So you really want someone who has supposedly has been runnning ONLY 15mpw to start running EVERY day? That is a recipe for disaster...
Yeah, actually I do. Or, more like, 6 days per week with one off. For someone who basically does speed work 3x per week, she would be much better off increasing her volume, and dropping some workouts for now, until she attains the new, higher plateau. Honestly, 30 mpw is not that much. Certainly not for someone who wants to be better.
Would I have to worry about losing top speed if I drop some workouts?
Yeah, actually I do. Or, more like, 6 days per week with one off. For someone who basically does speed work 3x per week, she would be much better off increasing her volume, and dropping some workouts for now, until she attains the new, higher plateau. Honestly, 30 mpw is not that much. Certainly not for someone who wants to be better.
Would I have to worry about losing top speed if I drop some workouts?
I don’t think so. First of all, if you are focused on maintaining and improving pure speed, you should be incorporating short hill sprints (like 10-12 ten second sprints, all out, full 3 min recovery in between), flat track sprinting like 50s, 100s, or 150s, full recovery, and lifting/plyometrics. You don’t have to drop all of your workouts if you have a year-round focus, just maybe pare back to a fartlek and a tempo run for a period of time.
All I’m advocating is that you do like an actual “base” phase of like three months where you work up to 30 mpw+. As you are establishing this base, you don’t need to do grinding workouts. Maybe just do the sprints/lifting one day and a tempo/fartlek on another day. Keep the long run but maybe lengthen it. Run six or seven days per week (six at first). Then, toward the end of your base when you are comfortable at higher mileage, start doing more workouts. You will get better.
Would I have to worry about losing top speed if I drop some workouts?
I don’t think so. First of all, if you are focused on maintaining and improving pure speed, you should be incorporating short hill sprints (like 10-12 ten second sprints, all out, full 3 min recovery in between), flat track sprinting like 50s, 100s, or 150s, full recovery, and lifting/plyometrics. You don’t have to drop all of your workouts if you have a year-round focus, just maybe pare back to a fartlek and a tempo run for a period of time.
All I’m advocating is that you do like an actual “base” phase of like three months where you work up to 30 mpw+. As you are establishing this base, you don’t need to do grinding workouts. Maybe just do the sprints/lifting one day and a tempo/fartlek on another day. Keep the long run but maybe lengthen it. Run six or seven days per week (six at first). Then, toward the end of your base when you are comfortable at higher mileage, start doing more workouts. You will get better.
If you must keep doing workouts because you don’t want to do a base (& I’m not encouraging this), then start a schedule like this:
M- 5 including 3 mi of fartlek, 1 up/down
T- 4 easy
W- 4 easy, do 10-12 x hill sprints or flat sprints after plus plyometrics.
Th- 4 easy
F- 5 including 3 mi tempo run, 1 up/down
Sa- build up to 8 mi long run
Su - off
Once you’ve established this routine and want to be in race season, drop the sprinting /lifting & incorporate more speed work.
I don’t think so. First of all, if you are focused on maintaining and improving pure speed, you should be incorporating short hill sprints (like 10-12 ten second sprints, all out, full 3 min recovery in between), flat track sprinting like 50s, 100s, or 150s, full recovery, and lifting/plyometrics. You don’t have to drop all of your workouts if you have a year-round focus, just maybe pare back to a fartlek and a tempo run for a period of time.
All I’m advocating is that you do like an actual “base” phase of like three months where you work up to 30 mpw+. As you are establishing this base, you don’t need to do grinding workouts. Maybe just do the sprints/lifting one day and a tempo/fartlek on another day. Keep the long run but maybe lengthen it. Run six or seven days per week (six at first). Then, toward the end of your base when you are comfortable at higher mileage, start doing more workouts. You will get better.
If you must keep doing workouts because you don’t want to do a base (& I’m not encouraging this), then start a schedule like this:
M- 5 including 3 mi of fartlek, 1 up/down
T- 4 easy
W- 4 easy, do 10-12 x hill sprints or flat sprints after plus plyometrics.
Th- 4 easy
F- 5 including 3 mi tempo run, 1 up/down
Sa- build up to 8 mi long run
Su - off
Once you’ve established this routine and want to be in race season, drop the sprinting /lifting & incorporate more speed work.
Ok thank you, this looks doable! I did also contact a coach but haven’t heard back yet
If you must keep doing workouts because you don’t want to do a base (& I’m not encouraging this), then start a schedule like this:
M- 5 including 3 mi of fartlek, 1 up/down
T- 4 easy
W- 4 easy, do 10-12 x hill sprints or flat sprints after plus plyometrics.
Th- 4 easy
F- 5 including 3 mi tempo run, 1 up/down
Sa- build up to 8 mi long run
Su - off
Once you’ve established this routine and want to be in race season, drop the sprinting /lifting & incorporate more speed work.
Ok thank you, this looks doable! I did also contact a coach but haven’t heard back yet
Finding a coach will help a lot tailoring to your strengths/weaknesses.
One last piece of advice, and then I will leave you be. Don’t start running that sample week I gave you right away. You are only running 15 mpw, so build up gradually. Like, begin with maybe two mile easy days instead of four, take your long run up one mile per week and maybe keep your warmup/cooldowns at 0.5 miles. Just add a bit every week. Maybe don’t do both fartlek AND tempo for the first few weeks. This doesn’t happen overnight.
