How is it possible that some people can train very hard and never improve their performances?

Train smarter, not harder. Training too hard can lead to stagnation.

trainer wrote:

Train smarter, not harder. Training too hard can lead to stagnation.

For the last 6-8 weeks I've tried (easy running, etc.) and even now there is nothing to suggest progression.

when you suck you suck. give up hope now before you waste anymore of your time.

or just keep going and see what happens...some people dont have much potential and no amount of work can make them very good. figure out if you have been training both smart and hard and if not change your training and keep going.

megatron wrote:

when you suck you suck. give up hope now before you waste anymore of your time.

Letsrun.com strikes again.

Good to see encouragement, sincerely kindness directed towards fellow runners, and generally good natured attitudes alive and well here at the friendliest running discussion board on the Net.

Jerk.

I found I ran nearly as fast off 8 miles a week, as 8 miles a day!!

Did that produce your 8:00 mile PR that you brag about?

If he ran 19 flat in 8th grade off of limited training, its fairly evident that he does indeed have some talent to work with, and certainly enough for personal improvement.

What you're going through does seem quite frustrating but the main errors I would point out are training too hard and not paying sufficent attention to your injuries. If you really feel like you're going no where, maybe it would be best for you to cut back your running for a while to freshen things up and then come back and strictly build an aerobic base for several months before you start any sort of running beyond tempo pace, making sure to not be doing all of your running at tempo, only once or twice a week. I'm not sure how well a plan like this would fit with your college running, and it may likely not fit with it at all. If that's the case, talk to your coach about the issues you're having and work out a plan with him. Most of all, treat nags and pains before they become injuries, so you can train at your peak.

hey now, i gave some friendly advice in there too...to evaluate his training and think about whether or not running will be able to fulfill him. perhaps i shouldnt have started off with such a harsh line and so i apologize.

grow some nuts you pussy

megatron wrote:

hey now, i gave some friendly advice in there too...to evaluate his training and think about whether or not running will be able to fulfill him. perhaps i shouldnt have started off with such a harsh line and so i apologize.

Fair enough. It takes a big person to apologize, certainly bigger than most of the people on the forum.

and? wrote:

Did that produce your 8:00 mile PR that you brag about?

No it was a lot faster, an ok time for my age then. More or less ran the race to get the day off school, started to train and there was not that much improvement. I am still searching for the reason I ran well then and will change my training. Did a few other sports then, not much aerobic stuff, may be I was a lot stronger then. Sadly still searching or may be I am one of those people that training does not give much gains.

Maybe you should think about adopting a different training philosophy. What do you mean by "train correctly"--without interruption by injuries, or by a particular approach?

You say that you were injury prone from training too hard in high school, and from your description it looks like by saying "too hard," you were doing too much speedwork. I agree with others that you try going easier, but I would suggest a period of aerobic development where you are not afraid to push a steady run every day. Not all out, race type efforts, but you shouldn't be able to talk easily either.

It seems the reaction to training too hard is training way too easy. This is what happened in my case. A couple of years ago I was burnt out, doing 2-3 interval sessions a week on top of 80-90 mile weeks (when in previous years I had only done 50 or 60 at most), where even the aerobic sessions were pretty hard. I discovered the hard/easy philosophy espoused on these and other boards. I started running easier to build a base, but the runs were too easy. When it came time to do interval work, I could handle it without getting injured, but it didn't net me the improved race times; in fact, I went backwards. I tried doing easy miles even with a tempo, intervals, and long run; still, my times stagnated. Finally, I recently started from scratch, building a small but decent base (10 weeks) of harder aerobic running every day at about 100 mpw, give or take 10 miles. I recently introduced longer interval sessions and surprised myself with how easy and fast they went. However, this time I did not make the mistake of making my aerobic runs very slow and easy to compensate for the intervals. This doesn't mean I never take it easy, but most of the time when I'm running I'm pushing it somehow--either on a steady run, or an interval workout, or a long run.

To sum it up, it's a matter of experimenting with intensity. Try some different things. You already know frequent interval workouts doesn't work, and you seem to suggest that easy running/"base building" hasn't gone anywhere either, maybe try some higher intensity aerobic running with one interval session a week.

I started out much slower than you and improved, but slowly. Check out some of the articles on my site:

http://wls3.com/running.php

You can read a few of mine that talk about some of the lengths I went to in order to try and make a major breakthrough.

