dritius wrote:
Was curious if there were any active elite runners on LR.
If you have gone sub 4, 4:00.xx, or 4:0x before, what was your:
progression over the years? (In other distances,too.)
workouts that helped you a lot physically and mentally?
injuries/ adversities?
cross training and lifting?
racing strategy?
Ran 3'40 for 1500m, so maybe 3'58 or so for a full mile? I'm not sure about the conversion.
At 18 years old, I'd done 3'59. Then 3'55, 3'49, 3'45, 3'42 in the proceeding years. I had done a 1'54 the same season as the 3'59, but I actually don't think I got world's better in the 800m. I think I ran a 1'51 or so early in the same season as the 3'40. But by that point, I rarely ran the event - may have been able to go under 1'50. The bigger jump was in my endurance -- 15'40 or so for 5000m at 18 y/o until 13'49 at 23.
Was able to stay healthy, and that is how the big jumps occur each year. You have to run enough to improve, but run little enough to stay healthy. You have to know your body. Each year you should make a jump in volume or intensity, but be very careful about doing both at the same time. From age 14-20 I was raising volume each year, but workouts and intensity was only getting incrementally harder. At 20 or 21 years old, I was running 140+/- km per week in off season. Then next few years until the 3'40, that volume stayed the same, but I ran more intense workouts. For me at that point, I don't think I would have handled 160km/week with big workouts and really intense sessions. It is a tradeoff with injury.
Most important work was longer strength sessions; and closer to the season, these finish with race pace work.
Ex: 30min fartlek (3'13-3'15/km average) + 1-2min hill repeats and/or 4-6x300m at 1500m pace.
For racing, I think shorter reps at 1500m pace with short rest are fine for early season, and medium-long reps with relatively short rest at 3000m/5000m pace are really helpful as well. But you have to have a few really tough sessions of long reps at 1500m pace with a lot rest.
Ex: -- 1200 in 3'00-3'03 + Full Rest + 400 in 58 + 6’ rest + 600 in 1'27
-- 3 x 600 in 1'28 + 4' rest + 800 @ 1'58 + 6' rest + 2 x 400 in 58
Biggest adversity is being patient. Sometimes you will be really tired from the volume. Sometimes you will feel like you aren't peaking or really sharp at the right time. If you trained like I did, you may lose a lot of races in your early season - but always trust that you will come around when it matters. If you time it right and have patience, you will beat the guys in the big races who beat you in the start of the season. No big jumps each year or drastic decisions - just chip away a little bit each day/week/month/year. It'll come eventually.