Training for a Mile PR

[Jeffrey Lindy]

I'm shifting things up a little bit after running my first trail ultra last month, and have decided to take ten weeks and prepare myself for a PR mile, under five minutes.

It's a nice change of pace, though I am challenged in that (a) I don't have a good enough idea of pace to run 110yds in 19 seconds instead of 17 and (b) it's very hard to find a quarter-mile track in Brooklyn.

But it's fun!

Has anyone done anything like this?

(R: recovery, WR: walking recovery, JR: jogging recovery)

Preconditioning 1 (Two Weeks)
   1. 4-6 miles easy
   2. 10x110 in :19, 110 WR
   3. 4x440 in :80, 220 WR
   4. 4 miles easy
   5. 2 miles in 12:00
   6. 12x110 in :19, 110 WR
   7. 4 miles in 26:00
   8. 6-8 miles easy
   9. 16x110 in :19, 110 WR
  10. 3 miles easy
  11. 4x660 in 2:00, 440 WR
  12. 4 miles easy
  13. 3 miles in 18:00
  14. 6 miles easy

Pre-Conditioning 2 (2 Weeks)
   1. 6 miles easy
   2. 12x220 in :39, 220 WR
   3. 2 miles easy/2 miles in 12:00/2 miles easy
   4. 5 miles easy
   5. 10x440 in :85, 220 WR
   6. 5 miles easy
   7. 7 miles in 49:00
   8. 20x110 in :19, 110 JR
   9. 5 miles easy
  10. 6x660 in 2:00, 440 JR
  11. 3 miles easy
  12. 10x110 in :17, 220 JR
  13. 4 miles easy
  14. 9 miles easy

Training 1
   1. 5 miles in 32:30
   2. 5 x (440 in :80, 110 JR, 110 in :17, 440 JR)
   3. 5 miles easy
   4. 16x110 in :18, 110 JR
   5. 6 miles easy
   6. Rest
   7. 9 miles in 63:00

Training 2
   1. 7 miles easy
   2. 880 in 2:35, 440 in :74, 220 in :35... 660 WR between each
   3. 4 miles easy
   4. 2 x (8x110 in :16, 220 R) with 5:00 rest
   5. 3 miles easy
   6. 1 mile easy, 1 mile in 5:30, 1 mile easy, 1 mile in 5:30
   7. 6 miles easy

Training 3
   1. 5 miles in 32:30
   2. 4 x (660 in 1:52, 110 R, 110 in :16, 550 R)
   3. 4 miles easy
   4. 3 miles easy
   5. 4 x (220 in :35, 440 R), 5:00 rest, 0.5 mile time trial
   6. 3 miles easy
   7. 7 miles in 45:00

Training 4
   1. 3 mile easy, 2 miles in 11:45, 2 mile easy
   2. 12x220 in :36, 220 R
   3. 4 miles easy
   4. 3/4 mile in 4:00, 660 R, 880 in 2:35, 660 R
   5. 5 miles easy
   6. 6 x (440 in :78, 110 R, 110 in :16, 110 R)
   7. 6 miles easy

Training 5
   1. 9 miles in 63:00
   2. 3x880 in 2:35, 660 R
   3. 5 miles easy
   4. 1.5 miles in 8:15
   5. 4 miles easy
   6. Rest
   7. 2 x 0.75 miles in 4:00, 880 R

Sharpening 1
   1. 9 miles easy
   2. 10x440 in :78, 440 R
   3. 4 miles easy
   4. 3 miles easy
   5. 0.75 miles in 3:45, 10:00 R, 880 in 2:30
   6. 5 miles easy
   7. 6 miles in 38:00

Sharpening 2
   1. 6 miles easy
   2. 5x440 in :72, 440 WR
   3. 3 miles easy
   4. 12x110 in :18, 110 R (not too fast!)
   5. Rest
   6. 2 miles easy
   7. FIVE MINUTE MILE TIME

[Michelle Lowry]

Looks like fun!  I haven't trained for the mile since high school, so can't be too much of help.  It does seem a little odd that the only 880's you ever do are 2:35 pace (except one in the sharpening week), none done at your goal race pace.  I would consider doing the Training week 5 3x880 as a sort of progression (try 2:35, 2:32, 2:29).  Might help your confidence come race day.

[Jeffrey Lindy]

Does anyone have any expert opinion on whether I can/should add a weekend long run to this training regimen?

My goal is to get a mile PR, but I do very much enjoy 15+ mile runs and would miss them if I had to cut them out for three months. Will they work against the speed training I've described above?

