Forums >Running 101>Where should I go from here? Up miles?
Vary your distances and pace more. Finish one of your easy runs hard and run a little slower and longer (time-wise) the day after.
Do fartlek once a week (varied pick ups with easy pace recoveries).
Very gradually add mileage to your long run.
Make one week in four a recovery week, with an extra day off, no speed work and a shorter long run.
Certified Running CoachCrocked since 2013
Latent Runner
I find it very gratifying and amusing that high school cross country teams (boys especially) must be fundamentally the same everywhere. I have never heard of a high school cross country team that didn't screw around and do stupid stuff (most of it harmless) when they were supposed to be out running. And it also pleases me to know that fundamentally apparently nothing has really changed in 30 years, either as I hear my kids occasionally telling me about the stupid stuff they do. BTW, @BoilerTom90, this might explain why, as you always lament, it takes your kid's high school team 2-1/2 hours of practice to do a 6-mile easy run. I think it's the same everywhere! Someday, I'm going to write up my list of "Top 10 things I love about a distance team." This will definitely be near the top.
I find it very gratifying and amusing that high school cross country teams (boys especially) must be fundamentally the same everywhere. I have never heard of a high school cross country team that didn't screw around and do stupid stuff (most of it harmless) when they were supposed to be out running. And it also pleases me to know that fundamentally apparently nothing has really changed in 30 years, either as I hear my kids occasionally telling me about the stupid stuff they do.
BTW, @BoilerTom90, this might explain why, as you always lament, it takes your kid's high school team 2-1/2 hours of practice to do a 6-mile easy run. I think it's the same everywhere!
Someday, I'm going to write up my list of "Top 10 things I love about a distance team." This will definitely be near the top.
On my high school cross country team (back in the early 1970s) we had the "Annual Stick Drill"; we'd split the team into two lines of about ten kids each and the leader of each line would fetch a stick from the woods and off we'd go in single file. The leader/guy with the stick would then throw the stick somewhere difficult to reach and then lead his line off in the other direction. The guy at the back of the line was required to fetch the stick, find/catch the line, pass the line, and assume the position at the front. It would then be his turn to toss the stick for the new guy at the back.
My freshman year I made 3rd varsity and was very much a target for the guys I'd bumped down; it just so happened that a senior who'd been on varsity as both a sophomore and junior, and who'd been bumped to junior varsity was at the front of the line when I was at the rear. Mr. Senior led our line over to the edge of a very nasty swamp bordering the school's property and threw the stick as far as he could into the swamp. I'm thinking it took me an easy ten minutes to slog/wade/swim out to the stick, fetch it, and get back to dry land; it probably took another five minutes to get the leaches off of me, and another ten minutes to locate, catch and pass our line. Yeah, I was pretty pissed. Needless to say, the coach ruled the swamp off limits for future stick drills.
All that night I plotted my revenge, and I came up with a beautiful plan, alas, the coach stuck to his "once a year" guns and I never got said revenge (except to keep Mr. Senior down on JV).
Fat old man PRs:
Did the stick drills involve running after the stick with your tongue out and sniffing around every tree?
Sadly, no.
Old , Ugly and slow
You are not old or fat.
I would start lifting twice a week for over all health.
I got most of my weights at junk store for about 20% of normal price
first race sept 1977 last race sept 2007
2019 goals 1000 miles , 190 pounds , deadlift 400 touch my toes