Training for a Mile PR

[Jeffrey Lindy]

Last night was a challenging, somewhat disappointing workout on the track.

I did 4 x (220yds / 440yds jogging recovery), then five minutes rest, then a half mile time trial. I set a goal of 2:20.

The 220s went fine at 34, 35, 33, 32. My jogging rest lap took about 2:10 to 2:20 each time. I felt pretty strong and zippy.

In the half mile, though, I failed to drive the pace hard enough, and finished feeling I had quite a bit left in the tank. My time was 2:22.9 (self-timed, carrying a stopwatch around the track in my left hand, which is likely not the most accurate method in the world). I suspect I let my stride rate drop after the adrenaline of the first half lap, and this let me "slump" a bit and get down off my toes.

It's frustrating, since this is the first time goal I've failed to hit in this training program, but it is encouraging that I felt I had so much left at the end of a half mile at that pace. If I can extend 71s laps to 3/4 of a mile, I think I'm in excellent shape to go comfortable under five minutes for my mile.

Any tips or drills for keeping stride rate up?

[Jeff Linger]

In my experiences I've found that in the 1/2 and the mile especially the 3rd 1/4 of the race is the important one. Its usually where you start to fade off. Although you need to forget about it until you get there (otherwise you'll run your first 1/2 of the distance incorrectly), when you cross the 1/2 point of the race, you need to really concentrate and dig down to press through this portion of the race. Brain Training for Runners has some form tips to concentrate on when you do every run. I've found the most helpful ones are leaning forward from the ankles, pulling the road, naval to spine, and squeezing the glutes. Go to your nearest larger book store and spend 15 minutes reading over this section. You can also do some drill work listed in the book as well to improve stride form and leg drive. Its a book I highly recommend for any runner who is even moderately serious.

[Jeffrey Lindy]

Looks like a very interesting book (at least, the portions excerpted on Google.books does).

Thanks for the tip!

[Jeffrey Lindy]

Is a half-mile time trial on the track very rough on the body?

I don't have any time trials in my upcoming weeks on the training schedule, but I would like to retry this and get a better time. Am I going to invite injury by doing so, or is this such a short piece of running that I can add it to the beginning of an upcoming track workout?

[Jeff Linger]

It shouldn't be. At the same time, if you're planning on hitting a full out half-mile time trial, I wouldn't plan a whole lot else for the day in terms of speed work. If you can get someone to do it with you it would be good. If you're faster than other people you know, get 2 people together and have 1 pace you through the 1st half and the other pace you through the 2nd half. Be sure to really focus on the 3rd 200 meters of the trial, usually adrenaline will pull you through the final 200 meters unless you've completely shot yourself prior.

[Jeffrey Lindy]

I had a somewhat discouraging 1.5 mile training run yesterday that was supposed to be in 8:15 but ended up 8:25.
It felt like an OK run at the time, but it had to be done on city sidewalks (dodging pedestrians, with some hill thrown in, and without knowing intermediate distances to judge pace).

Overall I feel a bit stale, and had another stale run on Saturday which was 3 x .5 miles at 2:35. Again, no intermediate marks since it was point to point (on the Central Park reservoir jogging path).

I'm feeling a bit stupid for not just taking three or four days completely off surrounding my wedding (which was Saturday). Perhaps completely off today and tomorrow, before 2 x .75 miles in 4:00 on the track (with two jogging laps between as rest).

My goal is to run my mile before the end of this month, so I'm wary of putting in too much rest. I don't feet much spring in my legs in the past week; I'm not sure what I ought to feel like doing this sort of training, and don't want to over-react to a bad workout or two.

[Sasha Pachev]

Jeffrey:

This calculator assumes the lack of proper marathon endurance. I put in 2:27:46 from Top of Utah which I think is about of what I would run on a normal honest course when in good shape at sea level, and it tells me it is worth a 4:19 mile. A 4:19 miler could be trained to run 2:16 marathon if not faster! My best mile is only 4:42.

Regarding the schedule. The magic is not in the schedule. It is in responding to the current needs of your body from day to day, which the schedule cannot possibly predict.

What I would recommend. Run time trials in the following distances: 100 m, 200 m, 400 m, 800 m, and the mile itself. The curve for a 5:00 mile would be about 15.0, 30.0, 64.0, and 2:20. See where you fall off the curve. That should be about the length of your interval, so e.g you can run a quarter in 64, but your 800 is only 2:30, that means your workouts should be something like 4x600 in 1:52 with full rest. If you can do 100 in 15, but not 200 in 30, then the workouts should be 5x150 in 22.5. If you fall off at 100 meters, your  hope is hill sprints and some form of PT to correct form imbalances, but 5:00 mile is next to impossible if 100 m is much slower than 15.0.

Another test - find somebody who can run 5:00 pace without much struggle for at least couple of miles and have him pace you. Run with him until you cannot. How far did you make and what made you slow down? Wearing an HRM can provide some clues, but also pay attention to how you felt. The breakdown point minus 200 meters can be used as the starting interval - do 3 of those with full rest for a couple of weeks, then retest and increase the distance if you did better. We are, of course, assuming that you will not make it to the mile but will make it past 500 meters, otherwise different methods need to be used to extend 5:00 pace stamina.

A good workout also is to run a full mile in 5:00 with breaks of your choice to start. Then reduce the breaks until you do not need them.

[Jeffrey Lindy]

Sasha:

Thanks very much for the advice!

I ended up running my mile time trial the day before I went off for my honeymoon, on a day with gale-force winds. I just kept falling further and further off pace, and ended up at 5:09 and quite discouraged. It was a bad day with bad weather, but I feel that even on an ideal day I still would have fallen short of my 5:00 goal.

I've hooked up with a running club here in Brooklyn, and found someone who ran a 4:52 at the most recent Fifth Avenue Mile, so I am hoping to ask him to pace me at least for the first two laps.

As for the time trials, I ran 800m in 2:22 during my 3 month training schedule, and suspect that that is where I'm falling off the curve. The only time targets I failed to hit were 800m and 1200m workouts.

I will try to do 600m repeats. At this point I'm almost three weeks past my track training, so it will take a week or two on the track to get back to some semblance of fitness. (All that I've done in the interim is easy-to-MP miles.) I'll also try to do a 5:00 mile split in half, then move up to 1200m / break / 400m at 5:00 pace. Once I've got that, I feel I'll be knocking on the door.

[Jeffrey Lindy]

In the vein of a mile at 5:00 pace, yesterday was 2 x (4 x 400m in :75 or less, :90 rest), with 15:00 between sets of four.

Times were pretty comfortable at 73,72,72,72,74,71,73,71. Next up is 800m time trial Thursday, see if that's the weak point.