[Jeffrey Lindy]

I did the 110yd sprints last night on a mostly-deserted and completely car-free little street in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. Tonight I have a line on a 400m parks department track about 1.5 miles south of me... hopefully a workable place to run quarter-mile repeats!

[Steve P]

Runners often debate about whether you should focus on strength (basically, endurance) or speed. Lots of that kind of discussion has occurred in this forum, and many here tend to believe that speed will come once the endurance is in place.

Anyway, this debate will probably always go on. My personal opinion is that you should do whatever you enjoy but that the best all-around results (whether you're training for a mile or a marathon) will come with a combination of both strength and speed. I certainly don't think a 15-mile run will hurt your speed (unless that's all you do), and I think track intervals will help your endurance.

[Jeffrey Lindy]

Thanks for the advice.

I managed to find a completely deserted rubberized 400m track to do my quarter miles on last night, which is very difficult to do in NYC. Apparently in all of west Brooklyn, only me and one other guy were interested in speed work, so we had the Red Hook track all to ourselves.

[Jeff Linger]

I would be pretty hard pressed to get a mile PR (4:19 when I was 18 -- stopped running shortly afterwards), however, 2 years ago at the age of 38 I ran an all out 5:09 by myself at the track. I had done no speed work outside of AT/LT runs about once every 10 days. I'm not suggesting that you do that instead of your plan, but I think if you want to extend the easy runs and make them longer, you'll be fine. I think had I followed a plan for a mile I could have closed on a sub 4:45, maybe approaching 4:30. The problem with a 15 miler though is that its going to suck more out of you. The point of those easy runs is much akin to a recovery run for a marathoner. Where your key run might be a 20 miler, or a tempo run, in this workout the keys are the repeats and intervals .... so when it says 5-7 easy, it means super easy and that is your recovery day. So your distance should be dictated by feel.

[Jeffrey Lindy]

Thanks for the advice. I don't have a proper mile PR (I was very ill all throughout high school, and never ran faster than a 8:30 or something thereabouts when forced to do the mile test in gym class), but I calculated that I should've at one point been near 5:09 based on my marathon PR.

http://www.liebreich.com/LDC/HTML/Various/RunCalculator.html

Running things through this calculator implies that a 4:59 mile will be just slightly more impressive than any run I've ever done. Which is fine; the fun is to stretch myself in an unfamiliar distance and see what's possible.

[Steve P]

Too bad I don't live in Brooklyn. One of my goals is to break 5:00 in a mile again.

[Jeffrey Lindy]

It's been a fun training schedule, though I'm only a week in. The two mile yesterday was brutal in the 100 degree heat.

[Jeff Linger]

How old are you? I've found that as I've gotten older the heat effects me more and more, although it seems the humidity is the real crusher for me. You might want to check into how heat/humidity can effect times. I know for a marathon it has a solid effect, especially at those temps, not sure how it translates to shorter distances and interval work as much.

[Jeffrey Lindy]

I'm 31. I think that I deal pretty well with heat; if I had to guesstimate I would say that I could've gone 10 seconds per mile faster with the same perceived effort had it been 80 instead of 100.

[Jeffrey Lindy]

Having a lot of fun with the training so far.

Does anyone know of any "predictive" workouts? Perhaps 3/4 of a mile, or 1/2 mile repeats? Quarters?

I ran 6 x (660yds/440yds jogging recovery) last night. I ran the first one in 1:50 with visions of continuing and making it a full 3/4 mile at goal pace, but I chickened out and ran the workout as scheduled.

Goal pace 660yds would be 1:52.5, and goal pace 1320yds (3/4 mile) would be 3:45. Somewhat intimidating.

[Jeff Linger]

Hammer out a quarter or half full tilt. Go to http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/training1.htm then go to the running calculator, enter your time, see what it predicts for the mile.

I did read some stuff about predictive workouts to determine if you're capable of cracking a 4:00 mile. The classic indictive workout was listed as 10x400 meters in 60 seconds with 60 seconds rest. I would assume for a 5 minute mile you'd do them in 1:15, I just don't know if your rest should remain 60 seconds or you should bump it to the equivalent 1:15 rest. My guess would be that you do the recovery equal to the split. Maybe give this page a read as it might give you some other workout ideas:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=2401737

[Jeffrey Lindy]

Great, thanks for the tip. Last week I was supposed to do 10x400 with a half-lap walking recovery between, in 85 seconds per lap. I chose to up the pace, and did them in 77,76,76,76,76,77,78,76,75,73 seconds. The rest was much longer than 75 seconds, though, probably closer to 150 seconds.