Anyhow, I did some pretty high mileage in HS but was not that fast (I ran with guys who were low-9:00 2 milers). Nonetheless, over the years I've continued to chop a few seconds of PR's here and there. The key was moderate mileage (for me that meant 50-60 a week) and 3-4 harder workouts a week. I'm older now (28 going on 29) and can really only get away with 2 (3 is pushing it), but have run pretty close to my PR's on as little as 45 miles a week.

Ideally, you would figure out what your strengths are and build off of them while developing your weak suits. Read as many books as you can, find good, open coaches who are willing to talk to you and pick their brains. Usually, older, more experienced coaches will have the best knowledge because they have tested their theories against time.

Don't give up. I was only about a 16:50 5k guy when I graduated high school and got down to 15:35. You can improve a lot more, it just takes time, patience, lots or hard, seemingly unfruitful hard work and belief in yourself.

My sophmore year of college I ran hard 3 times a week. Over the summer I ran 13/7/13/7/13/7/rest. During X-C we trained hard on M-W-F, and went easy on T-Th. My pr's were 26:05 for 5 miles, and 73:30 for 1/2 marathon. In my junior and senior years, our coach had us running hard every day, sometimes twice a day. By my senior year, I was running 28 min. for 5 miles.

you're like most runners, believe it or not. but i've met and known more that aren't happy with their running than those who are.

Drop running and go party.

It could just be that you have a rarer physiology that doesn't like quantity training. You may well benefit from more rest or at least active rest days.

This is just an experiment to try for a couple of months and is in my opinion well worth trying if you want to give it a go. In all seriousness train one day on and one day off as an experiment and see if there's an improvement.

Something like:

Day 1 Rest

Day 2 8 miles steady

Day 3 Rest

Day 4 Hill session

Day 5 Rest

Day 6 12 miles steady

Day 7 Rest

Day 8 10k tempo

Day 9 rest

Day 10 8 miles steady

Day 11 rest

Day 12 5 x 1000m

and so on. I know the natural runner's mentality is to feel guilty with so many rest days but if you're not improving by what you're doing now where is the harm? There is nothing to stop you doing other sports on the rest days.

If you notice an improvemnet then you can start putting some steady runs in on some of the rest days until you hit a happy medium or rather an optimum.

Just something to maybe think about.

depressed wrote:

I've been very injury prone throughout high school from training too hard. I'm a small guy but would do 50-60 miles per week in the middle of the winter with intervals, hills, speed, even when coming back from recent injuries. Stress fractures, tendonitis, I've had it all....

Have you ever had a growth spurt? If so, when?

Hey Depressed.

The day i turned 13 my pb's were 2:05.88/800m and 4:19.6/1500m. The day i turned 18 my pb's were 2:02.20 and 4:07.3, ive had the same troubles, trained all throughout those five years with some injuries as well. i figured you just gotta keep workin and your time will come. it might not mean your good as a junior but the time will come eventually. maybe even when your 25/26. just believe in yourself.

I have a few weeks of my winter training in front of me. Basically every day had something hard. There was LT work, but usually it was past the LT at some predetermined pace. Always short hill sprints or fartlek even on easy days.

One day I ran a 5:23 mile on an indoor track, something I've come close to in solo workouts before, and was so upset I did a workout after the race outside in the freezing cold after I had had the flu a few days earlier. I did stuff like shovel off the track, which caused me to get sick and vomit 14 times in the next day and a half, then go out for 300m repeats.

But this time I am trying to make the easy running easy and have a bit of LT work as well.

I've done a lot of exercises for basic strength in the lower legs and have begun training in racing flats. I feel as though I did a bit of basic fitness through easy running before I can do any successful harder aerobic running as you recommended. I have done a few 10-25 minute sections harder (Sort of a progressive run) at the end of a few longer runs. Mostly it is easy mileage and I am trying to have a good amount of it (33 miles the last 3 days).

I thought by going slow and easy in flats and barefoot the feet and legs will get stronger and there won't be exvessive impact stress. The only problem I've had is bursa aches in each heel/sore Achilles. This was actually the injury that cost me 3 months and the entire outdoor season as well, though that happened before the flats.

Anyway, I appreciate the advice and the harder aerobic running is precisely what I eventually hope to build up to.