quest to sub 16:30 : training log

Hey man, I am still following. Though in less frequent visits. Not a lot of training talk happening on the boards these days, which is a bummer.

Your situation is tough, but we're all kind of in a similar boat (my spring marathon was canceled, and I'm not totally sure where I'm going next). And in my opinion, you almost can't choose wrong. And my advice would be to pick a short term and a longer term plan that your gut tells you will be the best. That means the most exciting, interesting, and easiest to keep doing.

So if you want to sharpen things up for a few weeks and do a few time trials, go for it. Then take some downtime and shift over to summer cross prep and building those base miles.

If you're liking what you've been doing and want to get up to 80 mpw sooner, then you can do that, too. It sounds like you might be a tad mentally fried and maybe physically beat up. So you could take anywhere from 3 to 10+ days of slightly reduced mileage and nothing but easy runs. Then start building back up. No reason not to do 80s in April if that's what you want to do.

I think our sport makes it easy to think in seasons and big races and specific buildups. It kind of forces us to be seeking more all the time. Faster splits. Or more miles. Or anything that shows us the hard numbers that we are, in fact, progressing and getting faster. And that's a hard space to live in for the long term.

One of the things I love about following this thread is that you're doing the kind of training I wish I did at your age (I think I said it sometime before, but I'm almost 40 and went to HS in the 90's when all we did were intervals that were too hard and too fast). And from what I can gather, you've got a really good thing going. So I think you should keep following that.

And I don't mean keep following the same plan you've been doing for months (though you certainly could and would be fine). I mean keep going with doing the training that you're enjoying and responding to. Keep developing your own, personal theory of training and what works best for you. Because the other thing that is so easy to lose site of in the running world and on these forums, is the next best training method. Just when you think you've got a good thing, you learn about some other element that you haven't been doing. And you think, should I add that in? Maybe. But you can't add everything all the time. And again, that becomes another form of chasing.

So train the way you want to train. And also know that (how old are you, 17?) your high school running is not all there is. You can continue to improve for decades. I train with runners from their early 20's up to their early 50's. We all take it seriously. Some of us are not as fast as we used to be. But quite a few of us are putting out times that crush what we did in our younger years. It's all about finding enjoyment in consistent training. Whatever that is for you.

Long time fan and similar runner (Junior-2:07, 4:39, 9:59) and my team and I have a pretty stacked county so we are basically setting up virtual time trials run solo and then merged as long as its recorded w a phone camera set up on the ground somewhere. Don't let this trash your season especially if you're trying to run in college. Stay positive and I really think the season will be back (at least in NJ) by May so don't let the grind stop here. Keep the log going because you definitely have more of a following then you realize!

Not sure how my post can mean anything after Keepgoing's, but I say keep up the log. This has to be my favorite consistently updated log I have seen on these boards. I makes me happy to see someone so motivated respond so well to training, getting exactly what they were working for. I liked this log so much that I tried to make one of my own called Breaking5 High School Project before I got injured. Now I have a thread of my own with the same goal as yours. I am going to use this log to help me accomplish the same goal as you. Since you added pretty much everything you did to get here it is a very informative thread. I say keep running for sure and maybe just do a lot of tempos and weight lifting type stuff. Do a lot of fun workouts, right now if my training were up to me I would be training for a time trial where I would definitely break 5 in the mile. But it is up to my parents who are listening to my PT who says that 14 y/o's aren't supposed to do 50 mile weeks. But you are in charge of your training, so I say do whatever feels right to you. If you feel you have unfinished business in this last season then by all means, go out there and break some barriers. And if you are done then either prepare for next season or take some time off. Whatever you choose, know that you are making the choice that is the best for you in the long run, and that other people are supporting you in your decision. Good luck man!

-EGF (maybe take a look at my thread sub 16 project(5k))

Sorry to disappoint anyone, I took this week of to ease my mind and relax for a bit. I’m using April as a month of easy mileage slowly to build back up to 70 MPW. One thing I haven’t mentioned is I never felt 100% since January. I’ve always had some tightness, soreness or a niggle. I’m hoping I feel good after this time off. I have a plan to do base from May through August. If anyone has any decent lifting routines I can do with dumb bells at home 2-3x a week, please link them. My plan is to work on getting as many consistent 10 hour weeks of running in over the 16 week period. I’ll be splitting it into 3 phases; first 8 weeks will be used as a time to get used to the mileage. I plan on doing two workouts during this period; one longrun and on long tempo (40-60 mins). Phase 2 will be four weeks where I introduce a second workout excluding the long run, these will be LT repeats. The third phase will be another four weeks where I swap the LT for CV repeats.

