quest to sub 16:30 : training log

I like that. Yeah I’m feeling good, I finally went to the doctors and my cough is now gone. I plan going out at 5:12ish and trying to hold that through the 2 mile, then grit it out the last 1.1.

how did it go?

When I made this thread, I had two main goals for the season, to one break 16:30 - which I accomplished with a time of 16:24.5, and to secondly qualify for state - which I did. Going to go into depth about my season below, enjoy.

If you've been following this thread you've probably seen that I am pretty committed, and I think that commitment paid off. I had a great first ever year of XC, although I can say that track may be more of my calling. I come from an area where the running community is pretty bad - this was the first year in the past 5 we have had enough boys for a team (we only had one girl, and she was a foreign exchange student). This is the first year my school has sent two runners to state. I hope that this next year I can try to develop or start a running culture with freshman or middle schoolers. We will see. My race this Saturday was much different than how I planned. My goal was to stay back about 5 seconds from the front runners - I was guessing they'd take us through at 5:07ish so I would be right around 5:12. Ended up them hitting 1 mile in 5:20, I was there at 5:25. It was mid 40's and very wet. The course was slick and people were falling left and right. When I hit the second mile I felt very faint. I think a combination of not eating a big enough meal and the cold rain caused this. I ended up coming through at 17:20, in 13th securing my state spot. My last race will be this upcoming Saturday. It's going to be very muddy, and maybe even snow. I am just gonna go out there, have fun and give it my all. I will be doing a timed 1600 TT sometime this week too, a 4:3X would be awesome, we will see! Thank you guys for following me these past 6ish months. I will continue to post this winter during my base training, I plan on switching to the 3200 this track season. Hopefully this success will carry over.

Oct 21 - Oct 27

Monday : 45 mins easy (6 miles)

Tuesday : 2 mile wu/ 4x800 w 1:50 standing rest (2:33,2:33,2:34,2:37) 4x400 w 1:30 standing (1:13,1:14,1:14,1:13) 4x200 @33 sec *all on grass loop 2 mile CD

Wednesday : easy 60 mins (8 miles)

Thursday : easy 35 mins (5 miles)

Friday : easy 20 mins (2.5)

Saturday : 1 mile shakeout, 1.25 WU/ 5k regionals @ 17:20

Sunday : 4 miles easy

total : 39 miles

Thanks for a great thread and updates. You have your head on straight and the training commitment to do well at states. Keep us updated on your mile and states.

I’m just gonna have fun, and give it my all. I’m kind of feeling burnt out, gonna take a week off after Saturday. Need to give myself some time away from running so I can come back for winter base ready to work.

10/28-11/3

Monday : easy 45 min

Tuesday : 2 mile easy, 1 @ 5k, 4 miles easy

Wednesday : 1 mile wu/ 1x1600 @ 5k, strides / 2 mile cd

Thursday :5 mile easy

Friday : strides

Saturday : 2 mile Wu/ 5k 17:2X

Sunday : off

total : 27.5

Well the season is over. States was a good experience, and now I know what I have to work for next year. We went out fast, I think I was through the mile in 4:55 in 22nd place. At the 2 mile I was in 23rd at 10:30 flat. But I fell apart after that, I had nothing left to give and I had no energy left. I think my taper for this season was crappy, I didn't really research tapering and I don't think 4 weeks out is a good time to start reducing. I am going to take a week off then a week of very easy running. I am pretty sure I burnt myself out this season. This winter I plan on training for the 3200 by following some of the tinman principles. I am also going to incorporate weights twice a week as my upper body is weak. Well, for my first XC season it went pretty well. I broke 16:30 and qualified for state. Now to train smarter this winter and become a beast in the 2 mile. thanks all for the support.

Nice job, coleiolio -- and great attitude! Stay patient and good things will come.

thank you!

Also to anyone reading this :

I plan on doing less mileage this base phase, 60-62 but all in singles. If you're someone who has been following this thread, is there any suggestions you have for me? My goal for track, is to get the school record in the 3200. I'd need a 9:41. It's a reach. but any advice for me this winter would be greatly appreciated.

Good stuff!

For the taper, the general wisdom is that you start slowly reducing the total mileage around 3 weeks out while continuing to increase intensity. Your hardest workout should be 10-12 days before the final race, and after that you go into a full taper.

thanks for this. a quick update : I took all of last week off, Ive ran a little this week but I think I have some tendonitis going on in my knee as it is causing me discomfort, gonna take the remainder of the week easy. in terms for my future winter training I have decided to take the Lydiard approach. I will be running singles, long singles for time rather than mileage. I just ordered two of his 1971 print philosophy books, so I will be using those to assist me. I will probably end up trying to go for my school record in the 3200 this season.

Last winter I was in a similar spot mentally, gunning for it in track after (a rather lackluster, for me) xc. You're a step ahead of me with your times (I PRd at 17:15 ish). I ended up running 4:33 for the 1600 and 10:0x for the 3200. My plan was initially Lydiard and then morphed into more tinman style. I'm in college now and ran 16:5x my first 5k of the season and improved the rest of the season, but it was a very muddy year, so I didn't run too fast, but I'm in about 27 flat shape for 8k (16:2x for 5k) compared to the guys I race around. There's a lot I've learned since I made my training plan for the winter/spring this last season and from my college coaches.

