Forums >Racing>Goal 6 minute mile
Well I am training for the short runs
Come on, man, no you're not. You're not training at all. But that's okay it's part of what makes you pure gold.
For the record I don't fall in the hater camp. I think what you do has some merit. There have been times when I've thought to myself that if I could just be satisfied with easier goals I could do a lot less running and still get some competitive satisfaction out of running.
But let's just not kid ourselves--a 6 minute mile is a chip shot for you. I suspect you are at least as talented as me or a lot of other guys on here who run 3+ minutes faster than you for 5k. It's just that you keep yourself untrained enough that a 20 minute 5k or a 6 minute mile is always a bit of a stretch.
Runners run
Come on, man, no you're not. You're not training at all. But that's okay it's part of what makes you pure gold. For the record I don't fall in the hater camp. I think what you do has some merit. There have been times when I've thought to myself that if I could just be satisfied with easier goals I could do a lot less running and still get some competitive satisfaction out of running. But let's just not kid ourselves--a 6 minute mile is a chip shot for you. I suspect you are at least as talented as me or a lot of other guys on here who run 3+ minutes faster than you for 5k. It's just that you keep yourself untrained enough that a 20 minute 5k or a 6 minute mile is always a bit of a stretch.
Believe me if I desire alone would get me a sub 20 I would have run it at age 31.
I had to train 4 years to beat the sub 20 mark.
Once I bested sub 20 the motivation kind of left me.
Over the last 3 years I haven't found the same passion.
I need a goal to beat.
In 2009 I did run 201 miles in July including 61 miles during one week.
Alas I got sick the week of my goal race and ended up with a time around 20:15 or so.
Then I ran a half marathon a couple months later hitting my 7:30 goal pace.
But all the miles knocked me out. I took a hiatus last year running about 100 miles in all.
This year I am over 400 miles but I should be up around 1,000 to be competitive.
If I ran 50-70 miles a week for years as you seem to do I probably could get into the 18s for 5ks but I run for the numbers.
I am a stats guy. I like to experiment and see results. Sometimes months of 35 mpw just tires me out.
And when I was running sub 20 I did not have the desire to try an all out mile.
That's kind of why I am curious now. To run some of these short races and see what kind of speed I can muster.
I think I will build some base then do some 200 and 400 repeats.
But 1st I need to see my mile time on the track.....in early September to see where my beginning outdoor mile stands now.
"I think I will build some base"
What does this mean to you?
"If desire alone..."
And this is the weird part. You claim to have desire, but only if it's easy.
And the comparisons to other people's specific mileage/results are dumb. Don't know if you were referencing me as the guy who ran 15 miles a week and "blasted 5:20's" (for the record, I have never "blasted" anything, much less a 5:20...Yes, the first half of last year I averaged just under 15 miles a week, and I ran a couple of 5ks under 20 minutes. Guess what, the first half of this year I averaged 30 miles a week and ran under 18 minutes. And it wasn't a big deal in terms of time commitment (I thought it would be, but I was just making excuses). But I actually wanted to run faster. So I took advice of more experienced runners here, did more (and smarter) and ran faster. I'm sure there's a thousand guys out there who could run 10 miles a week and whoop me week in, week out in a race, but I'm not them. Clearly, you're not them either.
Whatever, if you're a numbers guy or a stats guy, you can figure out the correlation between training and your results. It's maddening to some that you don't just do it already (i.e. put in the work), and maybe that comes across as "hating".
Come all you no-hopers, you jokers and roguesWe're on the road to nowhere, let's find out where it goes
It's maddening to some that you don't just do it already (i.e. put in the work), and maybe that comes across as "hating".
>> the first half of this year I averaged 30 miles a week and ran under 18 minutes.
Sonofabitch. I should be popping out 15 minute 5ks.
I think this hits it on the head. I used to follow the sub-20 thread quite a bit for one because I knew a lot of the guys in the thread personally and for another because I respect the hell out of anyone who sets a goal and is willing to put in the work to get there.
The reason you get a negative reaction sometimes, Mich, is that you claim to have worked so hard yet sub-20 came so easy. You talk about how it took you 4 years to break 20 but really you weren't even training for most of those 4 years. Your typical months were 100 miles or less. Then in the spring of 2008 you actually ran a bit. You strung together about 4 months where your ran 150-200 mies--you had one month where you actually broke 200. That was May of 2008. Then in June you ran 19:36. Imagine that.
To a lot of the guys striving for that sub-20, even 200 miles a month is barely training and they run a lot more than that month after month after month to try and run sub 20, or whatever their goal is.
It's fine to set goals and try to achieve them with minimal training--I mean it's not like these times we're all running mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Hell, if I ever achieve my sub 17 goal I'll still be 4 minutes away from being relevant in the sport of distance running, so we're all chasing sub-maximal goals to some extent.
I think what rubs people the wrong way is when you act like you've worked your ass off and have had this great struggle and managed every detail (like learning the secret to running the oval?) to eek every second out of your body when that's not even close to being the case.
I know I'm talking to a wall but hey.
Prince of Fatness
Well I'll be damned.
Not at it at all.
Feeling the growl again
Stats? Like this?
Y-axis is miles run per year, X-axis is best race of the year (any distance, converted to 10K equivalent with McMillan's calculator and graphed as total seconds). Points are not marked with years but note this is not a year-on-year progression, highest mileage years were 2003 and 2006 and recent ones are in the middle to low end.
See any trends?
