Sub 4 or Bust within 24 months - A Training Log (or 3:42)

the dream lives on...

highlights from the last year:

May to June 2019:

-- 8:14 3000m PB // 1:52 800m PB // 3:48 1500m PB

-- best 600 breakdowns of my life 2x600/400/300/200 @ (1:34--61--45--28) (1:32--60--43--28) [400jog/300jog/200jog] 800 jog between sets

July: easy buildup

August: Workouts, Long Runs, 70+ mpw

September to November: Average 84mpw over 10 week period (peak of 90)

-- 24:42 8k XC

-- Best long run of my life: 16mi in 1:30:45 (slightly rolling dirt roads)

-- best mile repeats session of my life: 6xmi (2mins rest) (5:00//4:57//4:51//4:49//4:44//4:41) on cinder trail

-- 14:38 5k PR (roads) on pretty flat, fast course (also certified, but I'l convinced it was short 50meters)

-- 19:12 4mi (roads) Thanksgiving

December: 3 weeks off (hip impingement??) -- whatever it was had me f***ed up. can you tell I may have pushed the envelope in the fall?

January 2020: easy buildup

February: 70mpw, long runs, easy workouts

March: Road 5k -- 15:12 (hilly, but not a gut-busting effort)

and then... COVID 19 Crashing down on my Sub-4 (or 3:42 1500) Season.

BUT... the dream MF lives on....

April:

-- Best K's of my life-- 6x1k on the track with 2 mins rest in 3:00, 2:56, 2:56, 2:54, 2:53, 2:48

-- Best Tempo of my life-- 5mi in 25:12 (track)

UPCOMING....

May 1st - 1200m TT SOLO

1500m/Mile TT attempts with some help from pacer friends TBD in MAY/JUNE (hopefully when social distancing restrictions ease and I don't have to sneak onto tracks anymore).

Frick yeah! Glad to see the Dream still lives! I really enjoy seeing your training!

great to see your progress and continued motivation despite covid!

Good stuff. Keep updating this regularly. It's been interesting to follow your progression

I find it interesting that despite shifting your focus entirely to aerobic development, you actually improved more (relatively) at the 800 than the 3k. I would've expected to see you run 8:0x before running 1:52 (given your 1:53/8:16 PBs and training). 3:48 shows good progress as well, it indicates that you have not reached your ceiling and sub-4:00 is possible, though it would seem that you'll have to train 1-2 years longer than you originally planned if you want to go sub-4:00.

Moby wrote:

UPCOMING....

May 1st - 1200m TT SOLO

3:03

Make a VLOG of the 1200 TT

KraftMacAndCheese wrote:

Ghnbbkhfh wrote:

But you can’t click on their name to link to all of their results if they’re unattached.

You’re saying you cross referenced every race on the dates that Moby posted to see if a person ran those times?

I combed every race result for the weekends he claimed to have run the times. I went through every race individually and looked at mile and 1k times. You don’t need to be able to click on the names. You just need to be able to see if someone unattached ran the time and see if they pop up in the following race they claim to have run. Not hard, just time consuming.

I would suggest that putting that type of effort in checking up on some random person from a minor forum in a niche sport that you don’t know nor will ever meet is surely a sign of some type of mental flaw. It’s borderline maniacal, and may suggest some type of underlying personality disorder.

freud dude wrote:

KraftMacAndCheese wrote:

I combed every race result for the weekends he claimed to have run the times. I went through every race individually and looked at mile and 1k times. You don’t need to be able to click on the names. You just need to be able to see if someone unattached ran the time and see if they pop up in the following race they claim to have run. Not hard, just time consuming.

I would suggest that putting that type of effort in checking up on some random person from a minor forum in a niche sport that you don’t know nor will ever meet is surely a sign of some type of mental flaw. It’s borderline maniacal, and may suggest some type of underlying personality disorder.

I mean it took all of 30 minutes to do while bored at work. Good to see Moby is back and lying again.

How do you know he is unattached? And TFFRS misses a lot of meets.

Also, he has a registered handle and posts on other threads. That makes it more credible IMO.

last week:

mon - 7 easy

tue - AM: 6x200 @ 30 (1min rest) + 12 laps in 16:00 + 6x200 @ 30 (1min rest) ... PM: 4mi easy [13 total]

wed - 9 easy

thu - 6 easy

fri - AM: 3mi easy .... PM: 1200m TT (2:59.6) + 4x(800, 200j, 200) in 2:30/48 - 2:26/49 - 2:24 - 48 - 2:20 - 48 [11 total)

sat - 6 easy

sun - 14 steady

Total: 66mi

Race Report: Out in 58 through 400, felt kind of quick to be honest. 1:58 at 800. So 58-61-60 for the splits. The third lap is deceptive though because I probably went 32-28 for the 200 splits (or at least 31-29). I was definitely starting to fall off hard. It’s a little discouraging, because I know I will have to come through 800 at that pace to have a shot at sub-4 — but have the strength not to fall off.

