Am I dreaming? (Read 1179 times)

Depends on where you're starting. I could run 20:30 before I started training just from my fitness from other sports. (Not so long ago I would have left out the word other) I dropped it to 18:22 in 6 months. And I was 24, not 16. Keep training, you can hit whatever you can hit. I can't say you will, but it's well beyond possible at your age especially.

Andrew, my son is 15, and he got down below 20 really quickly. He's under 17 now. Your summer mileage will help you tremendously. He has found that kids TALK about training a lot during the summer, but most of them don't really stick to the plan. So you'll have a big head start if you do! Good luck - XC is a great sport.

I've been running for about two months, not long at all. Although my log doesn't show it, i've been doing about 20 mile weeks. I'm sixteen, and i'm gonna run cross country in the fall. I was wondering if it's possible for me to go sub 20 this season. I've actually never ran an official race. My mpw is going up, and by mid July it should be at 35. Is sub 20 in the first 5 months of running actually doable?

If you actually made your log public, it'd be a lot easier to give you a good answer. Regardless, the obvious answer is - it depends on your natural talent and ability. If you have it, sure. If you don't, no. I could run a 24 minute 5-k 2 years ago. 3500 miles and 8 marathons later, I can't come close to breaking 20 yet. Maybe 20:30, max. Current PR is 21:01. But I'm not 16. And I have no talent. Whether you can it do or not depends on you. It might be easy with just a little training. It might require a lot of training. And it might be impossible. Try it and find out. Let us know how it goes.

Put it this way...if you do, keep running. Good luck.

I've been running for about two months, not long at all. Although my log doesn't show it, i've been doing about 20 mile weeks. I'm sixteen, and i'm gonna run cross country in the fall. I was wondering if it's possible for me to go sub 20 this season. I've actually never ran an official race. My mpw is going up, and by mid July it should be at 35. Is sub 20 in the first 5 months of running actually doable?

It depends on where you are right now but I'd say it's probably doable. I know guys that ran under 17 minutes with only soccer training and I know guys that put in hard work for years and could never break 20.

I talked to my coach last week, and it turns out that he'd like the team to meat with him 5 days a week at 8:00 AM. I'm sure a lot of the kids won't come, but i'm definately going to be there. Training with the coach and part of the team everday will definately help a lot. I'm going to time my 5k time soon, and i'm hoping for like 24 or somewhere around there. I timed my mile today, and it's a 6:05, 40 seconds faster than when I started running just a little bit a go.

As a high school cross country runner, the summer is your time to get ready for the real work to be done during the fall. If you haven't done it already, talk to your school's coach about a summer training plan. The coach should be able to give you a plan that will get you ready for his/her particular style of training. If the coach is unavailable, or doesn't give a plan, or anything of that sort, you can take a look at The Summer of Malmo link. I'm not totally sure, but I think Malmo knows a little bit about running. I think you can definitely bring your times down. In high school, I had at least two friends on the team running over 22 for the 5k, and by their senior years they were all consistently under 20, even down into the 18 range. You'd be surprised what you can do with some discipline in the off-season and hard work during the race season. Unless you've got some natural talent, sub-20 in your first 5 months might be a stretch, but a year or two is certainly enough time to bring the time down.

Just a word of caution. In high school I was a sub 17min cc runner. However, my coach used to employ lots of hill training, intervals and speed training with little aerobic training. Often times we also ran 2 races per week. The problem I had was that I would start the season off running fast times. However, as the season went on, I would show no improvement and even get slower. A couple of things happened. Before my freshman year I ran track with the boys and girls club. I already had very good speed and strength from the summer track season. During the initial weeks we did do a lot of endurance training for about 2 to 3 weeks before our first race. At this point I was in pretty good balance and ran pretty well my first race. The reason I become slower, is called getting stale. I had done so much interval, hard hills, racing that my legs where breaking down. The next year I didn't do much summer running. I went into the season fresh but with no endurance. It was a big jump from nothing to full intensity training. My season this time around improved up through halfway through the season and then started to fall apart again. The first season I was already over trained going into the season. The second time I was unprepared for the hard training. My suggestion, in the summer put in some miles, but stay within your limits. Slowly work up to running about 30 to 50 miles a week. Increase each week by only about 10 percent until you reach your goal mileage. Keep the pace easy. Let yourself develop aerobically. Get your other team mates involved. Have fun while you’re running, and keep up a conversation. If you can maintain a conversation easily while you are running, than this is the right pace. If the conversation stops, slow down. This is what will happen. Your first race may not be as fast. Your speed and the ability to run anaerobically is not developed yet. Don't worry, the speed will develop with each race, all the hill training, fartlek and interval training you do. The workouts will feel easier and your times should improve throughout the season. During your season, never train above 90% max effort and save 100% effort for the races.