md006 wrote:
Great training log, I love it! Quick question: I have 18 weeks left before XC summer practices start. In the summer, I plan to increase my mileage to 40-60 (I know it's not that great, but it's really high for me). Should I focus on aerobic or speed work now until then? I'm running 25-30 miles per week currently, and have been for the past 8 weeks since XC. My 5K PR during my freshman year (gonna be a sophomore, btw) was 21:45, and my 1600m time trial last week was 6:35 off little to no speed training (none on the track).
As I said to you on your other thread, "just commit to run". Until you can do that, don't worry about schedules. You're asking about step 5 when you really need to worry about step 1 first.
I was looking for the other thread, to post some more advice for you, but can't seem to find it. Don't know why it would have been deleted, but it seems to be gone.
One thing you need to tell yourself right now is to think, "Too small to fail". If you can accept that some days your run might just be to go out and jog around the block, if you're "not feeling it on that day", then you're more likely to be able to get out the door in the first place.
Like I said in the other thread, that was my mindset during the summer going into my junior year of HS when I dropped over 2 minutes from my 5k PR, just get out the door every day, no matter what. That whole summer, I never had a plan. Some days I'd just know I was going to be able to go out and run a solid 7-8 miles. Other days, I'd start off and figure it out as I went, and still other days, I did almost nothing.
Habits take a long time to form, if they are habits that cause discomfort. It's easy to form habits that are fun.....video games, social media, tik-tok, fast food, sweets.....All of these things are easy and have an immediate reward. Creating a running habit can take months, if not years.
Try this, increase the difficulty of doing the things you like but know you need to do less of and decrease the mental resistance to running. Take one thing that you really like to do (check social media?) and tell yourself that you won't do it until you've run for the day. Or, tell yourself you won't play video games until you've run. Reward yourself when you've achieved streaks of running every day. 1 week? give yourself a small reward, 1 month.....? 100 days?
As far as a schedule, here you go:
1: Run every day (or 6 days a week) no matter what!
2: Try to do something hard at least once a week. For now, just go hard when the mood strikes you. On a hilly run? try running some of the uphills fast. Just finished an easy run? see how fast you can run around your block..... Just do those things when you feel the urge.
3: As you get fitter, don't be afraid to try longer efforts. But don't force the issue. You said you have 18 weeks until organized summer workouts start. You can be totally unstructured for those 18 weeks and will be light years ahead of where you'd be if you made some sort of arbitrary schedule for yourself that you don't end up keeping.
Cole: No update for this week?