At the same time, it’s my first track race in like 10 months so I can’t be too pissed. Solo and as an opener. Haven’t done a lot of fast stuff either since I have been building strength. I am definitely in sub 3:50 1500m shape right now. How close I can get to 3:42 shape in the next 8-10 weeks is the question.

Since classes went remote for the spring for me, I’ve been back home with my parents - training/coaching my younger brother who’s a senior in HS. Since he had his track season cancelled, we came up with a good plan for another time trial. He’ll run 1600 and I’ll run 2000 - his PB is 4:18 and we think he’s got a good shot to break that. Will be a good chance to help each other out and I can get an over-distance effort in. He wants to run 4:15, so it’ll be a good confidence booster if i can run something around there and be able to close well off of that.

Hope ya’ll are finding small goals to go after as well to keep us sane. Best to everyone

With all that aerobic strength you've been building, it looks like some race specific workouts with lots of recovery would be beneficial.

the 1200 tt was pretty solid. I think that sets you up perfectly to go after a sub 4. Maybe later down the road, you have your brother take you through 800 in 1:59 and then let it rip.

It looks like you have done nothing to develop lactate tolerance. 4-5 good tolerance sessions spread out over 6-7 weeks would probably do you a great deal of good. You look super fit aerobically.

How comfortable is 60 second 400 pace for you? It doesn't look like you've done much faster than mile goal pace at all.

Nice Moby!

If you can do a 2:59 1200 solo you're def in better shape than just sub 3:50 .. with a pacer or someone to race against you probably could've done a 3:45! Good job

CoachB wrote:

It looks like you have done nothing to develop lactate tolerance. 4-5 good tolerance sessions spread out over 6-7 weeks would probably do you a great deal of good. You look super fit aerobically.

How comfortable is 60 second 400 pace for you? It doesn't look like you've done much faster than mile goal pace at all.

Thanks for this advice — you’re right. I haven’t done much below goal race pace and definitely no true speed endurance type stuff yet. I found that we tended to overdo that type of stuff in college and doing more than 2-3 real gut-busters tended to fry me. I think I’ll do a couple of them maybe in that 3-6week window before a peak attempt. For now, I’ve just gotten so much better on doing strength stuff — tempo/fartlek and Vo2 — that I have put off the mile-specific prep.

If anyone has any mile peak sessions to share, I am all ears. My favorite was always: 3x(600 @ race pace, 300jog, 300 accelerator) with 800jog between sets.

Just looked at this thread for the first time , this is the Coe/bra post all over again. I’ll say this he is the king of the trolls , he registers a ton of names that do nothing but cheer for him. Definitely fake

Week of 5/4

mon - 7 easy

tues - am: 600 (1:26) + 3mi (5:30/5:20/5:09) + 5x200 in 28-29 ... pm: 4mi (13)

wed - 11 easy

thu - 7 easy

fri - 1000 + 400 x 4 (2:30 rest between all) in 2:55/61 -- 2:53/61 -- 2:51/61 -- 2:51/60 ... pm: 4mi (11.5)

sat - 6.5 easy ... 4 easy

sun - 14 steady

total - 73

Week of 5/11

mon - 7 easy

tues - am: 4mi tempo (21:00) + 5x300 in 45 (90sec rest) ... pm: 4mi (14)

wed - 10 easy

thu - 7 easy

fri - 4 sets of 3x400 (60 sec between reps, 3min between sets) in 65/63/61 -- 64/62/60 -- 63/61/59 -- 62/60/58. Was within a second on every rep... pm: 4mi (11.5)

sat - 6.5 easy

sun - 10 easy

total: 66

Week of 5/18

mon - 5 easy

tues - am: 3mi shake ... pm: 2k TT (62-64-64-64-61) in 5:15. Afterwards: 2x2k in 6:22/6:20 + 2x200 in 30. (12)

Race went much better than the 1200 TT. Really felt like I was able to find a rhythm there whereas a couple weeks ago I never felt comfortable. 3k/5k type effort seems to really be my sweetspot right now, but the speed is coming around slowly. took my brother through 1600 (he ran 4:15), and was still able to close pretty well. i took us out, and then he led from about 300m - 900m. rest of it i was out front.

in the coming weeks, i really am going to try and sharpen. the plan is to race 3 times in June -- an under-distance (800 or 1000) which will force me to do some fast stuff. and then probably two shots at a mile in mid and late June.

Nice work. You are in very good shape.

Are those going to be races or time trials?