High schooler looking for help with summer training (all advice wanted) 5k-1600 runner

Training Advice/Discussion 5k/10k

2 months ago 05/10/2024 2:29pm EDT

I am currently finishing my junior year of highschool and heading into my senior year after the summer. I starting running sophomore year XC and was able to work my times down to a 4:44 mile and a 2:09 800 by the end of year. I wanted to be great so I trained recklessly over the summer (70 mile weeks, doubles, 6 hours of sleep). I failed terribly and ran crap for XC and have been able to dig myself out since (bad mentality mostly causing me to run 4:50 flat 4x). I do not like my coach's plan b/c I feel 20 mins runs everyday is too little. I want to get low 16s maybe even under 16 for 5k next year (17:29 PR this season) but I need help so I want to know what milage is acceptable and how to incorporate double lactic threshold training, cross training, tempos, and hills to be great for XC. Thank you for reading this

2 months ago 05/10/2024 4:28pm EDT

re: Onclouds

Look up the old Summer of Malmo threads as a starting point, then come back with any specific follow-up questions within the specific context of your current training and abilities (i.e. what you did most recently this past track season). Broadly asking "how to train" is not a good question.

From 17:29 to low/sub-16 isn't impossible, but it's unrealistic enough that it's an entirely counterproductive goal to have. You need to train intelligently based on your current fitness, and if you do that well enough you will make a massive improvement -maybe to sub-16, maybe not. If you start from the reverse point, demanding a massive arbitrary improvement from yourself and rushing training progress based on an arbitrary goal, you get the reckless stupidity that ruined your last XC season.

You are not in a position to benefit from double-threshold training, get that nonsense out of your head.

Cross-training is great, I'd highly recommend using easy cross-training sessions as doubles to get properly adapted to training 2x /day.

As you'll see with the Summer of Malmo threads, good summer training is incredibly simple structure-wise and individual workouts are not challenging. The difficult parts are being realistic about your current ability, having the discipline to apply restraint in line with that current ability, using that restraint to do a lot of training, and doing a lot of training consistently.

2 months ago 05/11/2024 4:40pm EDT

re: Onclouds

Don't complicate your life.

Run once or twice a day 20-40min each

Easy or steady depending on how you feel

Once per week fartlek 1on 1off or 2on 1 off

Once per week progression run start slow get faster every km

Remember never go all out if you are not racing, stay in controll and learn to relax while running fast

2 months ago 05/11/2024 5:45pm EDT

re: Onclouds

Onclouds wrote:
I wanted to be great so I trained recklessly over the summer (70 mile weeks, doubles, 6 hours of sleep).

Write more about what this training looked like please.

My guess is that the high mileage or doubles was not the problem, but instead that you were doing a lot of anaerobic endurance training like speed work, VO2 max intervals, tempos too hard, etc. Does this sound familiar? Coupled with your lack of recovery, you created horrible summer training for cross, and you were probably ready to run a PR in the 800m rather than a 5k.

You also might just be a low mileage guy. Tell us more about what your training looked like and more help will probably be available.

This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.

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