Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow

Paul:

Some follow-up on your e-mail. You say frequent marathon pace tempo runs are critical to maintaining your 5 K speed while interval work does not do much. I have some more questions.

What is your raw sprint speed (100 m, 200 m, 400 m)? How has it varied throughout the years?

At what age did you start running? What kind of training did you do, and what was your performance progression?

What about raw sprint speed progression?

One reason I am interested is I am trying to collect as much data as possible on people who have run a sub-15:00 5 K at one point in their lives to help me figure out what it would take for me. My 5 K speed is what I believe is currently holding me back from doing better in the marathon.

My current raw spring speed is quite poor. I've never timed myself for 100m or 200m, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't go under 60s in the 400m right now if I tried my hardest on a fresh day. I could probably run 62-63s right now for 400m.

In high school, I raced a total of three 400m dashes: I ran 59 in the 400m by my sophomore year, 57 junior year, and 55.7 my senior year. In college I ran a total of two 400m races: 54.5 my freshman year, and 52.4 for senior year (my PR). It would also be good to note that by my senior year, we would do 400m workouts at 61-63 seconds, and they felt easy.

I have never run a 100 or 200m dash full-out for time, but it's logical to assume that I could run under 26 seconds for 200m by my senior year of college.

I got A LOT faster in raw footspeed my senior year of college. My 400 dropped from 54 to 52 and my 1500 dropped from 4:06 to 3:58. However, my 5k only dropped from 15:02 to 14:48, and my 10k from 30:54 to 30:45. I do not think raw speed helps you that much in a 5k, beyond the last 400-600 meters. I had teammates that had very poor footspeed (barely break 60 in the 400), but they could run sub-14:40 in the 5k and sub-30:00 in the 10k. VO2Max and LT will be MUCH better indicators, and that's what my college program focused on, not speed.

In answer to your other questions: I started "running" in 6th grade at age 11. I started training (running for real) in high school at age 14. My memory for running times isn't what it used to be, but here's my progression as I remember it:

7th grade

800m: 2:47ish

1600m: 6:13

8th grade:

800m: 2:31

1600m: 5:35ish

9th grade:

800m: 2:22?

1600m: 5:08

3200m: 11:20

10th grade:

800m: 2:14

1600m: 4:45

3200m: 10:40

11th grade:

800m: 2:10

1600m: 4:47

3200m: 10:16

5k XC: 16:47 (did not run XC until then)

12th grade:

800m: 2:06

1600m: 4:41

3200m: 10:27

5k XC: 16:22

College Year 1

800m: 2:05

1500m: 4:09

3000m: 8:55

5000m: 15:28

10000m: 32:36

College Year 2

800m: --

1500m: 4:06

3000m: 8:50

5000m: 15:19

10000m: 31:50

College Year 3

800m: 2:04

1500m: 4:06

3000m: 8:45

5000m: 15:02

10000m: 30:45

College Year 4

800m: 2:02

1500m: 3:58

3000m: 8:34

5000m: 14:48

10000m: 30:45

Post-Collegiate Year 1

low mileage, sporatic training

25k: 1:26ish (5:35 miles)*did not train much that year

Post-Collegiate Year 2

low mileage, sporatic training

Marathon: 2:40 (Top of Utah, only race of year)

Post-College Year 3

did LDR circuit to "get back" into racing; good mileage, consistent training

5k: 15:38 (Draper)

10k: 31:10 (Des News)

Half: 1:14:30 (Great Salt Lake)

Marathon: 2:35:30 (TOU)

Post-College Year 4

high mileage (90-100 for July and Aug)

5k: 15:55?? (Draper)

10k: ??

Half: 1:14:00 (Great Salt Lake)

Marathon: 2:47?? (TOU)

Post-College Year 5

Grand Slam, low mileage

Adopted Pfitzenger approach to training

5k: none

10k: none

Half: 1:16:20 (Moab)

Marathon: 2:26 (St. George)

also 2:35 (Ogden) and 2:39 (TOU) at tempo efforts

In a nutshell, my training in jr high and high school was poor, and I mostly "raced into shape". That is why I had such a huge jump going into college. My college program focused on strength rather than speed. Sure, we did short intervals, like 300m repeats, but mostly we did long intervals, hills, fartleks, tempos, etc. Most "speed" guys that came into the program (800-1500m specialists) did not improve that much, if at all, in the shorter distances, but ended up becoming very good 5k-10k runners.

I personally don't think raw speed will help you that much in the marathon, and I would focus more on long LT intervals and MP tempos.

Sasha, do you hold to any particular training philosophy/program? Or are you constantly experimenting with new approaches? Personally, I started using the Pfitzinger approach last year and made some major breakthroughs with it, despite not being able to get my miles up.

Paul:

Thanks for the update. For the record, your Draper Days 5 K time in 2004 was 15:52.

Your 400 meter speed kept improving steadily through college. Did you just keep growing, or do you think there was some other reason for it?

I think 400 meter speed while definitely not being sufficient for success in longer races nevertheless puts a limit on how far you can go. For example, I have a VO2 Max of 75, and a 400 PR of 59.5. My best 5 K is 15:37 in Draper Days. The average runner with my VO2 Max runs a 5 K in 14:00. However, the average runner that runs a 5 K in 14:00 also runs a 400 in under 55 seconds. I am very interested to talk with your teammates or anybody that had my raw speed and could break 14:40, especially if they are in that condition right now. I wonder how that is possible. My guess is their reason for not being able to run a faster 400 is different from mine.

I also do think that if your estimate of 62 second 400 is correct, this is a big problem. This will cap you at 16:00 for the 5 K. However, what is encouraging is that at one point you could run 52, which hopefully means that there is something you can do to get that speed again.

Regarding my training philosophy. I borrowed a lot of ideas from Running Formula by Jack Daniels. However, at this point, I rely more on experimentation and observation to figure out what works and what does not. Aside from some basic common-sense principles, there is no universal system that works for everybody. You need to find out what works for you best.

I agree that training systems are not universal. It took me years to figure out that slow tempo runs were key for my training, but other people thrive off of fast track intervals.

I also agree that there's no way I could break 16:00 in a 5k right now. My goal is to work on my speed and VO2Max this spring and get that back down.

The teammate I was thinking of in particular could barely break 4:50 in the 1600 and 2:10 in the 800 in high school...and he ran for a good prep program. By his senior year he ran sub-14:40 5k, 30:00 10k, and even 4:00 for 1500. So I imagine he actually developed a bit of legspeed by the end, but genetically he had absolutely 0 raw speed. The same went for me. As a kid I was extremely slow in sprinting, but my speed developed indirectly through my normal training, and made a huge leap my senior year in college for no apparent reason, as my training did not change at all. I attributed this to simply years of hard work and my natural development as a runner.

By the way, I stopped growing my freshman year in high school, but filled out in muscle throughout high school and college. I kept a pretty rigid weight-lifting routine during those years, and lifted 3-4 days/week through college. A strong upper body is key for sprinting.

We did a lot of 300m intervals in college, which I've found to be a challenging and satifying distance. It features the all-out speed of the 200m, combined with the endurance needed for the 400m. If you haven't tried these on a track already, I would suggest doing so. I plan to myself later this spring.