My mile PR was run out on the far right of the graph, just like the rest of my PRs...."training for short races" does not mean running low mileage.
Really working towards goals in running means you're going to be tired a lot. That's just the way it is. If it was easy everyone would do it. When I was at the far right of that graph I was sleeping 10 hrs/day most of the time and often dreaded dragging myself out the door for a run.
"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand
I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills
At what type of volume/intensity did that start to happen for you? I haven't noticed too much of that yet (then again I'm not running a super intense 80-100+ mpw), despite the fact that I've been focused on running a solid calorie deficit to get my weight down. I felt it a bit when I really increased my mileage midsummer and adjusting to doubles, but since early July or so I haven't noticed too much fatigue at all.
Just curious as to what to expect, as so far I haven't felt any of that and if anything my runs are one of the things I look forward to in the day.
They say golf is like life, but don't believe them. Golf is more complicated than that. "If I am still standing at the end of the race, hit me with a Board and knock me down, because that means I didn't run hard enough" If a lot of people gripped a knife and fork the way they do a golf club, they'd starve to death. "Don't fear moving slowly forward...fear standing still."
Something wonky happened with the quote because it looks like I said that but really spaniel said it.
I did it! mooohahahahah
-MODERATOR.
"If you have the fire, run..." -John Climacus
I've got a fever...
Come on there was another poster on here I forget his name who would run like 15 miles per week and blast 5:20 opening miles in his 5ks.
This is a bit of an aside, but most recreational runners who "blast 5:20 opening miles in [their] 5ks" (especially the ones that only run 15 mpw) are making a colossal mistake that they end up paying for dearly over the subsequent 2.1 miles.
On your deathbed, you won't wish that you'd spent more time at the office. But you will wish that you'd spent more time running. Because if you had, you wouldn't be on your deathbed.
At what type of volume/intensity did that start to happen for you? I haven't noticed too much of that yet (then again I'm not running a super intense 80-100+ mpw), despite the fact that I've been focused on running a solid calorie deficit to get my weight down. I felt it a bit when I really increased my mileage midsummer and adjusting to doubles, but since early July or so I haven't noticed too much fatigue at all. Just curious as to what to expect, as so far I haven't felt any of that and if anything my runs are one of the things I look forward to in the day.
It's hard to say as it is a combination of mileage, what proportion is intensity and what makes up the intensity, and how acclimated you are personally to that level of training. I mean, yeah at 105 mpw with 3 good workout and 10-11 runs/week I felt like that all the time...but I also did with that same mix at 60 mpw the first time I did that.
Basically, if you are not dealing with some sort of day-to-day fatigue you are not really challenging yourself with your overall training load. I mean, we talk about recovering between workouts but if you're fully recovered every day you're probably missing out on some gains. The problem is, it's hard to coach someone how to do this because you just have to learn where that line is yourself. The distance from maxing your gains to buring yourself out probably isn't all that far.
Why is it sideways?
People conceptualize conditioning in different ways. ... Some think it's a ladder straight up. Others see plateaus, blockages, ceilings. I see it as a geometric spiraling upward, with each spin of the circle taking you a different distance upward. Some spins may even take you downward, just gathering momentum for the next upswing. Sometimes you will work your fanny off and see very little gain, other times you will amaze yourself and not really know why. Training is training, it all seems to blend together after a while. What is going on inside is just a big puzzle...
--Bruce Denton, from Once a Runner
"I think I will build some base" What does this mean to you? "If desire alone..." And this is the weird part. You claim to have desire, but only if it's easy. And the comparisons to other people's specific mileage/results are dumb. Don't know if you were referencing me as the guy who ran 15 miles a week and "blasted 5:20's" (for the record, I have never "blasted" anything, much less a 5:20...Yes, the first half of last year I averaged just under 15 miles a week, and I ran a couple of 5ks under 20 minutes. Guess what, the first half of this year I averaged 30 miles a week and ran under 18 minutes. And it wasn't a big deal in terms of time commitment (I thought it would be, but I was just making excuses). But I actually wanted to run faster. So I took advice of more experienced runners here, did more (and smarter) and ran faster. I'm sure there's a thousand guys out there who could run 10 miles a week and whoop me week in, week out in a race, but I'm not them. Clearly, you're not them either. Whatever, if you're a numbers guy or a stats guy, you can figure out the correlation between training and your results. It's maddening to some that you don't just do it already (i.e. put in the work), and maybe that comes across as "hating".
No it wasn't you who was the 15 mile a week guy. I just looked back over some old posts and the guy I am thinking of is: JDF.
Where has he gone? Is he still around. I would say JDF was a big motivator back when I was trying to run 5k in sub 20. I constantly tried to talk him into running more miles and eventually he did and his times just improved dramatically.
By the way I don't claim to have desire today. I had desire from 2005 to 2008 when I was trying to break 20 minutes in a 5k. I have a "want" to break 6 minutes in the mile. I wouldn't call it a crazy desire.
When I was running 35 miles a week for a year I could probably run a mile in 5:50.
Today with very little training I could probably run a mile in 6:15. That's why I am enjoying this mile phase.
25 seconds is a long way off but it seems close because I am used to comparing 5k times.
Therefore I am more motivated to continue running.
I did mention that my car got hit last week so that stopped some of my running.
Yeah lame excuse I just cannot find the will to hit 20 miles per week.... yet.
As my times come down I feel stronger and want to do more running so I can smoke sub 6.
It will come. Give me some time. You will see.