What did you do for your Running breakthrough

zone wrote:

what habits/training did you apply to your routine that lead to a breakthrough year in running?

For me, flying 30s every week or 60m sprints and making my tempo runs longer. (A little slower pace as I increased distance but instead of 3-4 miles I did 5-6.) sometimes I felt like I went too hard as well on the tempos when they were 3 miles.

Went from a 58 4x400 to a 52 and a 4:57 to a 4:38 1600 my junior year of HS. Also increased vertical and could grab rim. (Grew 4 inches this year however which definitely helped)

Sounds like puberty is what caused your breakthrough... not your 2 miles extra of tempo

Loads of mileage.

In college it was embracing Jack Daniels and his work on tempo runs and cruise intervals etc..

Later when I got into marathons it was the mid-week semi-long run. Before I was following the typical long run on the weekend but the rest of was pretty lame, then I added a midweek 12-15M run and made a big jump in my performance.

NotPC wrote:

In college it was embracing Jack Daniels and his work on tempo runs and cruise intervals etc..

Later when I got into marathons it was the mid-week semi-long run. Before I was following the typical long run on the weekend but the rest of was pretty lame, then I added a midweek 12-15M run and made a big jump in my performance.

Ditto. Daniels Marathon Plan A from the 2nd edition. I was floundering until I found the training structure that made sense to me. It just clicked with me. Dropped my marathon PR from 3:28 to 3:13 in one training cycle (in my late 40s at the time).

zone wrote:

what habits/training did you apply to your routine that lead to a breakthrough year in running?

For me, flying 30s every week or 60m sprints and making my tempo runs longer. (A little slower pace as I increased distance but instead of 3-4 miles I did 5-6.) sometimes I felt like I went too hard as well on the tempos when they were 3 miles.

Went from a 58 4x400 to a 52 and a 4:57 to a 4:38 1600 my junior year of HS. Also increased vertical and could grab rim. (Grew 4 inches this year however which definitely helped)

I trained like an SOB

OLD SMTC SOB wrote:

zone wrote:

what habits/training did you apply to your routine that lead to a breakthrough year in running?

For me, flying 30s every week or 60m sprints and making my tempo runs longer. (A little slower pace as I increased distance but instead of 3-4 miles I did 5-6.) sometimes I felt like I went too hard as well on the tempos when they were 3 miles.

Went from a 58 4x400 to a 52 and a 4:57 to a 4:38 1600 my junior year of HS. Also increased vertical and could grab rim. (Grew 4 inches this year however which definitely helped)

I trained like an SOB

Using a modified Igloi method.

OLD SMTC SOB wrote:

OLD SMTC SOB wrote:

I trained like an SOB

Using a modified Igloi method.

As prescribed by my coach, who had trained under Igloi.

I began implementing the wisdom of my savior Mike Rossi and began to cleverly cut the coarse. My finish times/places drastically improved!!

epo

Truly wanting to improve and race at 110%.

Then when I started stinking in college, it was because deep down (should've recognized it earlier) I didn't care about running fast anymore. The world is a bigger place than just a track. My coach also was terrible, so that didn't help.

I think the mentality is number one. And number two is not overdoing it. Just train, rest, save the gusto for the race.

In middle school and high school, it was pretty simple. I ran in the summer and winter before with competitive season started. Eventually, I added road races to the mix, which is a good way to get in some faster runs and stay competitive. There were a lot less road races back then, so there usually was pretty good competition.

I didn’t run in college, and as an adult I’ve been nothing more than a local road race hero. But what’s helped me recently is just running consistently, long tempo runs or intervals, just getting in the miles, and staying fresh with a race or two per month. Running as an adult can be so much more fun because there isn’t so much pressure and your identity isn’t wrapped up in it.

Doing all the "little" things:

Remembering the purpose of all my runs. If it was an easy recovery day, I did what I needed to let my body recover. If it was a v02 workout, a tempo, or anything really, I would run the prescribed paces as opposed to trying to run them as hard as possible. (Unless of course that is what the workout called for). This let me really really benefit all the systems I was trying to better more optimally. In addition, I started trying to run my runs fast, but SMOOTH. Actively though about making sure I was running as relaxed as possible so I could practice running fast with good form and not burn energy tensing up.

Removing junk food, snacks, and food just for the sake of eating. Even if it only cuts out 100 calories a day, over the course of a few months you lose a few lbs.

Going to bed earlier and getting 8+ hours a night of sleep (recovery).

Mentally just letting myself enjoying the process, and trying to be better than I was yesterday, and not comparing myself to others. Remind yourself it is a process and sometimes you may not see the fruits of your labor for a year. Consistency is key.

And of course, increasing my mileage.

Added a fairly short morning run on most days, so adding 15 to (maybe) 20 miles per week.

So easy, it felt like stealing.

lease wrote:

Added a fairly short morning run on most days, so adding 15 to (maybe) 20 miles per week.

So easy, it felt like stealing.

Very true. You don't even have to do doubles every day.

Started drinking.

Seriously....I couldn’t make I college XC team. Took up drinking my sophomore year and I dropped 90 seconds off my 8k....went to nationals.

Put on about 15 lbs. Dropped 25 seconds in the 3200 and 10 in the 1600m. Types of workouts and mileage remained similar, but I had the energy to run faster and stopped getting hurt/sick. Strong not skinny.

I quit drinking. I took an entire summer off and just logged miles and ran a weekly tempo. Lost 15 pounds. PRd at 8k by 70 seconds in my first race back.

For me it was the mentality piece. I’d done decent training for a while that I didn’t really modify but then one day my coach told me to pretend I was on a loop ( we couldn’t stray far from campus so we often did distance as loops of the school).

I was certainly comfortable and accustomed to running loops. Coupled with this he told me to just let someone else do the work for once and truly hang on.

First implementation of this I went from 9:57 to 9:44. Next race was a 9:31. The fitness was there the whole time, but I learned to relax (though still not enough) and have the correct type of confidence.

As far as a training tool, it was always important for me to keep up with speedwork, and tapers were never very effective for me (which makes sense when mileage is never really over 40).

Probably worth noting that those times are for the 3200. My best ever 5k was a similar brain off, follow and hang.