5:08 for 1 mile tt on Monday. 35:08 for 6 mile tempo on Friday. Predict season

If your coaching is decent...

4:27 for 1600

10:17 for 3200

35:08 shows some good strength for a HS runner. I think it's interesting to do a 1 mile time trial on a slow patch of the XC course. The kid will probably run well at the mile, 3k, and 5k. Seems to have some wheels going out in 31 and some strength. On a track see if the kid can run 4:4x and go from there.

NERunner053 wrote:

35:08 shows some good strength for a HS runner. I think it's interesting to do a 1 mile time trial on a slow patch of the XC course. The kid will probably run well at the mile, 3k, and 5k. Seems to have some wheels going out in 31 and some strength. On a track see if the kid can run 4:4x and go from there.

Yeah, sub 4:50 should happen pretty soon. I asked him what he thought he could do for 3200 right now and he said 10:35, which is right about what I had in mind. First race is in 2 weeks. He wants to run the mile, which I think is a good idea. I'll probably enter him with his 5:08 so that he gets in a softer heat. If he was experienced, I'd enter a 4:50 as a seed time, but for his first race ever on the track, I'd rather see him run up front and get some confidence.

The only other real option for the time trial was on the roads. To give you an idea of the winding ness of the cc course, I've got 1 mile tucked into a 9 acre arboretum behind the school. only about 60m of trail get used twice.

I agree with your instinct to not enter him too fast, but using the time trial from a slow section of the xc course seems too conservative. What if he ends up in a heat where he is the fastest seed? I would put him at 5 flat, since surely he can run at least that increases his chances of having somebody to run with while still a pretty low risk of being in over his head.

"Tempo" is a bit vague, just means "not all out"? When I ran 10:18/4:40 as a Masters runner, I could only run 36:00 six-mile on a track as a hard solo (felt "all-out", my 10K race PR was 34:52). If your kid ran that six mile on the postage-stamp XC, he should destroy 10:20, 10:10 at minimum. And that is right now, no seasonal progression. But I realize that young kid have issues with race pressure and pacing. That is where your coaching will make a difference.

Frankly the paces and supposed efforts for the 1 mile and 6 mile don't add up. The 6 mile TT in 35:08 was at 5:51 pace. 10k equivalent for 5:08 is 36:49 (5:54 pace). Either the mile was a tempo effort or the 6 mile was nearly all out. What was the course for the 6M like? Also XC or roads? That could explain why these two efforts and paces aren't adding up.

I bring this up because i find it difficult to read into either monday or friday. Doing the TT on a XC course adds in a lot of unknowns. Everyone responds very differently to XC courses depending on mechanics and body type. Seems like a poor strategy for measuring fitness. Also did you wheel out the first 200m of the course?

Same goes for the "tempo." Everyone has their own definition of tempo effort, it's very subjective. Race times dictate tempo paces, but tempo paces don't determine race times. Unless you had a heart rate monitor strapped to the kid its tough to tell if he was at 80% 90% or 99% and just claimed it was "easy".

The 6 mile tempo effort was on the banks of an irrigation canal that runs near our school. I have marks painted every 1/2 mile on the concrete on the opposite side from where the kids run, so they can get their splits pretty easily. That course is definately not slow (except for a major road crossing just past the 1.5 mile mark). He said the first 2 miles were too hard and that's why he suffered a little in the middle, but since he said the last mile was really easy, my guess is that he slowed a bit much in the middle.

The 1 mile course is very slow, he was alone, and went out too fast. He even kind of spaced out and briefly took a wrong turn about 500m into the trial.

That makes more sense. I bet he's in low 4:50 shape already. He sounds strong for a HSer. I give him 4:30-4:35 by season's end. Good luck!

Dril wrote:

That makes more sense. I bet he's in low 4:50 shape already. He sounds strong for a HSer. I give him 4:30-4:35 by season's end. Good luck!

That would be great! He was only 17:42 on our league finals course (which is 3.19 miles) for cross. Going into the season, I was kind of thinking that getting under 4:50 would be a good season goal. I guess the lonely winter running grind might pay off.

Who knew?

CoachB wrote:

[quote]Dril wrote:

I guess the lonely winter running grind might pay off.

Who knew?

It always does! Good luck to you and your athlete! He sounds like a fine lad to mentor. He knows the feeling of hammering alone in the raw winter wind with only the sound of his feet dancing with the puddles and pavement. He'll toe a May starting line knowing that he has already gained an edge against his competitors who settled on those iron grey days of the coldest months. God speed!

Update:

Some of my kids opened their season with a low key distance carnival.

This particular kid ran a 5:01 then came back with a 2:14. He led the mile fairly early on, but didn't drop the hammer and try to break away. Ended up getting out-kicked. 60 seconds after the race, he wasn't really even tired. I told him to just go out really hard in the 800 and not worry about pacing. He went 63.x then 70.x. Much better race.

It was his first high school track meet ever and he found out that he can run 5 flat pretty easily. Next time, I'll try to get him into a faster race.

