Lack of improvement in mile?

Question

I ran a 6:20 mile a few week ago and haven't really raced since a meet which I ran a 6:22 in. My legs were a little sore, I haven't gotten much sleep the past few days, and I haven't eaten too well eithter. Can this explain why i ran a 6:32 at a meet? I'm aiming for around a 6:10 by the end of the season, which is about a week. Can not getting enough sleep, not eating well, and being a little sore account for a significanty worse time and can i reach a 6:10 mile if i eat, sleep, and rest as i normally do?

Answer 1

Those two things are really big factors when running a mile. You should be getting a lot of rest so you have the most energy when you run. Another thing to get your energy up is to eat a good meal prior to a race (spaghetti is a favorite of mine because it has so many carbs).

With a typical distance runner, your progression of speed is as follows. You get faster, sometimes in really big increments. Then you typically plateau (your times stay around the same). With tapering, you can break that plateau and have one final decrease in your time. You should start tapering about a week before your final race (so as soon as possible). With tapering, you make your runs a lot shorter and instead of focusing on building up your endurance, you put in a lot of speed work (running 400 meter intervals, 200 meter intervals and sometimes 100 meter intervals).

When I ran track the schedule that my coach described that I mentioned above was 100% true for me. I started at about a 6:10, and then had a few 5:50's and then had a 5:40 for my last couple of meets. In the final meet (after doing that speed work) I ran a 5:28.

So to answer your question, you really should sleep well and eat well to have the most energy for your races, but by tapering a week before your time should really go down.

Answer 2

YES

DEPENDS

No one can predict your future performace potential without knowing something about your training.