High School Junior with times of
16:32 XC5K, 10:03 3200, 4:36 1600, 2:04 4x8 Split, 6:39 2KSC
I'm nearing the end of my year, couple more outdoor championship meets and then realistically I'll call it quits to give myself the most time to build up for cross country since I tend to be better at it. I started last spring after some brief winter training and ended with PRs of 4:56, 10:54, 2:14. I was running just under 30mpw for the season and was racing way too frequently but 1) I didn't know what I was doing and 2) I was following coach's orders.
After a summer of higher mileage ~42 for around 2 months, frequent swimming, with daniels T workouts I TT'd a 17:39 which over an XC season became a 16:32 and a really fast state meet on a rough course which put me at roughly 9:50 fitness for the start of indoor. Definitely sub 16 fitness. During XC, my coach had us doing ~30-35mpw, with staple workouts which were constantly repeated including:
4.25mi "Tempo" Loop, effectively a race, 5 laps of the track followed by 2 laps of our hilly 1mi course "loop" behind the school and another 4 laps of the track to finish. Best time was a 23:18.
Course-Miles, done mainly as an easy course, sub 5 mile, easy course, sub 5 mile. Best splits were 4:59 -> 4:56 with a ~8min course jog between. Sometimes done as just one rep and then a 20min easy run.
Mile Intervals (3x1600, 7' rest - self explanatory)
Hill repeats (800,1600,1600,800), each rep starts and ends with a hill sprint
This was very weird but proved to be successful. We'd do like 3 workouts a week too. This coach has had great athletes too, with a major one being a 4:11 full miler in HS, Finland National 1500m champion / NCAA DMR champion.
However - This coach doesn't do track. At the start of winter I ramped up to around high 45s, which I held for around 2 months before tapering. However staple workouts were instead:
5x800 @ Goal 3200 Pace, 1:1 rest which reduced throughout the season.
2x4x400 @ Goal Mile Pace, rest varied but between 1-2min for the reps and 4-7min for the sets.
3x2400 @ T, 90sec rest (SPARINGLY)
But with this a TON of maximal speed stuff with long recovery, 150s, 200s. I feel like the constant spam of race pace work didn't actually help me with my race pace since I'd go 2:27/28/23/22/20 for the 800s and then drop a 10 flat. Basically only my speed improved as I went from a 2:11 guy to a 2:04 guy. So now I'm here, I wanna take a risk with my summer to try and make it big for college and I'm not sure what to really do. What do you guys think the move is?