Run him in the 2-mile.

I’m just curious, but what did you have him do this winter? He seems to be doing really well off of whatever program you have him on.

YMMV wrote:

Run him in the 2-mile.

That’s the plan. I was kind of kicking myself for not putting him in the 3200 last night. There was a nice little pack rolling along at about 10:35 pace. Would have been perfect for him. His next race will be a 3200.

He really wanted to try the mile. He has run a number of 2 miles as a jv kid in cross, so I put him in the mile then doubled back in the 800 for a little speed.

We haven’t done anything fast yet. Even when we do 200s it’s at goal mile pace, so going out in 63 was a shock to the system, but he held on pretty well

NWARunner wrote:

I’m just curious, but what did you have him do this winter? He seems to be doing really well off of whatever program you have him on.

Mostly easy mileage. One day of steady state, one day of easy run followed by 8-10 x 200 at about mile pace with 200 jog recovery. One day long. That was the off season.

Since we’ve started official practice, He’s been adding in stuff like 1200 @ cv followed by 800 @ 5k pace. X 3 sets. And we’ve done a few 400s at current mile pace (so for him like 76-77).

He actually did 2x800 @ 3200 pace then 8x400@ mile pace 2 days before the meet. That could explain his lack of kick last night.

Workouts this past week (no races)

M: 7 miles tempo, don't know time

T: Easy

W: 8 x 400 @ about 3200 pace (77-78 average) with 30 sec recovery + 5 x faster than mile pace 90 seconds recovery (49,50,48,47,46). This was first workout on an actual track. Kids were encouraged to let it rip on the 300s.

Th: 30 min easy

F: 5 miles easy + 6 x 200 smooth and relaxed with 200 jog

S: 8 miles easy.

Sun: Off.

Not sure what I'm going to have him run this week. I'm intrigued by the potential in an 800, but want to see him in a good 3200 and this week will be a good opportunity to get in and race against a bunch of guys that will likely be at his level.

This week in review

Mon: Easy, 40 ish minutes, kind of sick

Tue: 6 x 1200 @ about 4:25, 2 min recovery (still fighting cold, was supposed to be closer to 4:15)

Wed: 5.5 miles easy + strides and fitness circuit

Thu: 3 miles easy + 6 x 200 @ mile pace, full recovery

Fri: Raced 3200 @ 10:44

Not bad for being under the weather for most of the week.

Overall, Friday's meet was pretty good for us. We've had a lot of kids under the weather or missing for different reasons (One of my top girls just had her wisdom teeth out). The meet last night was for all the teams in our county, each team got to enter their top 2 kids per event. The meet is kind of a nice early season, semi big meet.

In the 1600, 3 out of my 4 entries hit PRs (the girl with the wisdom teeth ran pretty strong but didn't PR, she's been back for only about 10 days).

In the 800, Wisdom Tooth Girl PRed and my top girl was pretty dead. She was out from school all of last week being sick. This week she was slated to run in the 1600 and 800, but we dropped the 16. She's feeling well now, but had been sick for 6 days the previous week. I had a hurdler boy run the 800 for the first time and he went 2:16. Not awesomely great, but he fought the whole way.

3200, the boy that this thread was about was a little tentative. There was a faster pack not too far ahead of him early on where the guys ended up low to mid 10:30s. I think he could have hung with that pack. The group he was with slowed down in mile 2 and my guy lost some time before he decided to leave that group. His splits overall were 5:21/5:23 though. It was his first 2 mile, so he was a little unsure of how hard he could push in the middle. My other boy in the race PRed by 10 seconds. He was only an 11:25 guy last year and this year has gone 11:13 and now 11:03. My girls both opened up the season by running some of their top times. Both of my girls in the 32 already had pretty good times, so I wasn't expecting a PR last night, but my top girl ran 11:55 which, I believe was her 3rd best time and my other girl went 12:04, which was her second best and only 2 seconds from her PR.

We still haven't done anything race specific yet. The other distance coach and I are going to try and hold off on race specific training for as long as possible. After all, if they are racing once every 2 weeks during March, that's probably enough specific stuff for now.

Pretty good meet last night. Our league does a relays meet before outdoor dual meets start. The kid ran the 800 leg on a DMR and ran on a 4x800.

On the DMR, he split a 2:13 then he came back a couple of hours later with a 2:11. Both efforts were in pretty bad weather. Raining on the first one and cold and windy by the second one.

He's entered in a decent but not super fast invitational on Friday. There should be a big group of guys in the 10:20 ish range. I'm going to encourage him to go with that pack

The meets are his only hard efforts for the week. The week has looked like this so far.

Mon: 5 miles easy + 6 x 200 @ mile race pace with 200 easy jog recovery

Tue: Meet - 2 x 800

Wed: 5.5 miles easy + 6 x 80m stride + fitness center circuit

Th: Probably something pretty easy

F: 3200m race

S: Probably around an hour easy.

S: Probably a day off.