 (1600m). This was good enough to get me a walk-on spot in college.
In college, I ran for 2 years with the following PRs on 50-60 mpw, focused again mostly on middle distance:
800m: 1:52.1
1000m: 2:24
1500m: 3:53 (ran on injured achilles, had a lot left aerobically).
5k: 15:15 (ran for fun the year after quitting the team on about 40 mpw).
Half Marathon: 1:10 (also for fun after quitting the team at 40 mpw).
Fast forward 10 years and I've started running again, building slowly. Last year I ran 30 mpw and ran 18:30 in the 5k and 2:59 in the marathon. This year, I built up to 40 mpw and ran 16:47 in the 5k and 2:50 at Boston in the first half of the year. I'm hoping to break 16 in the 5k and run 4:35 in a mile TT by the end of the year.
I'm a big fan of Daniel's Running Formula and every 6 months or so I plan to up the miles by 10 mpw and go through a 24-week cycle, changing focus between base, repetition, interval, and theshold training. The biggest struggle for me at this point is finding the time/energy to train with two small children at home and a somewhat demanding job (working 12 hour shift on nights this week).
With all that said, overall I've been really encouraged by the way my body is responding to training, even on 4-5 hours of sleep. I've never run more than 60 mpw, so I'm excited to see what could be possible at 80 or even 90 mpw. It may be physically impossible for me to run 2:19 in the marathon (or any other OTQ). But, unless I give myself a fair shot at building mileage, I'll never know.