Don't worry about disappointing any of us. I think we're all just digging this journey so much that we don't want to see it end. And really, it is one of those things that is actually all about you (spoiler, most of life isn't).

So enjoy the rest and healing up and all the easy miles. I also want to say that you seem really, really good at making a plan and sticking to it (and that 16 week plan looks solid and doable). But if the mood strikes you, there really isn't anything wrong with skipping a workout during base and throwing in a time trial. You don't have to be gearing up for the TT from far out. You can just rip one if it feels right. Or do a June or July 5/10k if we've got some road races back on the books.

Can't wait to see how the next few weeks go for you.

Thank you my man.

Still searching for a dumbbell weight routine I can include 2x a week. Also going to start doing core, which I haven’t done in about 4 months.

Just read through this entire plan. Super inspiring.

This cancellation of seasons really sucks. As a sophomore who ran 5:02 in indoor and really felt as if I could’ve gone 4:5x it is hurting rn. I took some time off, due to a lack of motivation and felt really bad about myself. I got my motivation back and realized that I’m gonna keep grinding so I can get to my goals in xc, even if we Have no track season. I ran 17:15 for 3 miles last year and have an ambitious goal of sub 16 to help my team bring home a trophy.

We just need to keep working. We might not know if we are going to have a season, and we most likely won’t. But this spring is so beneficial to cross. Keep up the work, I will be returning to this thread to catch up in the future,

It’s been awhile since I last posted on this thread.

The week before this past, I only did about 30 miles on 6 days of running. Took it easy and didn’t worry about mileage or anything. The week before that I took 8 days off of running completely.

Fast forward to this past week, I ran 60 minutes each day, Monday - Saturday, progressing if I felt good , trying to get most of my runs in on trails to get soft surfaces in. Today I did a 90 minute long run, my first run over 70 minutes in a few weeks. I felt pretty good so I threw in two 10 minute tempo /LT portions , first one I averaged 5:55, second one 5:35. Nothing really exciting besides that.

I got a general idea of what I plan on doing this summer, these first two months I’m going to keep it relatively easy with a lighter LT interval workout and a marathon paced tempo. Aside from that, I’ve found a strength routine I’ll be incorporating on M,W,F - and a core/mobility routine for Tues,Thurs,Sat.

Happy Easter.

So you’re basically going to follow Tinman training? I was thinking about doing the same training, just lower mileage as I’ve never consistently hit 30mpw, so looking to hit 50 this summer and break 16 for three miles.

Yeah basically. I just plan on keeping the mileage around 66-70 for the first two months before I increase it at all.

coleiolio wrote:

Yeah basically. I just plan on keeping the mileage around 66-70 for the first two months before I increase it at all.

Is there any particular reason you decided to quit Strava? Just curious

In all reality I wanted to become more blue collar. Less stress on my self, if I want to just jog slow as sh1t one day I can do so. I think that no matter how much you think strava doesn’t influence at least some part of your training, it does.

4-20 ~ 4-26

Monday : 60 min easy (8.3)

Tuesday : 76 easy (10.72)

Wednesday : 63 (8.18)

Thursday : fartlek 60 min (9.38)

Friday : easy 65 (9.36)

Saturday : easy 60 (8.09)

Sunday : 90 min LR (13.45)

Total : 67.49/7:55

Sup man! Glad to see you are taking it easy :)

I have a question though: Do you believe that minutes are more useful for building aerobic strength? Or would miles be more useful?

I am thinking of making my LR and recoveries into minutes instead of miles.

I think it’s good to use both, but I prefer minutes over miles.

Minutes works well if you're self-motivated.

My freshman year, my coach gave us minutes workouts and we usually wound up going like 13+ minute pace. Now, I'm considering switching back so I can get more miles in without thinking about miles.

I don’t think I’d ever run that slow honestly lol. But yeah, I’m pretty motivated so it works well.

kinda sad that you deleted strata bro. Is this the first step towards quitting running? how do we know you even running it all.

paaaaansy

pansy

coleiolio wrote:

I don’t think I’d ever run that slow honestly lol. But yeah, I’m pretty motivated so it works well.

I was with a group of friends.

We'd basically start walking whenever we were out of eyesight.

I got better though.