Forums >Racing>Is my plan to win a 7km race good enough?
I am 17 and have an athletic body. Up until now, I've trained only through squats, push-ups, crunches once every 2 days for the past 2 years (200 each ). I have 2 months to prepare. I aim to be in top 5 out of 200. Difficulty, discomfort are not a problem. I am new to running so any advice from experienced runners will. I have no idea about strategies for running plans: when to schedule recovery, better ways to do it, maybe do one week 4 km, next week 3km to recover, etc. Here is my plan:
First month:
Morning:
In the morning I plan to adjust my body to the distance of 7 km.
day 1,2,3-3km day 4-rest
day 5,6,7-3.5km day 8-rest
day 9,10,11-4km, day 12-rest
So on until I reach 7 km(one month)
Afternoon:
In the afternoon I plan to train my body's speed and endurance, so that I arrive in the top.
Thrice a week- Speed-conditioning workout http://www.mensfitness.com/training/endurance/speed-conditioning-workout
Daily: 3 full 10 seconds sprints (with rest of 10 seconds in between)
Second month:
Morning
I will be doing a 7 km run every day, increasing speed every 4 days
Afternoon
I will be doing same routine as month 1
Here's my advice,
Most of the time if you're new to running you're better off running 30-40 Miles/week at a easy to moderate pace with one workout (less than 3 miles) in there and one long (run 8+) and a day off. My Experience with plans is that they don't last, much like a diet, you're better off planning out a week by week training plan and evaluating where you are at that way. Sometimes plans are too easy or too hard.
Also, you can't control who is going to be at a race. Yea its fun to win or place high, but it's more satisfying to shoot for a realistic goal time. I've won my fair share of races and been disgusted with the performance but have placed in the hundreds and ran the best races of my life. A wise man once told me that "your greatest opponent is yourself". (or maybe it was a fortune cookie.)
Probably not.
Finishing a 7km race and winning it or being in the top 5 out of 200 are completely different feats.
With 2 months to go and no running experience about all you could do now if you really tried to do the workouts needed to potentially win a 7km race would be to injure yourself, even at 17.
Instead I would recommend training to be able to finish the distance easily and run as well as you can on race day.
That would involve running a lot (5 or 6 times a week), mostly easy and sometimes hard.
I think a long run is important no matter how long the goal race is but that might be counter productive with such a short time to prepare.
For my 5K PR race I was running 50+ miles a week with 2 workouts (intervals, tempos, hills, etc.) each week and a long run of 12 miles or so each weekend.
Even for someone already in really good aerobic shape, an 8 to 12 week race specific training schedule is needed to really perform your best for a particular race.
Instead of focusing on one race 2 months from now, I would recommend working on building up a base and seeing where you can go from there.
Age: 50 Weight: 224 Height: 6'3" (Goal weight 195)
Current PR's: Mara 3:14:36* (2017); HM 1:36:13 (2017); 10K 43:59 (2014); 5K 21:12 (2016)
Unless only slow people show up, your chances of winning a 200-person race, as a first time runner/racer, are virtually zero. You need to run for a while and race a few times to learn what you are capable of. What happened? Did some skinny cross country kid make a bet with you or something? ;-)
- Joe
We are fragile creatures on collision with our judgment day.
I agree with above posters. You really don't have enough time or experience to try to win this race or take top 5, unless of course no decent runners show up. Your training regimen for the past two years does little-to-nothing to help you run faster if you don't run at all; they are more supplementary exercises to help you run faster and stronger.
My recommendation would be to not worry about your place, but just try to finish. I like the idea of gradually building up your running distance over time. I might add that after you take your rest day every fourth day (a good idea btw), don't go out and run your next day really fast because you feel good. Make sure to be taking your easy runs EASY.
While I agree with above poster that planning out a second month might not be worth the effort right now, I would suggest that if you want 'speed' in your training, don't follow that speed conditioning link you put up- it actually doesn't have that much speed work in it. If you want to be a buff runner, by all means do all that stuff every few days. If you want to run a fast 7 kilometer race, then maybe focus on throwing in some 30 second or 1 minute faster pickups into your easy runs once or twice a week after you feel comfortable running 7km easy.
Prairie running is peace.
Yes. Rather than spending months or even years developing running speed and endurance I would instead focus on learning how to use mind over matter and will your body into doing things it is otherwise not capable of. This will be a valuable life skill that can be applied to other Herculean feats in the future as well. Just don't ask me for the mind over matter training plan as I have not discovered one yet.
Speed-conditioning workout http://www.mensfitness.com/training/endurance/speed-conditioning-workout
If you do end up doing this "speed conditioning workout" which includes exactly zero running, please film and post this particular portion:
Seated arm mechanicsDuration: 2 x 20 secWhile sitting on the ground, imagine that you’re are sprinting without your legs. Mimic sprint arm mechanics without twisting or turning and while keeping good posture.
'prec.
Come all you no-hopers, you jokers and roguesWe're on the road to nowhere, let's find out where it goes
This is a famous way to train. It was called the "Think System" in The Music Man, and Prof. Harold Hill seemed able to pull it up in that show. So maybe it will work for running also.
Consistently Slow
+1. Do not be the rabbit!
Run until the trail runs out.
SCHEDULE 2016--
The pain that hurts the worse is the imagined pain. One of the most difficult arts of racing is learning to ignore the imagined pain and just live with the present pain (which is always bearable.) - Jeff
http://bkclay.blogspot.com/