I am trying to break 6 in the mile, my 300 reps are around 70 sec (give or take 2 sec) and my 400s are around 1:35 ish. I am talking about in terms of getting a ballpark estimate of my pace (to know what to aim for next race) and getting a quality workout (the sort of quality you cant really get by doing a time trial), are these workouts equal? They feel around the same level of difficulty.
Alternate it each week, one week do some 800m reps, next week do some 200m reps, than another week do some 600m reps than other week do some 300m reps and another week do some 400m reps. Just plot it out to do it in a progressive way to peak for your race.
Yeah this is pretty much what I am doing right now, I race in March. I want sub 6 by then, I might not be there yet at the moment. I only do mile pace repeats once a week because they are taxing. 8-12 x 200s (38-42 sec) and 4-6 x 800s (6:50-7:10 pace) aren’t so bad so I do them in the same week (3 days apart).
Sub 6 hopeful wrote:
Yeah this is pretty much what I am doing right now, I race in March. I want sub 6 by then, I might not be there yet at the moment. I only do mile pace repeats once a week because they are taxing. 8-12 x 200s (38-42 sec) and 4-6 x 800s (6:50-7:10 pace) aren’t so bad so I do them in the same week (3 days apart).
If your peak race is in March. Right now focus on tempo runs, and longer intervals(think 1200m-2000m x 5 reps or so w/ 2 minute rest) and short hill sprints / strides for leg turnover. Than starting around late January/early February start doing harder shorter reps.
Yeah at least ai have quite a while to work on this, I feel like I’m in okay ish shape but I know I’m still not fast. I’m a HS girl by the way. I spent the last few months upping my milage from 10mpw (which was just intervals for conditioning for another sport and no milage) to 30 mpw which I do at 9:30 easy pace so I have built up a mini base. I do 40 minute-ish runs most days a week, two workouts (usually 400s and 800s) and a long run of 7-10 miles.
So a typical week looks like this
Mon - 4.5 miles easy
Tue- 0.5 mile warm up then 10 x 300m OR 400m @ 6-6:30 pace (60 sec rest) 0.5 mile jog cool down
Wed- 5 miles easy
Thurs- 0.5 mile warm up then 8 x 800m (7:30 pace working down to 6:40 pace) 60-90 sec rest
Fri- 4 miles easy
Sat- off or cross train on bike
Sun- 9 mile long run
Should I keep upping my milage to 40 mpw? (I still have time to build more of a base I think) and at the same time swap those 800s for 1200s and 1600s? I am aerobically weak and my 5k is dismal so if I did mile repeats tomorrow I could probably manage 5 x 1 mile at 7:40 pace and it would not feel easy.
They are pretty similar workouts. One thing I will say is that 300s take less out of you than 400s. for example, if you ran 12x300 on a wednesday and then raced on a saturday, you would probably fare slightly better than if you had done 12x400, while reaping a similar benefit. Of course, you should vary your workouts.
To be honest with you the 300s feel just as hard. The last 400 I am normally hanging out my butt, I felt the same way on my 12th 300.
I do like to do these very challenging workouts once a week, I think it keeps me feeling confident, accomplished and helps me maintain and build upon my fitness better. I do agree that maybe I should swap those 800s for longer and more aerobic repeats. I’m going to give 1200s a try on wednesday. Maybe try 6-8 of them and see what sort of pace I can hold (comfortably hard). If I had to guess my current 5k shape I would definitely say under 24 but not by much so I guess it would be a good idea to try these 1200s at 7:35 pace ish).
;lkfjsf wrote:
They are pretty similar workouts. One thing I will say is that 300s take less out of you than 400s. for example, if you ran 12x300 on a wednesday and then raced on a saturday, you would probably fare slightly better than if you had done 12x400, while reaping a similar benefit. Of course, you should vary your workouts.
This is what I did with my 6 minute mile HS girls.