Ok thank you, this looks doable! I did also contact a coach but haven’t heard back yet
Finding a coach will help a lot tailoring to your strengths/weaknesses.
One last piece of advice, and then I will leave you be. Don’t start running that sample week I gave you right away. You are only running 15 mpw, so build up gradually. Like, begin with maybe two mile easy days instead of four, take your long run up one mile per week and maybe keep your warmup/cooldowns at 0.5 miles. Just add a bit every week. Maybe don’t do both fartlek AND tempo for the first few weeks. This doesn’t happen overnight.
This makes sense, thank you! Fortunately the only times I’ve been injured were due to me being dumb (like falling over a stick or slipping on ice or something) so hopefully I’ll be able to adjust to the higher mileage
Single? Otherwise that cud be a means to an end. A running companion/gf to help you ramp up the mileage. Just make sure she is slower than you so you dont make your easy runs a competition.
3 month check-in. After adding more mileage (longer long run, longer warm-ups and cool-downs, plus jogging on lifting days) I am up to around 20 MPW now. I improved my 5k time by… 3 seconds, which is less than I had hoped for. I didn’t find a local coach and the online ones I found seemed expensive and pretty scammy-looking.
I’m wondering if my lack of top speed could be limiting? Like a 6:45 pace legit feels like jogging for me (i can say full sentences at that pace) but for 100 I am only usually in the 15s (although I ran 14.6 once in training) and for 60 like just above 9.0. I also split 1:06 for the 400 (which would be a 400 PR) in a very poorly-paced mile race that I ended up finishing just over 5:00. So that would be my 400 PR. I see recommendations online for doing super short sprints (like 60-100) with long rests so I’d like to add those in somehow. But those are low-volume workouts so how do I best do that while still keeping up mileage? When I started middle school track I ran 15 for the 100 so IDK why I couldn’t improve that, despite my endurance being much better.
I’m wondering if my lack of top speed could be limiting? Like a 6:45 pace legit feels like jogging for me (i can say full sentences at that pace) but for 100 I am only usually in the 15s (although I ran 14.6 once in training) and for 60 like just above 9.0. I also split 1:06 for the 400 (which would be a 400 PR) in a very poorly-paced mile race that I ended up finishing just over 5:00. So that would be my 400 PR. I see recommendations online for doing super short sprints (like 60-100) with long rests so I’d like to add those in somehow. But those are low-volume workouts so how do I best do that while still keeping up mileage? When I started middle school track I ran 15 for the 100 so IDK why I couldn’t improve that, despite my endurance being much better.
How many times per week are you running? With 6 runs per week, 20mpw is less than 3.5 mi/day, which should feel ridiculously easy if you're running the times you claim. If you're still improving on that volume at all, it's a small miracle.
Anyhow, assuming you're not a troll, the obvious route to go from here to improve in the 5k is not shorter speed workouts but longer long runs (eventually MUCH longer), more consistency if you're running fewer than 5 or 6 days per week, and longer repeats in workouts (1k-1mile reps).
I’m wondering if my lack of top speed could be limiting? Like a 6:45 pace legit feels like jogging for me (i can say full sentences at that pace) but for 100 I am only usually in the 15s (although I ran 14.6 once in training) and for 60 like just above 9.0. I also split 1:06 for the 400 (which would be a 400 PR) in a very poorly-paced mile race that I ended up finishing just over 5:00. So that would be my 400 PR. I see recommendations online for doing super short sprints (like 60-100) with long rests so I’d like to add those in somehow. But those are low-volume workouts so how do I best do that while still keeping up mileage? When I started middle school track I ran 15 for the 100 so IDK why I couldn’t improve that, despite my endurance being much better.
How many times per week are you running? With 6 runs per week, 20mpw is less than 3.5 mi/day, which should feel ridiculously easy if you're running the times you claim. If you're still improving on that volume at all, it's a small miracle.
Anyhow, assuming you're not a troll, the obvious route to go from here to improve in the 5k is not shorter speed workouts but longer long runs (eventually MUCH longer), more consistency if you're running fewer than 5 or 6 days per week, and longer repeats in workouts (1k-1mile reps).
Hi- I outlined my training and situation earlier in this thread. I run 4 days per week. Schedule is roughly like this
Mon: 4 mile tempo or mile repeats
Tuesday: Longer repeats (800-1200 meters), adding up to about 5k
Thurs: 10 km easy
Saturday: Shorter repeats (100s-600s), adding up to about 3k
So... It took you 3 months to increase your mileage from 15 mpw to... 20 mpw. SLOW DOWN! Honestly, it's surprising that you didn't get rhabdo yet. What were you thinking when you made such tremendous leap in training volume?
So... It took you 3 months to increase your mileage from 15 mpw to... 20 mpw. SLOW DOWN! Honestly, it's surprising that you didn't get rhabdo yet. What were you thinking when you made such tremendous leap in training volume?
I had Achilles pain and later a sprained ankle that slowed down volume building…
To give a straight answer, at an eventual 50-60 mpw, the OP, if real, would either get injured a string of times or run mid to low 15.
Wow that would be amazing (well not the injured thing but you know). Where is the best place to put the extra miles? Like add more reps onto interval training? Make the long run longer?