1.) Be patient. You took a week off, don't rush into things you're not ready for. A good approach to come back is start at 50% of your goal mileage and add 10% of that goal mileage till you get there, take a down week, and then the next week you add workouts (the second full week). During those first 6 weeks, focus on maintaining a good cadence, even if you go really slow, so you don't teach yourself bad form, but obviously don't be doing high knees, just don't be lazy with your stride. You could plan them, or just go by how you feel each day, but during those weeks, only do progression runs for workouts. Start incredibly slow (like 10 min pace, remembering to keep a good cadence) and just naturally let yourself speed up. Every 5-15 min, you should be a little faster, but never pushing the pace down purposely. By the last 15 min you should be near LT effort (not necessarily pace). If you feel good, crank the last 3-5 min, but never tie up. These progression runs really work your patience, but remember to go by feel, don't push the pace.

2.) Strides and Hills are your friends. Do strides everyday those first few weeks, just a comfortable 4 - 6 depending on how you feel. Then do them the day before a workout and after all aerobic workouts (Easy Tempos/Progression Runs/ LT Reps). Make sure to run a good amount of your days over hilly areas, especially your long run.

3.) Take off days, but not 100% rest days. On a down week, get on the bike and go ham, get some benefit from the off day, don't waste a day to train yourself aerobically. Off days can be every week, but at least once every 3 weeks.

4.) Tinman Tempos/Marathon Pace work is amazing for you. Do these every week in base phase once you've built your mileage back up. 5 - 7 miles at this effort does wonders to your endurance. Follow with hills (whether you do hill strides or sprints or whatever). These are very similar to the Lydiard Monday, Wednesday, Friday long steady state days, which are basically 1 - 2 mi Warm Up + Steady State (Marathon Pace/Tinman Tempo).

5.) Learn to run by feel. This might be the most important one. I think this is where those progression runs help a lot too, because you really want to listen to your body on those. If you feel beat up, run a long slow run, keeping cadence up though so you're not using lazy form. Easy days can be super slow if you're beat up.

6.) DOUBLE. No, I don't mean split up your mileage so it's easier. If you're trying to hit 60 mpw, hit 60 mpw in singles, but run an EXTRA 15 min in the morning Monday through Friday. Lydiard says to do this at any mileage and I don't remember if Tinman has said this, but as long as you're not losing sleep to do it or feeling burnt out, I'm sure he would agree. These help a lot with getting aerobically fit and just feeling better in workouts once you're used to them. Don't even count these as mileage and run them as slow as you want, 9 min pace is fine. Just get out and do these. They will not make you a champion overnight, but doing these for months makes a huge difference.

You seem to have a lot figured out, but those are some big things I've learned, use what you want. If you'd like someone to look over your training plans (or make one), I'd love to, it's what I do for fun and for a few friends of mine that graduated HS and are running by themselves now.

Good luck with the next season! Make sure to ice that knee everyday till there's no pain! (Icing is fine if you hurt, don't just ice if you're sore)

Thanks man. Shoot me a DM on instagram and maybe I can leech some more advice off of you. (instagram.com/c0ley)

i meant to send you my insta , my handle is @c0ley send me a dm

m: 64 mins easy / 8.7

t: 30 min / 4

w: off

th: off

f: off

s: 37 mins / 4.9

su: 50 mins / 6.7

total : 24.4

getting back into training this upcoming week. my knee had some pain tuesday, so i took those three days off.

nov 18-nov 24

mon : 40 min e / 5.8

tues : 30 min e/ 4.2

wed : 45 min on trails

thur : 35 min progression / 5.4

fri : 50 easy / 6.8

sat : 35 easy with 10 min tempoish /5.5

sun : 61 easy / 8.2

goal : 280 mins

actual : 300 mins

updating this thread. have been busy with school and life in general, along with running. the past 3 weeks have been the following mileage :

77.1

76.4

78.5

all in singles with a lot of it easy mileage and two workouts a week. i am enjoying training. if anyone would like to ask any specific training let me know.

for now,

cole.

Hey man, great training plan. Planning on doing it this year as I have very similar goals for xc next year. Any advice would be appreciated. Also a few questions:

1. Did you do Strength Training, Core, strides or hill sprints?

2. Did you buildup to 50 mpw or did you just jump in?

3. Did you feel burnt out over the summer?

4. Did your speed decrease over the summer due to heavy mileage and no speed?

Thanks and good luck with track.

to be quite honest, strength i should something i really lack at doing. i match start to strength train next summer before XC when i have no other obligations, but for now i'll just do a little bit of core probably.

last winter i did around 40 MPW average, so i kind of just jumped in this past summer ; doubles made this a lot easier, but i think singles is the way to go until you hit 70 MPW. Over the summer, i don't recall feeling burnt out. Once i hit mid october, i was fried though, a combination of racing often, too many workouts a week, and an eating disorder i developed led to my downfall this past season.

my speed wasn't ever insane - my 400m was 57ish during track. although with that said, i did lose some short sprinting speed in distances like the 100-200m.

hope this gave some insight, if you're a durable runner run as much as feels fun and don't run too many hard days in the off season

last 3 weeks have been :

61.8

61.6

(both 6 day weeks)

33

I developed runners knee and was forced to take 3 days off last week. If anyone is still following this thread, and would like me to post my weekly training again, let me know. For now I will probably be doing a schedule of 6 days of running, and sundays cross training. Mileage will probably be around 68-72 MPW